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Climate scientists projected that the current super El Niño will cause an additional 451,000 heat deaths globally over the next six months, with researchers urging immediate protective measures as warming could make such extremes routine within 20 years.

What is a key fact in this story? (1)

**Climate scientists** projected 451,000 additional heat deaths globally from September through February 2027 due to the super El Niño, striking from Indonesia and India to Nigeria and the US — on top of deaths from temperatures already elevated by the climate crisis.

What is a key fact in this story? (2)

**Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, India and Brazil** are the most affected countries; the US ranks in the top 20 with 3,500 projected additional heat deaths, with the Sahel and south-east Asia also heavily affected.

El Niño Could Kill 450,000 in Six Months — SkimNews

By The Guardian Environment · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-09-23

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Climate scientists projected 451,000 additional heat deaths globally from September through February 2027 due to the super El Niño, striking from Indonesia and India to Nigeria and the US — on top of deaths from temperatures already elevated by the climate crisis.
Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, India and Brazil are the most affected countries; the US ranks in the top 20 with 3,500 projected additional heat deaths, with the Sahel and south-east Asia also heavily affected.
The current El Niño burst through its highest recorded temperature on Monday, months before its expected peak, prompting scientists to call it "mind-blowing" and "Godzilla-level."
The World Food Programme warned in August that El Niño impacts could push roughly 50 million people into acute hunger and drive food prices up — separate from but compounding the heat-death toll.
Climate Impact Lab researchers built the projections using peer-reviewed methods that track month-by-month temperature-death relationships across 24,378 global regions, combined with forecasts and a 1996–2025 baseline.
The heat pattern mirrors conditions the climate crisis is projected to deliver in 20 years, a "postcard from our future" researchers said — with elevated heat deaths expected to continue through June or July 2027.
Co-authors Prof Michael Greenstone (University of Chicago) and Dr Tamma Carleton (UC Berkeley) called for better heat forecasts, cooling centres, increased medical staffing at peak heat times, and protections for outdoor workers to save lives now.

Why it matters: This is the first peer-reviewed forecast tying El Niño heat directly to a specific projected global death toll — and it lands roughly 20 years ahead of when those temperatures would become the baseline. With Nigeria, Indonesia and India bearing the heaviest losses, the operational test is whether governments can scale cooling centres, outdoor-worker protections and heat-targeted medical staffing fast enough to spare hundreds of thousands of lives over the next six months.