Study finds climate change made El Ninos 36% stronger

A landmark study drawing on nearly 1,000 years of coral records from the Galápagos Islands has found that El Niño events are now more than 36% stronger than before the Industrial Age, offering some of the clearest evidence yet that human-caused climate change is amplifying the planet's most powerful climate phenomenon.

The research, published in the journal Science, arrives as the 2026-27 El Niño rapidly intensifies toward what forecasters warn could be the strongest such event ever recorded.

A 'Time Machine' in Coral

Lead author Julia Cole, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Michigan, and her colleagues examined 29 coral fossils from the Galápagos — situated "right in the heart of El Niño country" — dating back roughly 900 years. By measuring chemical ratios in the coral skeletons, the team reconstructed sea surface temperatures month by month across centuries.latimes+1

The data revealed that El Niño's variability has surged about 16% in just the past 40 years, with the increase closely tracking the rise in global temperatures from fossil fuel emissions. "We are seeing a trend of stronger El Niños and the one we have now is consistent with that trend — it's not a fluke," Cole said. Prior to the industrial era, the researchers found no evidence of El Niño behavior as intense as what has occurred in recent decades.jamaica-gleaner+2

The findings suggest a feedback loop: global warming supercharges El Niño, and El Niño in turn accelerates global heating by releasing vast amounts of ocean warmth into the atmosphere.nationalobserver

An Unprecedented Event Building Now

On Thursday, the World Meteorological Organization issued a forecast warning there is a nearly 100% chance the current El Niño will persist through February, intensifying to "very strong" — the highest category on its four-tier scale. The most recent weekly reading stands at 2.7°C above normal, already well past the 2°C threshold for "very strong" classification, with further strengthening expected.jamaica-gleaner+2

"I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts," Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the UK Met Office, told Al Jazeera. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that "El Niño is being supersized before our eyes".global.chinadaily+1

Stakes and Skeptics

Not all scientists are convinced. Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania noted that volcanic and solar activity could partly explain the coral patterns, while Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth cautioned about "pretty big uncertainties" in comparing proxy records to modern measurements. Still, Hausfather called the study "more weight on the side of the scale for a detectable climate impact".latimes+1

The practical consequences are already mounting. Citigroup ↗ 0.51% economists have estimated a super El Niño could inflict as much as $7 trillion in global economic losses over five years. The World Food Programme has warned that 274 million people could face acute hunger by the end of 2027.aljazeera

"We can prepare and try to adapt," Cole said. "But we also need to look at the root cause, which is the fossil fuels we are burning every day."nationalobserver