The World Meteorological Organization has released a sobering five-year prediction for the planet: Get ready for more of the same — heat.
(CN) — With an El Niño expected to emerge this year and climate change intensifying, the next five years are poised to be very hot with global temperatures expected to remain at or near record levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization and the U.K. Met Office.
Thursday’s five-year forecast came amid a record-breaking May heat wave across Europe, including in Great Britain, France, Italy, Austria and Spain. This week, temperatures reached a staggering 35.1 degrees Celsius (95.18 degrees Fahrenheit) in London, hit 37.1 C (98.78 F) in southwestern France and soared to 38 C (100.4 F) in southern Spain. Several heat-related deaths were reported across Europe.
Heat waves have swept across South Asia too in recent days with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh experiencing temperatures above seasonal averages. In some areas, temperatures reached between 45 C and 50 C (113 F and 122 F).
“The science is clear that human-induced climate change is making these heat waves more frequent and extreme,” said Simon Stiell, the United Nations’ climate change chief, on Wednesday.
As hot as this year already has been, next year is projected to be hotter and even beat 2024 as the hottest on record, according to experts. The new report was produced by Britain’s meteorological service, the U.K. Met Office, for the WMO, the U.N.’s climate and weather agency.
“There is an El Niño predicted for the end of 2026, which increases the chances of the following year, 2027, being the next record-breaking year,” said Leon Hermanson, an expert scientist at U.K. Met Office and the report’s lead author.
El Niños are associated with hotter temperatures and more extreme weather. Scientists are closely watching this looming El Niño because it is showing signs of becoming strong and even potentially a “super El Niño.”
Scientists are tracking a giant warm wave spreading in the Pacific Ocean, a sign an El Niño is starting. An El Niño is a warming of ocean waters in the east-central tropical Pacific that develops every few years.
The sharp warming taking place this year has raised concerns a very strong El Niño may be approaching. A strong El Niño was a major factor in making 2024 the hottest year on record.
Scientists suggest the emerging El Niño could be the strongest in three decades and perhaps even as strong as the catastrophic 1877-1878 El Niño, the most forceful on record.
That cycle contributed to extreme droughts and crop failures, which, combined with poor colonial governance and insufficient infrastructure, led to famines that killed tens of millions across India, China and Brazil.
Mounting data, then, points to a very hot horizon.
Between 2026 and 2030, the WMO experts said annual global mean near-surface temperatures are projected to range between 1.3 C and 1.9 C (2.34 F and 3.42 F) above the pre-industrial average.
By 2030, they predict it is highly likely the planet will endure a year when the average global temperature is 1.5 C warmer than the pre-industrial age and the advent of mass fossil fuel burning.
Until now, only 2024 has crossed that threshold. That year, the global average temperature was 15.1 C (59.18 F), making it 0.72 C (1.29 F) warmer than the planet’s average temperature since 1991 and 1.6 C (2.88 F) warmer than the planet was before the industrial age.
The 2015 Paris Agreement on reducing carbon emissions set a goal of keeping the planet from exceeding the 1.5 C mark. Scientists say the planet faces serious consequences if the global temperature is routinely above the 1.5 C threshold year after year.
The WMO report leaders also warned the Arctic region is expected to continue seeing “temperature anomalies” with the next five winters, predicted to be 2.8 C (5 F) above the average temperatures for 1991-2020.
Such a rate of warming would amount to “more than three and half times the global mean temperature anomaly over the same period,” the report said.
Under such conditions, Arctic sea ice concentrations would see substantial declines by 2035 in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk, the report’s authors said.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
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