The WMO's May–July seasonal update was just published and it provides an unambiguous forecast: the world is hurling towards El Niño. The Niño 3.4 plume indicates a rapid warming trend, departing from January-March 2026 (JFM 2026) where global surface temperatures (SSTs) were generally only slightly above average. In fact, the multi-model ensemble (MME) could approach 1.5°C by mid-year — high confidence despite the typical spring predictability barrier. In the Atlantic, both the North Tropical Atlantic (NTA) and South Tropical Atlantic (STA) are forecasted to have above-average SST values expected before an El Niño
The El-Niño is corresponding to the Indian Ocean Dipole shifting toward a positive phase, indicating potentially severe rainfall and intense drought in parts of Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Combined with the intense marine heat wave as discussed last month, and this summer is shaping out to be one marked by extreme heat and rainfall.
As noted in earlier this year, the Trump administration repealed the Endangerment Finding — the requirement that the EPA must protect people from climate pollution — making climate denial official U.S. policy. That 2009 finding was the legal bedrock for all federal greenhouse gas regulation. Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists is working its way through federal courts, and a district court has already ordered the DOE to turn over records about the author group behind the report used to justify the repeal. Without the finding, no future EPA can regulate CO₂ under the Clean Air Act unless Congress acts. The D.C. Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court are next.
But around the world, climate action is still moving ahead. Climate negotiators are gathering in Bonn June 8–18 for the annual mid-year talks, so the international context is live.
Despite the U.S. policy pullback, the global capital story runs the other direction. BloombergNEF found that global energy transition investment reached a record $2.3 trillion in 2025, up 8% from 2024 — with electrified transport ($893B), renewables ($690B), and grid investment ($483B) as the largest drivers. U.S. investment still moved up 3.5% to $378 billion despite policy headwinds. Meanwhile, the European Commission adopted a Clean Energy Investment Strategy in March backed by over €75 billion from the European Investment Bank, targeting €660 billion in annual clean energy investment through 2030. This divergence, U.S. in legal free-fall, while Europe structures its industrial policy at scale, is jarring.
The 2026 ‘super’ El Niño is growing increasingly likely due to a marine heat wave across the Pacific that has brought sea surface temperatures between about 1.6 to 2.2 degrees Celsius above normal.
El Niños happen when the tropical Pacific Ocean warms enough to trigger wind changes that reverberate across the atmosphere. El Niños can trigger drought and heat waves in some regions, and unleash massive rainfalls in others.
The cost for the 2026 El Niño does not scale linearly with intensity- each additional degree of ONI scales roughly to the power of 6.6 such that a 20% increase in peak intensity more than doubles the economic damage.
In a post for the Green Place I used data from NOAA to analyze the economic implications of the upcoming El Niño: https://www.greenplace.earth/articles/the-2026-el-nino-already-has-a-price-tag