A super El Niño is starting. Here’s what scientists know – and don’t
David Trilling explains how the developing 2026 El Niño could become the strongest measured since 1950 while interacting with a warmer global climate. Drawing on Harvard scientists, the report describes Pacific trade winds, ocean upwelling, forecasting tools, and likely regional effects on rainfall, fisheries, crops, and hurricanes. It also distinguishes a powerful single event from evidence that climate change is altering the ENSO cycle.
Opens on salatainstitute.harvard.edu · Curated by GlobeRead
GlobeRead's Take
A climate pattern that recurs every few years can sound familiar enough to manage. The danger in 2026 is that familiarity may create false confidence: El Niño is arriving on a planet whose baseline temperatures, oceans, and vulnerable food systems have already shifted. The urgent question is no longer only what the cycle usually does, but which historical expectations still hold.nnOne useful strength of the report is its separation of mechanism from prediction. We can describe how weakened trade winds let warm surface water move east, deepen the thermocline, and reduce the nutrient-rich upwelling that supports Pacific fisheries. Argo floats, moorings, satellites, and models can recognize that warm-water movement months ahead. Yet seeing the signal does not reveal every consequence, especially when atmospheric connections translate one ocean change into many regional outcomes.nnThe numbers sharpen that uncertainty. Niño 3.4 was already about 2°C above average in mid-September, while NOAA gave a 75 percent chance that the October–December event would exceed every comparable event since 1950 on a relative index. That does not prove El Niños are intensifying. The record is short, models struggle with ENSO, and background warming complicates comparisons. Meanwhile, preparation cannot wait: drought risks for Southern Africa and Indonesia, weaker Indian monsoons, disrupted cocoa production, and changing hurricane conditions carry immediate human and economic stakes.nnWe selected this report because it models a disciplined way to read climate news: understand what scientists know well, notice where confidence stops, and still take the foreseeable risks seriously. Readers interested in environment, food systems, public policy, or risk management will gain a clear map of the evidence without being handed false certainty. The distinction is crucial. The piece also shows why adaptation depends on regional details rather than a single global forecast. When an ancient cycle meets an unprecedentedly warm planet, which surprises will matter most?
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