The World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists has warned that unusually severe extreme weather events are likely in the year ahead, and said 2026 could become the second warmest, or even the warmest, year on record, reports RTE.
The group noted that sea surface temperatures are nearing record highs and that wildfires have already burned more than 150 million hectares globally in the first four months of the year, reports RTE.
This figure is around 50% higher than the recent average for wildfire activity and roughly double the area burned in 2024, reports RTE.
Researchers say these conditions are expected to intensify further due to a potentially strong naturally occurring El Niño warming event developing in the tropical Pacific Ocean, reports RTE.
Scientists warned that the world could be heading towards an unprecedented year of global fire activity and record-breaking weather extremes.
They added that such records are likely to continue being broken and that extreme weather will worsen unless fossil fuel use is drastically reduced and net-zero emissions are achieved, reports RTE.
Dr Daniel Swain of the California Institute for Water Resources, UNCAR, said strong El Niño events, even without climate change, can significantly disrupt rainfall patterns and increase flood risk, reports RTE.
“This effect will be amplified considerably by the now nearly 1.5C of global warming experienced as of 2026,” Dr Swain said, reports RTE.
“In modern human history, we’ve never experienced a strong or very strong El Nino event amid pre-existing conditions that were this warm globally, therefore, it would not be surprising to see some unprecedented global impacts by later in 2026 into 2027 in terms of flood, drought, and wildfire-related extremes”, he added, reports RTE.
Scientists also raised concerns that potential drought in tropical rainforest regions this year, including the Amazon, Oceania and parts of Southeast Asia, could increase the likelihood of severe wildfires in areas that are normally too wet to burn, reports RTE.
They warned this could have serious consequences for ecosystems and human health through widespread smoke pollution.
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Dr Jemilah Mahmood, Executive Director of Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, said extreme heat is a major cause of death but often goes underreported because it does not appear as a visible disaster, reports RTE.
“It doesn’t make headlines the way disasters do. It doesn’t produce images that trigger emergency funding. It doesn’t arrive with a named storm or a visible flood line,” reports RTE.
“It kills quietly, in homes, in open fields, in the bodies of workers who have no choice but to be outside. Officially 546,000 people die every year from heat-related causes. But that is almost certainly an undercount because heat deaths are systematically misclassified, particularly in low and middle-income countries” she said, reports RTE.
Researchers also highlighted the dangers of fine particulate pollution, PM2.5, from wildfires, which they say can be up to ten times more harmful than traffic emissions, reports RTE.
They added that heat worsens air quality, increases respiratory illness and contributes to cardiovascular disease.
A 2024 Lancet study found that 1.53 million deaths annually are linked to wildfire-related air pollution, more than four times earlier estimates, reports RTE.
In Australia’s 2019 bushfires, 33 people died directly in the flames, while smoke exposure was linked to a further 417 deaths, reports RTE.
In the Los Angeles fires of January 2025, researchers estimated nearly 50% additional deaths were caused by smoke exposure beyond those directly killed by the fires, reports RTE.
Dr Mahmood also said she is concerned that governments have been quietly scaling back climate commitments in recent years.
“The language has softened, the ambition has retreated, and some have behaved as though the climate crisis was a chapter we should choose to close. Or at least defer until the next election cycle,” reports RTE.
“Nature, of course, does not read political memos. The World Meteorological Organization now tells us that our planet is more out of balance than at any time in observed history”, she said, reports RTE.
Dr Friederike Otto, co-founder of the World Weather Attribution group, said El Niño itself is not the primary cause of concern, reports RTE.
“While El Niño could lead to very extreme conditions later this year, it’s not the reason to freak out. El Niño is a natural phenomenon. It comes and goes. Climate change on the contrary gets worse as long as we do not stop burning fossil fuels,” reports RTE.
“So, climate change is the reason to freak out. And ideally, in a constructive way, by doing something about it – and we do know what to do about it. We have the knowledge and technology to go very, very far away from using fossil fuels,” she added, reports RTE.
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