El Nino effect: Challenges to adaptation and resilience
The World Meteorological Organization warns that a developing El Nino event could lead to record-breaking global temperatures and extreme weather in 2026. Regions worldwide are already experiencing heatwaves, droughts, and monsoon deficits linked to climate change.
Why it matters
The intensification of climate patterns poses severe risks to global health, agriculture, and infrastructure, necessitating urgent adaptation strategies.
T he United Nations weather agency forecast a moderate or possibly strong El Nino that could drive up global temperatures and increase the risk of extreme weather in 2026. Experts said the El Nino, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming from fossil fuel pollution and will likely turbocharge extreme weather across the planet. Meteorologists forecast it will rival — or exceed — a record El Nino that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods, droughts, tornadoes and wildfires.
The report relies on data from international weather agencies and scientific observations.
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