Scientists warn a “supercharged” El Niño will cause “pandemic-scale mortality,” with extreme heat threatening nearly half a million lives worldwide, potentially surpassing the death toll of the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
The 2026–27 El Niño is drawing urgent warnings from climate scientists and public health experts, who fear its effects could extend far beyond extreme weather, triggering disease outbreaks and putting vulnerable communities around the world in danger.
The naturally occurring phenomenon returns every few years, raising global temperatures as the surface of the Pacific Ocean warms, with climate change intensifying its effects.
And scientists warn this latest event could carry a devastating human cost.
‘Pandemic-scale mortality’
“The 2026-27 El Niño is going to cause pandemic-scale mortality,” warned Dr. Colin Carlson, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale University.
Carlson and climate scientist Christopher Callahan of Indiana University have urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to treat the event as a global health emergency, arguing that the threat extends far beyond soaring temperatures.
“An early analysis suggests that nearly half a million deaths will result from extreme heat alone,” Carlson wrote in Think Global Health of the event he described as “the strongest El Niño ever witnessed in the observational record.”
And separate research offers further evidence of just how deadly the coming months could be.
The ‘worst outcome – death’
Research from the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab projects “that 451,000 lives will be lost due to heat” from June 2026 to February 2027 during El Niño, “compared to a normal year.”
“We have long been able to predict the impacts of temperatures on crops, and now we can predict their impact on the worst outcome – death,” researcher Michael Greenstone told CNN of the staggering prediction.
“This is such a large number that it can be numbing, but it is made up of parents and children, grandparents and neighbours, people going to work, caring for families, and living their lives,” added Greenstone, who founded Climate Impact Lab.
‘Off the charts’
The warnings extend beyond the research community, with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) raising concerns that El Niño could intensify extreme weather well into 2027.
“El Niño and indeed the state of the global climate in 2026 gives new meaning to the phrase ‘off the charts,’” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said, according to the Telegraph.
“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.”
“We are supercharging our weather, and El Niño will be a risk multiplier,” Saulo added.
‘Health crisis of pandemic proportions’
That warning was echoed at the COP31 climate summit, where world leaders gathered to confront the escalating climate crisis.
“A super El Niño is turbocharging climate impacts, delivering a deadly double-blow,” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said at the summit on Nov. 9.
“The climate crisis is now a global health crisis of pandemic proportions,” he added.
With scientists warning of the devastating consequences of climate change, what steps are you taking to help protect our planet? Please let us know in the comment section!
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