Earth just logged back-to-back record heat, with El Niño stacking on top of decades of greenhouse warming to push global temperatures past a once-theoretical line.
At a Glance
- 2024 set a new global heat record, topping 2023, with temperatures about 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
- World Meteorological Organization says El Niño added heat, but greenhouse gases remain the main driver.
- NASA reports warm seas plus long-term warming propelled 2023–2024 to historic highs.
- Scientists expect swings to continue, but the rising baseline makes new records more likely.
Record Heat, Clear Drivers, No Guesswork
Scientists agree on what happened. The world hit record temperatures in 2023, then broke that record in 2024. A strong El Niño helped, but the long-term rise from greenhouse gases did most of the work.
The World Meteorological Organization called the 2023–2024 El Niño one of the five strongest on record and said it “contributed” to the heat while naming greenhouse gases the “main culprit.”
Its State of the Global Climate 2024 report attributes the new records to record greenhouse gas levels combined with El Niño.
Peer-reviewed work backs up this two-layer story. A Nature study reports global average temperature in 2024 reached about 1.55 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the first full year above 1.5 degrees.
Another analysis shows El Niño and other natural shifts “boosted” the record on top of a steady warming trend of about two-tenths of a degree per decade. That is the difference between a passing wave and a rising tide. El Niño is the wave. Greenhouse warming is the tide.
How El Niño Adds Heat To A Hotter Baseline
El Niño warms the central and eastern Pacific. That ocean heat feeds the air above it. The bump spreads worldwide months later. NASA explains that warm sea surfaces, added to the long-term warming trend, pushed 2023 to a new record and kept the heat rolling into 2024.
Carbon Brief’s explainer notes a rule of thumb: for each degree Celsius that the key Pacific region warms during El Niño, global temperature rises about a tenth of a degree, after a short lag. That bonus lands on a baseline that is already elevated.
Global temperatures are once again reaching new records as potentially historic El Niño conditions continue to unfold, according to a study released Tuesday. https://t.co/zGYvyUrkPZ
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) September 10, 2026
Major warm years often align with strong El Niño events. The pattern popped in 1997–1998, 2015–2016, and again in 2023–2024. But the ceiling keeps rising because the floor keeps rising.
The World Meteorological Organization and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration both frame El Niño as a short-term amplifier, not the engine. The engine is the build-up of heat-trapping gases from human activity. That is why records cluster closer together now.
What The Numbers Say—And What They Do Not
The numbers are not subtle. The World Meteorological Organization reported that every month since June 2023 set a new monthly record at the time, with the El Niño’s heat stacked on a warming world.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record, beating 2023.
Even when El Niño faded and La Niña signals began to form, a separate World Meteorological Organization update logged the warmest January on record in 2025. That underlines the power of the rising baseline.
One Nature paper estimates that the unique sea surface pattern in 2023–2024 accounted for most of the year-to-year jump from 2023 to 2024, but on top of a human-driven climb that set the stage for a new peak.
That framing fits earlier experience. In 2015, climate scientists estimated El Niño explained only a small slice of the record warmth, with greenhouse gases doing the heavy lifting. The cast changes; the script does not.
Why This Matters For Policy, Power Bills, And Prudence
Record heat is not an abstract chart. Hotter oceans can supercharge rain in some regions and deepen drought in others. Heat waves hit infrastructure, farms, and power grids. A prudent household does the basics first: shore up the roof before adding a sunroom.
That mirrors sound national policy. Grid hardening, water storage, and fire breaks are low-regret moves that protect lives and budgets. Those steps respect taxpayers and reduce future emergency costs.
Energy policy also lives in the real world. A stable, affordable grid needs firm, clean, and local power over time. That means keeping reliable baseload while scaling cleaner sources and nuclear, which runs around the clock.
The data make one point clear: natural swings like El Niño will come and go, but the baseline climb raises the odds of fresh records. Betting only on pleasant weather is careless. Planning for heat while tackling emissions is common sense backed by the record books.
Sources:
abcnews.com, euronews.com, the-innovation.org, public.wmo.int, ncei.noaa.gov, noaa.gov, watchers.news, nature.com, e360.yale.edu
