AMERICANALMANAC (Sadie Smith) - Experts forecast 2026 could become the hottest year on record as Super El Niño builds
Global temperatures through the first eight months of 2026 are running well above historical averages, and a rapidly strengthening El Niño in the Pacific threatens to push the year past every prior record, raising hard questions about what governments are actually doing to prepare. August 2026 tied for the hottest month ever measured on Earth, […] The post Experts forecast 2026 could become the hottest year on record as Super El Niño builds appeared first on American Almanac .
Global temperatures through the first eight months of 2026 are running well above historical averages, and a rapidly strengthening El Niño in the Pacific threatens to push the year past every prior record, raising hard questions about what governments are actually doing to prepare. August 2026 tied for the hottest month ever measured on Earth, matching a record first set in July 2023, with an average surface air temperature of 16.82°C (about 62.3°F). That figure, drawn from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, landed 0.85°C above the 1991, 2020 average and edged out July 2026 by a tenth of a degree. Average sea surface temperatures outside polar regions hit 21.07°C (roughly 69.9°F), the hottest reading on record for any August,…Open