What happened in this Energy story?

The strongest El Niño on record is strengthening in the tropical Pacific and will persist for months, unleashing a global chain of disasters — Indonesian fires, African floods, Americas landslides, coral bleaching, and record heat peaking in 2027.

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

**Indonesia's** wildfires burned ~1,000 sq km by June, then doubled that area in just one month by July, with carbon emissions on track to equal the catastrophic 2015 fire season as the super El Niño shifted atmospheric circulation eastward over the archipelago.

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

**Typhoons** are amplifying in the Pacific while the Atlantic sees zero full hurricanes form in 2025 for the first time in over a century; nearly two dozen hit East Asia during the three previous super El Niño autumns, and the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan have already been struck this year.

📎 SkimNews has covered El Niño 15+ times · see the file →

Super El Niño Drives Extreme Weather Worldwide — SkimNews

By New Scientist · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-10-05

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Indonesia's wildfires burned ~1,000 sq km by June, then doubled that area in just one month by July, with carbon emissions on track to equal the catastrophic 2015 fire season as the super El Niño shifted atmospheric circulation eastward over the archipelago.
Typhoons are amplifying in the Pacific while the Atlantic sees zero full hurricanes form in 2025 for the first time in over a century; nearly two dozen hit East Asia during the three previous super El Niño autumns, and the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan have already been struck this year.
Africa faces simultaneous flooding and drought: flash floods are forecast for Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia (3,000 died in eastern Africa in 1997), while Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe face their lowest rainfall in 75 years, threatening maize harvests worse than 2015-16.
Peru has already recorded at least 52 deaths this year from "coastal El Niño" flooding and landslides, with broader Pacific warming expected to bring the kind of devastation that killed 9,000 Peruvians during the 1982-83 super El Niño.
NOAA warns coral reefs across nearly all tropical oceans are again at high bleaching risk after the fourth global mass bleaching event (which hit 84% of reefs) officially ended in June, with sea-surface temperatures set to peak during the austral summer.
Global temperatures in 2027 are expected to set a new heat record, reaching their maximum during the northern hemisphere summer, as El Niño's heat takes 3-4 months to fully circulate and compounds the existing 1.4°C of warming.
Foreign aid cuts by the US, UK and other high-income countries have undermined response capacity, with the UN only able to provide about a third of the funding needed for El Niño plans in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.

Why it matters: The strongest El Niño on record is stacking on top of 1.4°C of warming, with disasters set to hit populations whose governments have slashed aid budgets and whose reefs just endured a 4th mass bleaching event. The lag in heat transport means the worst temperature impact won't arrive until 2027.