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Chapter 1: What is a Super El Niño and why is it significant?
Something is shifting in the Pacific Ocean. It's not a storm or a current you can see from the surface, but a slow, powerful build-up of heat, spanning thousands of kilometres. And it's been playing a dangerous game of hide and seek. Now, out there for all to witness, the Pacific Ocean is undergoing a violent flip.
The latest information suggests we are on the precipice of a Super El Nino, possibly the strongest El Nino event in 140 years. A very rare high-intensity episode that would propel global temperatures into uncharted territories. This isn't a seasonal shift, it's a global reorganization of energy. According to the latest data, there is now a 98% chance of El Niño emerging by August.
And by September 2026, the rise of a full-blown Super El Niño is now almost inevitable. This kind of El Niño would see intensified heat waves, floods, droughts and shifts in monsoon and hurricane patterns all around the world. Indeed, could a 2026 Super El Niño push our climate past the point of no return? I'm James Stewart and you're watching Astrum Earth.
Join me today as we look at the mechanics of this climate engine. We'll discuss why 2026 is becoming the perfect storm for a record-breaking event. And we'll look at what a planet already pushed to the brink by climate change does when its largest natural cooling mechanism is replaced by a furnace.
Chapter 2: How is the current El Niño different from previous ones?
I didn't expect to be making this video quite as quickly as I am to be honest with you. Let me take you back a few months to a video I made about the weak La Nina we had in 2025 that went into 2026. In fact it was so weak we suggested in that video that a Pacific flip was possible.
A kind of climate whiplash where after months of La Nina's coal pattern the Pacific would be primed to swing hot and bring on a sort of monster of an El Nino. Now when I made that video, the chances of that actually happening were quite low, and we didn't know how hot things might get, if indeed they would at all.
But as it turns out, that prediction was bang on, and it's coming true, unfortunately, right in front of our eyes. And things are escalating pretty quickly. So here's a quick recap if you missed that video. The El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a term used to describe a cycle of variations in the Pacific Ocean's surface temperatures and air pressure near the equator.
Normally, trade winds drive warm surface water from near South America, the Eastern Pacific, towards Asia. As that warm water moves away from South America, cold water rises to replace it in a process called upwelling. This situation is called ENSO neutral. Now, if those trade winds are weaker than usual, this upwelling effect lessens, resulting in a warmer patch in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
If those sea surface temperatures rise by more than half a degree Celsius above average, then that is an El Niño. Conversely, when trade winds are stronger, ocean temperatures dip below average and we see a La Niña develop, where those temperatures are more than half a degree Celsius lower than average.
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Chapter 3: What factors contribute to the emergence of a Super El Niño?
This cycle lasts between 9 and 12 months and repeats every 2 to 7 years. And at the time of recording, we're in an ENSO neutral state, at least according to Noah. But not for much longer. During an El Nino, Eastern Pacific sea surface temperatures usually do reach around 1 to 3 degrees Celsius above normal, shifting tropical convection currents and jet streams.
This typically brings wetter winters to California and some regions in South America, and drier conditions to Australia, Indonesia and Southern Africa. In fact, one strange quirk of El Niño is that it tends to suppress Atlantic hurricanes. What it does is increase upper-level winds across the tropical Atlantic.
That then creates wind shear that pulls apart tropical storm systems before they can develop into the hurricanes. But unfortunately it's bad news elsewhere because it enhances the potential for Pacific storms. That's due to an increase in energy in the ocean because warm surface water fuels the development of tropical storms which turn into cyclones.
It also generally raises global temperatures by 0.1-0.2°C above trend, often producing the warmest years on record if they coincide with ongoing warming. I should point out that this is not a new concept, nor is having an El Nino a product climate change. It's a natural part of our planet, a heartbeat that's been thumping for at least 10,000 years.
I mean, we have evidence of ENSO's chemical fingerprints in ancient coral fossils and sediment cores stretching back long before the first steam engine was even built.
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Chapter 4: What are the potential global impacts of a Super El Niño?
But this year feels different. Something sinister is brewing out there, and it's starting to look very much like we're heading for a super El Niño.
Now, some housekeeping here on what actually constitutes a super El Nino, because I'll be honest with you, if you're asking a scientist that term, well, it doesn't actually exist, but it does make for a good media headline and title on this thumbnail. NOAA, who are the people right on the forefront of this stuff, monitor El Niño with a measure called the Oceanic Niño Index or ONI.
It's basically a three-month running mean of sea surface temperature relative to a 30-year base. So El Niño is declared, as we said, when that ONI goes above 0.5 degrees Celsius for five or more overlapping seasons.
And just to make things a bit more complicated, NOAA recently changed to a new kind of measuring index called the Relative ONI Index to account for increased background warming, which it didn't previously.
So, within this new way of measuring how strong an El Niño actually is, they class a weak one as between 0.5 and 1 degrees Celsius, a moderate one would be between 1 and 1.5 degrees Celsius, and a strong El Niño is 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. So therefore, with a bit of creative license, a super El Niño would be somewhere 2 degrees Celsius above average or more.
And despite not having a proper term for it, that has happened before. In fact, it's happened four times since Noah started these measurements. In 1982, 1991, 1997, and most recently... in 2015. In every single case, each relative ONI rating was more than 2 degrees Celsius. And in November 2015, the index was a whopping 2.4 degrees Celsius.
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Chapter 5: How does a Super El Niño affect weather patterns worldwide?
That's more than strong. I mean, that rating was looking for a phone booth to take off its glasses and don a superhero cape with. In all seriousness, though, these giant events have globe-spanning consequences.
The 2015 El Nino coincided with severe drought in Ethiopia, water shortages in Puerto Rico, and an extraordinary Central Pacific hurricane season, all combining to produce record global warmth. More than 60 million people were affected, with extreme food insecurity primarily across Africa, Central America and the Pacific.
It triggered the most devastating global coral bleaching event in history, and the impacts weren't just felt environmentally. $3.9 trillion was wiped from the global economy in the following three years due to the lost agricultural productivity and infrastructure damages.
Let's take a quick pause right there because I know that all the stuff we've just talked about can be quite overwhelming and can leave you feeling pretty helpless. But there is something you can do right now as you watch this video that actually makes a difference. Meet Planet Wild. They're like crowdfunding but for nature.
Each month, their community of over 20,000 members, including myself, by the way, funds a mission to restore nature around the world. Then they document it with a YouTube video so we can see the impact of our contributions in real time. It's pretty awesome. Makes me feel hopeful because we can actually see the impact on the ground.
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Chapter 6: What historical events have been influenced by past Super El Niños?
Recently, they contributed to the world's biggest wildlife corridor by helping build these unique wildlife crossings. Honestly, their work is incredible. Incredible. I love these guys so much. I wanted to share it with you as well. So the first hundred people to sign up using my code ASTRUM6 will get their first month paid for by me.
Yeah, just scan the QR code on the screen right now or click the link in the video description. After that, you can give whatever amount feels right to you and you can also cancel at any time. you'll immediately have an impact and see the results in less than 30 days.
If you want to see them in action and see what they do, check out their wildlife corridor mission with the link in the description as we head back to Super El Nino. So, is history about to repeat itself again? As of early 2026, the tropical Pacific returned to an ENSO neutral state after that weak La Nina we spoke about. But don't be fooled, because that's just on the surface.
It's what's brewing below that's starting to ring alarm bells. NOAA reports that ocean subsurface heat content has been climbing for months and is now well above normal.
Chapter 7: How does climate change interact with El Niño phenomena?
In March to April 2026, meteorologists observed bursts of westerly winds driving warm water eastward, a classic precursor to El Niño. Usually Pacific trade winds are easterly, holding warm water in the west, but those winds are faltering. as they weaken a series of Kelvin waves, massive pulses of warm water, are traveling thousands of miles across the ocean.
And when they hit the South American coast, they sort of uncork the heat and suddenly you've got all this energy just sat there waiting to be unleashed. In fact, NASA have just caught one of these Kelvin waves in action with the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. You can clearly see it cross the Pacific Ocean and hit the South American coast.
But here's the catch, because on top of the natural cycle happening, this time we're layering a natural surge onto a planet that's already spent 12 consecutive months above the 1.5 degree warming threshold. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and it occurred during an ENSO-neutral year. There was no extra heating boost from El Niño.
So before we even add in a naturally occurring event that increases temperatures, we're already working with a much higher baseline, and that's a problem. It's a bit like a loaded spring. That heat hasn't fully reached the surface yet, but when it does, it can rapidly trigger El Niño conditions. The scary thing is that exact same pattern showed up before the 1997 and 2015 Super El Niños 2.
So the big question is then, how big is this one going to be? Well for starters, NOAA's Climate Prediction Centre has placed the odds of El Niño emerging by July at 82%, with a 37% chance of a very strong El Niño by winter 2026.
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Chapter 8: What can we expect in the future regarding Super El Niños?
The UK and European estimates are, how do I put this, a little more aggressive. Met Office data here in the UK shows two degrees Celsius anomalies by September 2026. And the ECMWF, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, shows there is a chance of temperature anomalies exceeding three degrees before October, taking us well in to super territory.
Indeed, on the other side of the scale to NOAA, according to the ECMWF, the odds of a super El Nino by July have already climbed beyond 50%. And as we approach winter, its emergence appears inevitable. Just a quick word of caution here when it comes to data and modelling. I know you know this, but I just have to sort of say it.
Forecasters do note that models tend to overshoot El Nino's strength in the spring, and the outcome actually depends on whether those westerly winds continue what they're doing. But because they're doing it right now, that's where these numbers come from.
However you choose to interpret those numbers is up to you, but what I think we can deduce for certain is that the environment is primed for a strong event. So, if we do end up with the fabled Super El Nino, well what does that mean for us? The short answer is amplified extremes. All the usual El Nino effects would be supercharged.
It'd be like driving around in your car playing your music with your bass turned up to maximum, you know? The first and perhaps most obvious thing we've already touched on, there would be a record-breaking global heat spike.
Each El Niño year brings hotter conditions globally, and even without the help of all the extra greenhouse gas emissions, we'd usually expect somewhere in the region of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees worth of increase. But for a super El Niño, well that could put temperatures in 2026, 2027 to unprecedented heights, the hottest years on record, exceeding 1.7, even 1.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
In the most extreme scenarios, sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific region approach a stark 3.8 degrees Celsius by the year end. And when you consider that the IPCC wanted to limit warming to just 1.5 degrees, you start to see just how extreme this really is. And it's not just the temperatures we should be worrying about either.
There would be a series of extreme precipitation patterns in every corner of the planet. A Super El Niño would bring torrential rains to the coasts of Peru and Ecuador. But inland, the Amazon rainforest would face a thermal stress test. By combining intense droughts with record-breaking temperatures, trees would be pushed beyond their tolerance limits.
Previous Super El Ninos have seen the Amazon switch from a carbon sink to a carbon source, as drought kills off massive sways of the canopy. In 2026, with the baseline temperature already higher, the risk of megafires in the world's lungs would be at an all-time high.
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