Climate scientists warn extreme weather events are likely this year

Climate scientists are warning that 2026 is shaping up to be a year of punishing extremes, with a real chance it could rank as the second warmest year ever recorded — or even take the top spot.

The World Weather Attribution group said sea surface temperatures are nearing their highest level on record, while wildfires have already scorched more than 150 million hectares in the first four months of the year.

That figure is 50% above the recent wildfire average and twice the area burned over the same period in 2024.

Researchers say those pressures are likely to intensify as a potentially very strong, naturally occurring El Nino warming event gathers strength in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The group said temperature records are set to keep falling and extreme weather will continue to worsen unless the world sharply reduces fossil fuel use and reaches net-zero emissions.

Climate researchers say 2026 may become the second hottest year ever measured

Dr Daniel Swain of the California Institute for Water Resources, UNCAR, said strong El Nino events can disrupt rainfall patterns across vast regions even without the added force of global warming, raising the likelihood of flooding.

“This effect will be amplified considerably by the now nearly 1.5C of global warming experienced as of 2026,” Dr Swain said.

“In modern human history, we’ve never experienced a strong or very strong El Nino event amid pre-existing conditions that were this warm globally, therefore, it would not be surprising to see some unprecedented global impacts by later in 2026 into 2027 in terms of flood, drought, and wildfire-related extremes”, he added.

Scientists are also increasingly worried that drought in tropical rainforest regions this year — including the Amazon, Oceana and parts of Southeast Asia — could heighten the risk of widespread or unusually severe fires in typically damp areas where such blazes are rare.

That, they warned, could hit ecosystems hard and expose human populations to thick, choking smoke pollution.

Dr Jemilah Mahmood, Executive Director of Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, said excess heat remains one of the deadliest but least visible threats.

“It doesn’t make headlines the way disasters do. It doesn’t produce images that trigger emergency funding. It doesn’t arrive with a named storm or a visible flood line.”

“It kills quietly, in homes, in open fields, in the bodies of workers who have no choice but to be outside. Officially 546,000 people die every year from heat-related causes. But that is almost certainly an undercount because heat deaths are systematically misclassified, particularly in low and middle-income countries” she said.

Wildfire pollution in the form of tiny particulate matter, Pm2.5, can be 10 times more damaging to human health than emissions from traffic.

Heat can also degrade air quality, worsen respiratory disease and trigger cardiovascular events.

A 2024 Lancet study found 1.53 million deaths every year were linked to air pollution from wildfires, more than four times higher than previous estimates.

During Australia’s 2019 fires, 33 people died directly in the flames, but wildfire smoke was blamed for 417 additional deaths.

In the Los Angeles fires of January 2025, researchers found nearly 50% additional deaths from smoke exposure beyond the direct fire fatalities.

A 2024 Lancet study estimated that wildfire air pollution was tied to 1.53 million deaths each year

Dr Mahmood said she is troubled by what she sees as a quiet retreat by governments from climate commitments in the past two years.

“The language has softened, the ambition has retreated, and some have behaved as though the climate crisis was a chapter we should choose to close. Or at least defer until the next election cycle.

“Nature, of course, does not read political memos. The World Meteorological Organization now tells us that our planet is more out of balance than at any time in observed history”, she said.

Dr Friederike Otto, co-founder of the World Weather Attribution group, said:

“While El Niño could lead to very extreme conditions later this year, it’s not the reason to freak out. El Niño is a natural phenomenon. It comes and goes. Climate change on the contrary gets worse as long as we do not stop burning fossil fuels.”

“So, climate change is the reason to freak out. And ideally, in a constructive way, by doing something about it – and we do know what to do about it. We have the knowledge and technology to go very, very far away from using fossil fuels,” Dr Otto added.