Three things to know about El Niño, climate change and global temperatures

A “super” El Niño is strengthening on our overheating planet

A powerful El Niño is developing in the tropical Pacific and is expected to peak later in 2026 and influence global climate through 2027.

El Niño is a recurring natural climate pattern that releases heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, influencing temperature and precipitation in certain regions across the globe.

The current event is likely to become a historic “super” El Niño (a very strong event according to NOAA strength categories based on ocean temperatures in the developing region). Strong events like this can increase risks of extreme heat, drought, flooding, and crop losses, particularly in vulnerable regions.

But this exceptional El Niño is unfolding on an already overheating planet — further amplifying the risks from warming caused by decades of heat-trapping pollution.

To place the current event in context, here Climate Central unpacks three key facts about the relative influences of El Niño and human-caused climate change on global temperatures, specifically on: long-term warming trends, annual temperature records, and spatial patterns of warming across the globe.

1. Human-caused climate change is warming the planet, with an occasional boost from El Niño.

Heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution, resulting mainly from people burning fossil fuels for energy, heating, and transportation, is driving the rapid rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.

Natural climate variability can temporarily nudge global temperatures above or below this long-term, human-caused warming trend.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the most globally influential modes of natural climate variability.

As the warm ENSO phase, El Niño can temporarily boost the global average temperature by releasing some of the vast amounts of heat stored in the tropical Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere.

This temporary natural warming effect is layered on top of (and much smaller in magnitude than) the long-term, human-caused warming trend due to heat-trapping pollution — which is by far the primary reason that the planet is warming.

2. Human-caused climate change contributes to every new global temperature record. El Niño contributes to a few.

On our overheating planet, we don't need an El Niño to break global temperature records.

The rising baseline global temperature — not El Niño — is ultimately the reason that annual global temperature records are being broken with increasing frequency.

Past strong El Niño events have added about 0.1°C to 0.3°C to global average temperatures during affected years. That extra warming can occasionally tip an already-warm year into record-breaking territory. But the baseline, human-caused warming — currently 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels — is what makes those records increasingly frequent.

That’s why the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2015, even though most did not overlap with El Niño events.

To be sure: more record-hot years are ahead as heat-trapping pollution continues to rise. 2026 is increasingly likely to rank among the hottest years on record. And the lingering influence of the current super El Niño is likely to help make 2027 the hottest year on record.

But that record, if it occurs, would eventually be surpassed in subsequent years if heat-trapping pollution continues to push the planet’s baseline temperature higher.

3. Human-caused climate change warms the entire planet over the long-term. Warming from El Niño is temporary and affects specific regions.

Nearly every point on the planet is significantly warmer today than during the pre-industrial period due to the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases are well-mixed across the globe and cause the entire planet to overheat (though the magnitude of warming varies by region and is greater over land).

The warming effects of El Niño, by contrast, are temporary and tend to be concentrated in certain regions — particularly the tropical Pacific. The shifts in atmospheric circulation associated with El Niño produce a patchwork of warmer and cooler areas across the globe.

It’s important to note a fundamental difference between these natural and human-caused warming effects:

• El Niño periodically redistributes heat already stored on Earth (from the ocean to the atmosphere).
• By contrast, greenhouse gas pollution traps additional heat in the atmosphere, ratcheting global temperatures ever-higher.

This difference helps explain why human-caused warming is larger, more widespread, and longer-lived than the warming effect associated with El Niño.