Hansen: 2026 will break global temperature record
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- James Hansen at Columbia University predicts 2026 will become the hottest year on record, writing in a blog post with colleagues that it will surpass 2024's 1.55°C above pre-industrial average, and adding "2027 will be still hotter."
- Hansen and his colleagues cite sea surface temperatures showing the world is 0.17°C warmer than in 2023, a larger margin than the 0.11°C gap observed in 2024, as evidence the record will fall.
- Zeke Hausfather at Berkeley Earth calculated 2026 has just a 26% chance of being the hottest year and a 56% chance of being the second hottest, projecting 1.47°C above pre-industrial.
- The Met Office projected 1.46°C above pre-industrial (range 1.34–1.58°C) in its December forecast, with Adam Scaife calling it premature to predict 2026 will beat 2024.
- Adam Scaife nevertheless agrees with Hansen that the global warming rate may be faster than climate models project, warning that would suggest CO2 is heating Earth more than expected.
- The first three months of 2026 ran about 0.1°C cooler than the same period in 2024, with temperatures currently suppressed by La Niña before El Niño is expected to arrive in the second half of the year.
- Australia, South-East Asia, central and southern Africa, India, and the Amazon face heightened risk of heatwaves, drought, and wildfires as El Niño takes hold later this year, on top of record baseline warming.
Why it matters: Hansen's claim is more aggressive than the Met Office's 1.46°C (range 1.34–1.58°C) forecast, and the debate turns on whether the warming rate exceeds what climate models capture. If the 0.17°C sea-surface-temperature margin over 2023 holds, the world could see back-to-back record years in 2026 and 2027, forcing upward revisions to model-based climate projections and the targets built on them.
