Drought
Cracked soil due to lack of rain is shown as Big Cypress National Preserve and the Florida Everglades experience a severe drought on May 19, 2025. Getty Images

A new report claims that the world can expect more extreme weather events that will give "new meaning to off the charts."

The report, published by the World Meteorological Organization, coincides with the United Nations-led COP31 climate conference. "The year 2026 continues the protracted streak of exceptional global temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, with a very strong El Niño event set to unleash even more heat and extreme weather well into 2027," the report states.

According to the report, each of the last 12 years has been the warmest on record, with the past four years being the top four. The report states that January–September 2026 was about 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average temperatures.

The report goes on to say that the current El Niño phenomenon could exacerbate high temperatures and lead to more extreme weather events including heat waves, high precipitation, floods and droughts.

"El Niño and indeed the state of the global climate in 2026 gives new meaning to the phrase off the charts. El Niño doesn't add new heat to the planet. It releases heat from the ocean, which is the warmest ever measured. There is simply more heat available to release," said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

"We are super-charging our weather. And we see the impacts of this every day in our news headlines, on our economies and on our health. Heatwaves, tropical cyclones, and rainstorms are intensifying faster than our historical baselines prepared us for," she said. "The human and economic cost is unacceptably high."

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Scientists have long said that drawing conclusions between specific weather events and climate change is impossible. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, stated that when it comes to weather events and climate change, scientists tend to focus on the probability and magnitude of events rather than conclusively stating that an event was caused by it.

"Scientists cannot answer directly whether a particular event was caused by climate change, as extremes do occur naturally, and any specific weather and climate event is the result of a complex mix of human and natural factors," the report states. "Instead, scientists quantify the relative importance of human and natural influences on the magnitude and/or probability of specific extreme weather events."