With three-quarters of the year now past, it is virtually certain that 2026 will be the warmest or second-warmest year on record.

A rapidly strengthening El Niño, alongside human-caused global warming, made this year’s August the warmest on record and September the second-warmest. 

El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere and temporarily boosts global temperatures.

Carbon Brief’s analysis gives 2026 a 67% chance of surpassing 2024 as the warmest year on record across an average of six global temperature datasets. 

In January, it is likely the groups that report global surface temperatures will be divided on whether 2026 officially beat 2024’s record. 

Currently, the odds for a record year range from as high as 97% in Berkeley Earth’s dataset to less than 20% in European Copernicus/ECMWF’s ERA5 reanalysis product.

With El Niño expected to intensify into the winter, Carbon Brief projects that 2027 will be 1.7C above pre-industrial levels, with a 96% chance that it is the warmest year on record.

In this latest “state of the climate” quarterly update, Carbon Brief finds:

Carbon Brief analyses records from six different groups that report global surface temperatures: 

There are a number of additional groups that feature in Carbon Brief’s annual “state of the climate” update, but are not included here due to a lack of regular monthly updates.

The first nine months of 2026 were the second warmest on record in all six datasets, behind only 2024.

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