El Niño Is Expected To Form Soon, And Many Parts Of The World Will Enter A Period Of Scorching Heat.

In late May 2026, the World Meteorological Organization, in conjunction with authoritative meteorological agencies from various countries, simultaneously issued a climate warning. The sea surface temperature in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean continued to rise abnormally, and the area of ​​elevated sea surface temperatures continued to expand. All ocean and atmospheric monitoring indicators pointed to the El Niño formation window. Climate models from multiple countries calculated that the probability of El Niño officially forming in June or July of this year was as high as 82%, and this climate event was expected to last at least until the winter of 2026, with a high probability of reaching moderate or higher intensity. Currently, the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing the transition from spring to summer, and many parts of Asia, North America, Europe, and North Africa have repeatedly broken records for the highest temperatures for the same period. Daytime high temperatures in some inland areas have exceeded 48 degrees Celsius. Extreme weather events such as urban heat waves, wildfires, river droughts, and regional heavy rainfall are occurring one after another, and the global climate system is showing obvious signs of disorder.

Synchronous changes in ocean and atmosphere

El Niño is not a sudden extreme weather event, but rather a periodic climate phenomenon resulting from a long-term imbalance in the interaction between the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere. Its complete formation process involves four progressive stages: sea surface temperature changes, weakening trade winds, turbulent circulation, and global temperature rise. Current data from global monitoring networks clearly confirms that this imbalance mechanism is rapidly operating. Dozens of oceanographic buoys, polar meteorological satellites, and oceanographic research vessels worldwide are continuously transmitting monitoring data. For two consecutive months, surface sea surface temperatures in key monitoring areas of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific have been 0.6 degrees Celsius above the annual average, reaching the critical threshold for El Niño. Warm water masses at depths of several hundred meters are continuously moving eastward, and a massive amount of heat previously accumulated in the western Pacific is being transported towards the coast of the Americas. The conditions for ocean warming are now fully in place.

Simultaneously, abnormal atmospheric signals are appearing. The previously stable southeast trade winds blowing over the equatorial region are continuously weakening, and at times, even reverse westerly winds are occurring, disrupting the sea surface temperature balance that the Pacific has maintained for millions of years. Under normal climatic conditions, the southeast trade winds push seawater accumulation in the western Pacific, forming a stable sea surface temperature gradient of warmer water in the west and colder water in the east. Cold water from the bottom continuously rises, carrying away excess surface heat. However, once the trade winds weaken, warm water loses its eastward obstruction and covers the central and eastern Pacific Ocean on a large scale. The upward flow of cold water is blocked, further accelerating sea surface warming. This creates a positive feedback loop where sea surface warming weakens the trade winds, and weakening trade winds exacerbate warming, making it difficult to reverse the El Niño trend in the short term. The Walker circulation, a core atmospheric circulation system regulating equatorial climate, has now weakened significantly. Convective precipitation activity in the western Pacific has decreased, cloud cover over Southeast Asia and Australia has remained low, and signs of drought are appearing earlier than usual. Meanwhile, large amounts of convective clouds have accumulated in the eastern Pacific, and countries on the west coast of South America, such as Peru and Ecuador, have experienced early and persistent heavy rainfall, with flash floods and small landslides already occurring in some mountainous areas, fully demonstrating the disrupted precipitation pattern caused by the imbalance of circulation.

Long-term global warming continues to amplify the warming effect of El Niño, which is the core background for the early arrival of this heat wave. Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have continuously emitted greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, causing the global average temperature to rise by 1.3 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. The oceans have absorbed over 90% of this greenhouse heat, leading to a sustained rise in the overall base temperature of the Pacific Ocean. An El Niño event of similar intensity can release even more heat into the atmosphere, resulting in more intense heatwaves than historical averages. Comparing monitoring data from the super El Niño events of 1997 and 2015 reveals that global base temperatures were lower then, and the peak heat waves were shorter and less widespread. In 2026, the overall heat storage capacity of the global oceans far exceeds that of the previous two events. Even if this current El Niño is only of moderate intensity, combined with the long-term warming background, it is still sufficient to trigger a large-scale, prolonged extreme heat wave, with the area of ​​high-temperature land in the Northern Hemisphere reaching a near-century high.

El Niño formation follows a clear temporal evolution path. Meteorological agencies rely on supercomputer climate models to perform multi-scenario simulations and comprehensively predict the climate trend for the entire year. El Niño will be officially confirmed in June and July, with the summer heatwave in the Northern Hemisphere reaching its peak. Central and eastern Asia, central and western North America, Southern Europe, and North Africa will experience successive periods of sustained high temperatures, further amplifying daytime temperatures due to the urban heat island effect. From September to October, sea surface temperature anomalies will reach their annual high, and El Niño will peak, with a simultaneous increase in the frequency of extreme weather events globally. Drought in Southeast Asia and Australia will continue to expand, while flooding and torrential rains on the west coast of South America will worsen. From the end of 2026 to the beginning of 2027, El Niño will gradually weaken, but residual heat will keep global temperatures high until a slow return to normal levels the following spring. This entire evolutionary cycle lasts for more than eight months, meaning that people, industries, and governments worldwide need to prepare for a year-long period of sustained high temperatures and climate anomalies. Short-term heat and drought mitigation measures cannot cover the entire risk cycle.

Scorching heat combined with disrupted air circulation has brought systemic climate impacts to multiple sectors worldwide.

As El Niño continues to develop, widespread extreme heat has already hit many parts of the world, accompanied by a chain of disasters including droughts, floods, wildfires, and rising sea temperatures. From food security and energy supply to public health and marine ecology, multiple core sectors of the global economy and society will face immense pressure, and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people will be directly disrupted by climate anomalies. Agriculture, as the industry most directly impacted by El Niño, will face a stark contrast between drought and flooding in major global food-producing regions, significantly increasing the risk of global food production fluctuations and putting continued upward pressure on international agricultural product prices.

Traditional rice and wheat producing areas in Southeast Asia, Australia, and South Asia will experience persistent high temperatures and drought, with continuously declining soil moisture. Insufficient water supply will inhibit critical growth stages such as grain filling and heading, directly suppressing yields. Water shortages are a major concern in sugarcane-growing regions of India and Thailand, two major sugar-producing countries. High temperatures are accelerating soil moisture evaporation, reducing sugar content in sugarcane and tightening the global sugar supply. Southeast Asian palm oil plantations are experiencing persistent high temperatures and little rain, leading to a sharp decline in palm fruit production and widening the supply gap in the vegetable oil market. Eastern Australia's main wheat-producing regions have seen months without effective rainfall, causing vast areas of farmland to crack and forcing farmers to reduce planting areas, disrupting the supply-demand balance in the international wheat trade market. South America is experiencing a stark contrast: in Brazil's south-central corn and soybean producing areas, high temperatures and drought are inhibiting crop growth, while coastal Peru and Ecuador are experiencing continuous torrential rains, flooding vast areas of farmland. Crops are rotting from the waterlogged soil, and the resulting soil erosion is damaging the land's long-term cultivability. Africa is also facing challenges. East and South Africa's core food-producing regions are experiencing persistent high temperatures and drought. Local farmers rely on natural rainfall and lack adequate irrigation facilities, making them highly susceptible to reduced yields. Millions of low-income people face food shortages, posing a severe test to global food security.

The global energy supply and demand balance will be disrupted by the El Niño heatwave, putting pressure on the electricity, hydropower, and natural gas markets simultaneously, with many countries experiencing power load shortages. The sustained high temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer have led to an explosive increase in electricity demand for residential and commercial air conditioning. Urban power grid daytime loads have repeatedly broken historical records, forcing power companies to activate backup generators. Increased thermal power generation indirectly increases carbon emissions, creating a vicious cycle of rising temperatures and high energy consumption. Many Asian and South American countries that rely heavily on hydropower are experiencing droughts, resulting in significant reductions in river flow and persistently low reservoir levels. Hydropower output has declined significantly, forcing regions that previously relied on stable hydropower to supplement their power supply through thermal power, pushing up overall power generation costs and leading to a corresponding increase in residential electricity prices. High temperatures also cause a surge in natural gas demand for cooling, with increased use in industrial refrigeration, commercial cold chain logistics, and residential air conditioning. This leads to higher global natural gas trade demand and increased volatility in international energy commodity prices. Meanwhile, high temperatures accelerate wear and tear on oil and gas extraction equipment, increase the difficulty of open-pit coal mines and oil fields, and slightly reduce energy extraction efficiency, further exacerbating pressure on the energy supply side. Some developing countries are experiencing short-term power outages and rationing, forcing industrial production lines to shut down intermittently, dragging down regional economic output.

Persistent extreme heat directly threatens the health of people worldwide. The risk of heat-related illnesses, respiratory diseases, and infectious disease transmission is rising simultaneously, and the number of visits to medical institutions in various countries is expected to increase significantly. When daytime temperatures exceed 45 degrees Celsius, outdoor workers are highly susceptible to acute heat-related illnesses such as heatstroke, heat cramps, and heat exhaustion. The elderly, patients with chronic diseases, and infants are high-risk groups, with a significantly increased risk of death from severe heatstroke. The urban heat island effect makes it difficult for nighttime temperatures in urban residential areas to drop, preventing residents from resting and recovering their energy through nighttime rest. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can lead to insomnia, blood pressure disorders, and acute cardiovascular events, resulting in a continuous increase in the number of patients visiting cardiology and emergency departments in hospitals. High temperatures accelerate and restrict the dispersion of air pollutants, leading to increased ozone concentrations that irritate the respiratory tract and increase the frequency of asthma and bronchitis attacks. Hot, waterlogged areas become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, causing the spread of vector-borne infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever to continue expanding, significantly increasing public health and disease control pressures in tropical and subtropical countries. Furthermore, persistent high temperatures cause drinking water contamination and rapid food spoilage, resulting in a simultaneous increase in food poisoning and intestinal infectious disease cases. Disease control departments in various countries have been forced to stockpile heatstroke prevention medications and disinfection supplies, and expand temporary medical aid stations to ensure the basic health needs of the public during hot weather.

A multi-tiered, multi-level comprehensive response system for El Niño-related high temperatures is being developed through coordinated efforts by multiple countries around the world.

Anticipating the multiple risks of high temperatures, drought, and flooding brought by this El Niño event, the World Meteorological Organization, in conjunction with the United Nations World Food Programme and the International Emergency Management Organization, issued globally unified disaster prevention guidelines. Countries across all continents, based on their local climate risk characteristics, have implemented systematic response measures across five dimensions: meteorological monitoring and early warning, agricultural drought relief and production protection, energy supply and price stability, high-temperature protection of people's livelihoods, and long-term climate governance. These measures balance short-term extreme weather emergency response with long-term climate resilience building, aiming to minimize the economic losses and casualties caused by El Niño.

Countries have comprehensively upgraded their marine meteorological monitoring and early warning networks, improved channels for transmitting extreme weather warnings, and strengthened the first line of defense against disasters. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has added dozens of Pacific Ocean buoys to collect real-time surface and subsurface sea surface temperature data, optimize El Niño intensity prediction models, and provide weekly updates to Pacific sea surface temperature monitoring reports globally. my country's National Climate Center has increased the frequency of remote sensing observations of the equatorial Pacific, updating national high-temperature and drought weather warnings daily. It utilizes mobile phone text messages, short video platforms, community broadcasts, and rural loudspeakers to deliver high-temperature and heavy rain warnings directly to the grassroots population, solving the last-mile problem of warning information transmission. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) integrates data from meteorological stations across Europe, issuing regional high-temperature tiered warnings and issuing sustained heatwave forecasts in advance for high-risk areas in Southern Europe, guiding cities to activate heatstroke prevention plans ahead of time. Southeast Asian and African developing countries have received assistance from UN meteorological agencies, including the addition of basic meteorological observation equipment, training of local meteorological forecasters, and the establishment of regional meteorological information sharing platforms. This addresses the shortcomings in meteorological monitoring infrastructure in developing countries, allowing low-latitude, high-temperature, and drought-stricken countries to simultaneously grasp the development dynamics of El Niño and prepare for drought in advance.

Global agricultural countries have introduced targeted drought relief and production support policies to enhance the resilience of crops to climate risks and stabilize global food production. Brazil and Argentina launched drought relief agricultural subsidy programs, distributing drought-resistant seeds and water-saving irrigation equipment subsidies to farmers in drought-stricken areas, and promoting water-saving planting technologies such as drip irrigation and mulching to reduce water loss through evaporation. India and Thailand expanded reservoir storage capacity ahead of schedule, opened irrigation pipelines for farmland, prioritized irrigation water for core cash crops such as rice and sugarcane, and released reserve grain from state-owned grain depots to stabilize domestic grain market prices. The Australian government allocated special agricultural disaster relief funds to provide agricultural loan extensions and feed subsidies to drought-affected farmers, alleviating the economic pressure caused by reduced yields due to drought. Many major agricultural countries increased investment in drought-resistant crop breeding and research, developing heat- and drought-resistant rice and wheat varieties to enhance the inherent ability of crops to cope with extreme heat in the long term. The United Nations World Food Programme allocated emergency food reserves in advance to high-risk climate areas in Africa and Southeast Asia, established regional food storage facilities, and will quickly release reserves in the event of regional food shortages to ensure basic food supply for low-income groups and curb the spread of famine risks.

Countries are coordinating energy production and grid operation, employing multiple measures to ensure stable power supply during the high-temperature season and mitigate energy market price fluctuations. Power companies worldwide have completed generator unit maintenance and repairs ahead of schedule, expanded urban substations and transmission lines, increased grid load capacity, and planned peak-shifting schemes for high-temperature periods to guide energy-intensive industrial enterprises to avoid peak daytime electricity consumption, thus diverting pressure on the grid. Countries with a high proportion of hydropower have optimized reservoir water storage and scheduling plans in advance, reserving water for power generation while ensuring agricultural irrigation, compensating for the decline in hydropower output caused by drought. Many countries are accelerating the grid connection of renewable energy units, increasing the installed capacity of photovoltaic and wind power, using clean energy to supplement power shortages, and reducing the pressure of rising carbon emissions from reliance on thermal power. Energy regulatory agencies have introduced temporary energy price control policies, strictly controlling the increase in the end-user prices of natural gas and electricity, and providing high-temperature electricity subsidies to low-income families to prevent energy price increases from further burdening people's lives. At the same time, international energy trade coordination mechanisms have been established, with energy-exporting countries appropriately increasing oil and gas export supply to alleviate the tight supply and demand situation in the global energy market and stabilize international commodity prices.

To improve the public health and epidemic prevention system during periods of high temperatures, comprehensive measures are being taken to safeguard people's health and daily life. Major cities are opening parks, community service centers, and libraries as public cooling-off areas, providing residents with free drinking water and heatstroke prevention medications. Outdoor sanitation, construction, and logistics companies are adjusting their outdoor work hours to avoid the midday heat, and are providing high-temperature work allowances to reduce the risk of heatstroke among outdoor workers. Urban medical institutions are establishing special treatment zones for heat-related illnesses, stockpiling sufficient supplies of Huoxiang Zhengqi Water (a traditional Chinese medicine for heatstroke), cooling dressings, and emergency equipment, and conducting specialized training for medical personnel in high-temperature emergency care to improve their ability to treat severe cases of heatstroke. Disease control departments are intensifying mosquito control efforts, disseminating infectious disease prevention and control information, and guiding residents to take precautions against mosquitoes at home and refrigerate food to reduce the incidence of vector-borne and intestinal infectious diseases. In response to the high temperatures, drought, and water shortages in some areas, local governments have deployed emergency water supply vehicles to deliver drinking water to water-scarce villages and communities, reinforced drinking water storage facilities, and ensured the basic safety of drinking water for residents. Education departments in many countries have adjusted the arrangements for outdoor activities in primary and secondary schools, suspending outdoor physical education classes during periods of high temperature red alerts to avoid students being exposed to the scorching sun for extended periods, and comprehensively covering the high-temperature protection needs of various groups, including the elderly, children, and outdoor workers.

Conclusion

The imminent formation of El Niño and the current global heatwave serves as a clear warning from the Earth's climate system against the backdrop of global warming. This moderate to strong climate event, with its transseasonal and global climate disturbances, is having a comprehensive impact on global food security, energy supply, public health, and marine ecosystems, testing the short-term emergency response capabilities and long-term climate governance levels of all countries. From the emerging signals of synchronized anomalies in the equatorial Pacific Ocean's seawater and atmosphere, to the multi-faceted chain of disasters involving high temperatures, droughts, floods, and wildfires, and to the multi-layered response plans implemented globally in conjunction with meteorological warnings, agricultural production protection, energy supply stabilization, public welfare protection, and low-carbon governance, the entire logic clearly demonstrates the intrinsic link between El Niño and global heatwaves. It also proves that no single country can independently resist global climate risks; transnational collaboration and multi-sectoral coordination are the core paths to resolving this climate crisis.

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