# El Niño 2026 : Will this one be the STRONGEST in recorded history?

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Just Have a Think
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iclm3G_sho
- **Дата:** 10.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 9:49
- **Просмотры:** 311,117
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/50815

## Описание

El Niño 2026 is attracting lots of very dramatic headlines right now. The data are pointing towards a probable El Niño event in the summer and latter part of 2026, likely continuing into 2027. There is a wide spread of possible outcomes, one of which is that we could see a 'SUPER' El Niño - perhaps even the strongest El Niño in recorded human history. So, why now?

Help support this channel's independence at
http://www.patreon.com/justhaveathink

Or with a donation via Paypal by clicking here
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=GWR73EHXGJMAE&source=url

You can also help keep my brain ticking over during the long hours of research and editing via the nice folks at BuyMeACoffee.com
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/justhaveathink

Reference Links

Just Have a Think El Niño explainer video
https://youtu.be/rwdxffEzQ9I

NOAA
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Climate Reanalyzer (daily sea surfa

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Over the last few weeks, while most of us have been trying to navigate our way through an almost overwhelming tsunami of breaking news about world events, the global climate emergency, which has no regard whatsoever for the vicissitudes of geopolitics, driven as it is by the fundamental laws of physics, continues to rumble on, becoming an ever more serious threat as every day goes by. A familiar, but very powerful phenomenon that affects our climate, and which I've talked about many times on this channel, is the ENSO system in the Pacific Ocean, and specifically the El Niño phase of that system. In attempting to keep up with world events that nowadays seem to change radically on an almost hourly basis, you could be forgiven for having missed recent reports suggesting we may right now once again be heading towards a potentially record-breaking El Niño event. Some reports go further, suggesting a so-called super El Niño could emerge later this year, peak in early 2027, and push global temperatures to new extremes with devastating consequences that the world could well be without just at the moment. But forecasts like these are not always accurate, are they? Not because the forecasters are disingenuous or corrupt, but because complex weather systems like these are extremely difficult to model accurately over extended periods into the future. So, the question today is how much of the reporting is actually supported by the science, and how much of it is perhaps straying a little ahead of the evidence? And when I did some digging into that question, I started to realize that the answer is quite nuanced, pretty fascinating, and still just a little bit disturbing. Hello, and welcome to Just Have a Think. If you're a long-term viewer of the channel, you'll know that I've made several attempts at explaining the extremely complex physics of the ENSO system in various videos over the years. Rather than regurgitate all of that information here, I've left a link in the description section below to the most comprehensive of those explainers. So, if the whole concept is new to you, I recommend pausing here and clicking that link to jump back and start there. To understand what's going on right now, we obviously need to start in the Pacific Ocean. For the past couple of years, the climate system has been in a La Niña phase. That's the cooler counterpart to El Niño, driven by stronger than usual trade winds that push warm surface water westward, allowing cooler water to rise in the eastern Pacific. But that pattern is apparently now breaking down. According to the latest outlooks from NOAA and other forecasting centers, La Niña conditions are weakening and the system is transitioning towards El Niño. And crucially, that transition is happening alongside a significant build-up of heat beneath the ocean surface. Several analyses point to a large pool of unusually warm water sitting below the surface in the western Pacific. That heat can propagate eastwards in the form of what are known as Kelvin waves, effectively pulses of warm water moving along the equator. When those waves reach the eastern Pacific, they can help trigger and amplify El Niño conditions at the surface. Essentially, what the scientists are telling us is that the system is primed. The question is not whether El Niño is coming, the question is how strong and how destructive it'll be when it arrives. Before we get stuck into the details though, I'm very much hoping you might take a couple of seconds to click the like and subscribe buttons just down here. It costs you absolutely nothing at all, but means this channel has a better chance of being noticed by the YouTube algorithm ahead of all the AI slop that's flooding the platform at the moment. If you've already subscribed, then you have my eternal gratitude. And if you haven't yet subscribed, then you would have my eternal gratitude if you did. So anyway, there does seem to be some divergence in the way the data on the current state of the ENSO system are being assessed and reported on by the various organizations, institutes, and media outlets. If you look at the more cautious research-led assessments, the message is quite clear. An El Niño event is likely to develop during the summer of 2026, and it's likely to persist to the end of the year. And yes, there is a possibility that it could become strong, even very strong. But of course, saying it could develop that way is not the same as saying it will develop that way. One of the key challenges here is something known as the spring predictability barrier. It's apparently a well-known limitation in climate forecasting. During the northern hemisphere spring, the Pacific system becomes particularly difficult to predict with high confidence.

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 09:00) [5:00]

Forecast models tend to diverge more widely during this period, especially when it comes to the strength of a future El Niño. And that's exactly what we're seeing right now. In other words, we're not looking at a clear, high-confidence signal for a record-breaking event. We're looking at a system with multiple plausible pathways. So why are so many headlines focusing on the most extreme outcome, then? Well, partly because that's just the world we live in now, of course, but partly because strong El Niño events really can be very consequential indeed for the lives of billions of people all over the world. They can shift jet streams, alter rainfall patterns, and change the behavior of tropical cyclones across different ocean basins. And more importantly, El Niño events tend to add a significant boost to global temperatures because they release heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, effectively supercharging the background warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions. Several of the recent reports highlight this point quite clearly. A strong El Niño peaking in late 2026 could make 2027 one of the hottest years ever recorded, potentially even the hottest. So, from a climate perspective, that's just about the worst possible news we could be getting right at the moment, what with everything else that's going on in the world. But again, that outcome depends heavily on how strong the event actually becomes. If we move from global averages to regional impacts, the picture becomes even more complex because El Niño doesn't produce a single uniform effect. It redistributes energy across the climate system, which means some regions get wetter, some get drier, and some experience more extreme weather in general. Here in Europe, we're seeing some headlines suggesting the possibility of a furnace summer across the more southerly countries, particularly Spain. And it's certainly true that El Niño can influence European weather patterns. According to the UK Met Office, though, the final outcome for Europe will depend on how El Niño interacts with other climate drivers, including the North Atlantic Oscillation and broader atmospheric circulation patterns. And at this stage, those interactions are just too uncertain to pin down with any degree of accuracy. So, the risk of catastrophic weather events is certainly real enough, but any reports making confident predictions at this stage are probably getting a bit ahead of themselves. What the science is telling us right now is that there is a credible risk of a strong El Niño developing later in 2026. That risk is supported by ocean conditions, by model forecasts, and by historical patterns. And of course, there's the bigger context that's worth keeping in mind here as well, isn't there? In other words, even if this coming El Niño turns out to be moderate rather than extreme, it will nevertheless be happening in a climate system that is already significantly warmer than it used to be. And if you zoom out even further, you start to see how this fits into a broader pattern. We're not just talking about one climate oscillation. We're talking about a system where multiple stresses are interacting. Ocean warming, atmospheric changes, shifting circulation patterns, all pushing our climate into new territory that's totally uncharted in human history. And that adds to the difficulty in making accurate interpretations and predictions, because historical analogs, in other words, past El Niño events and past climate patterns, no longer fully capture what will be the likely consequences of future El Niños. No doubt many of you will have news and views of your own on this particular subject. So, as always, the place to leave your thoughts is in the comment section below. That's it for this week though. A huge thank you, as always, to the amazing folks over at Patreon who make it possible to keep this channel free from all ads and sponsorship messages. — You can join them and get the chance to critique early access versions of all my videos, and take part in monthly content polls, and chat directly with me by visiting patreon. com/justhavethink. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you found this video useful, and most importantly of all, thanks very much for watching. Have a great week, and remember to just have a think. See you next week. — Mhm.