Overview
- The peer-reviewed study published Thursday, August 27, 2026, used monthly chemical records from Galápagos corals to reconstruct a thousand years of eastern‑Pacific sea temperatures and found ENSO variability about 36% larger now than in the preindustrial millennium.
- Operational forecasters at agencies including the Met Office and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center assign very high odds that the 2026–2027 El Niño will be exceptionally strong and are already linking it to early regional impacts such as drought in Central America and wildfires in Indonesia.
- The research measured coral skeleton chemistry—ratios of strontium to calcium, oxygen isotopes and uranium‑thorium dating—to get month-to-month temperature signals that capture strong El Niño events at the Galápagos site.
- Authors and several commentators say the pattern parallels global warming and could push 2027 toward record high global temperatures, but other climate scientists caution that proxy coverage, sampling gaps and unresolved physical mechanisms mean attribution and future projections retain uncertainty.
- A leading mechanism under study is increased ocean surface stratification, which would make the warm surface layer more sensitive to wind shifts and amplify El Niño swings, raising the likelihood of stronger floods, droughts, fisheries disruption and coral bleaching that communities should plan for.