Brussels – It is now “virtually certain” that in 2026, the global temperature will exceed the 1.5°C threshold relative to pre-industrial levels, i.e., the temperature recorded during the period 1850–1900. This is the second calendar year after 2024 to break the record. According to a statistical forecast based on the ERA5 data – the fifth generation of global climate and meteorological analysis data produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and released as part of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) service – there is a 20 per cent probability of “tying or exceeding 2024, currently the warmest year on record.” The Copernicus team also stressed that “the average global temperature over 2023–2026 is also expected to exceed 1.5°C .” Globally, October 2026 was the hottest month on record, with an average air temperature 1.75°C higher than in the pre-industrial period. This marks the third consecutive month to exceed the 1.5°C threshold.
Sea surface temperatures also reached exceptionally high levels. Excluding the polar regions, the temperature reached 20.95°C, the highest ever recorded in October. In the tropical Pacific, where conditions linked to El Niño – a phenomenon that causes a marked warming of the surface waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean – have continued to intensify, the monthly anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region reached an all-time high of 3.21°C, exceeding the peaks recorded during previous very strong El Niño events.”
Europe, too, experienced its second-warmest October on record. Specifically, the average temperature across Europe in October 2026 was 11.51 °C, 1.49 °C above the monthly average for the period 1991–2020. Unlike in September and throughout most of the summer, temperatures in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia showed the most significant deviations from the average, while in most of Western and Central Europe the temperature anomalies were more moderate. Across the continent, sea surface temperatures continued to reach record highs for October along the Atlantic coast and in the western Mediterranean, contributing to the warm conditions affecting the adjacent land areas.
Regarding rivers, exceptionally low river flows persisted across much of Central and Eastern Europe, affecting the Rhine, the Danube and the Vistula. In some parts of Western Europe, river flows have returned to normal levels as the drought conditions recorded in October have eased. Heavy rainfall and flooding have affected several countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Greece and Turkey.
The ECMWF’s Head of Climate Strategy, Samantha Burgess, stated that “October has continued the pattern of remarkable global warmth, with record global and surface ocean temperatures.” Burgess also noted that “particularly significant is that the four-year average is also expected to exceed 1.5°C, highlighting how sustained this period of global warmth has become.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
