UN Warns Record El Niño 'Supersizing Before Our Eyes' — SkimNews
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- The World Meteorological Organization confirmed the El Niño is firmly established and forecast to intensify into a "very strong event," with the November peak expected to reach roughly 4°C above average based on the consensus of 14 climate models.
- Coral, tree-ring and historical-document analysis suggests no El Niño has reached this level in the last millennium, according to climate analyst Zeke Hausfather.
- Ocean temperatures at El Niño's core are already 2.6°C above the 30-year average — close to the satellite-era record of 3.1°C in 2015 — with subsurface readings hitting an extraordinary 8°C above average in some areas during July and early August.
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres said El Niño is "supersizing before our eyes" and warned the planet is "in uncharted waters," as the natural event piles extra heat on top of temperatures already rising from fossil-fuel pollution.
- The combination of El Niño with human-caused global heating means 2027 is projected to "blow apart" the record as the hottest year ever measured.
- The World Food Programme warned in August that the El Niño could push roughly 50 million people into acute hunger; the WMO described impacts from Indonesian wildfires and Indian monsoon disruption to Australian fire risk and South American floods as "truly mind-blowing."
Why it matters: The WMO has launched its largest-ever mobilization of national weather services in its 50-year history as El Niño is projected to peak at ~4°C above average — a level absent from the paleoclimate record for at least a millennium — while the World Food Programme has warned roughly 50 million people could face acute hunger, and UK farmers are already bracing for the worst harvest on record in 2026.
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