This summer set heat records worldwide, and 2027 could be hotter

Western Europe, the contiguous US, and South Korea all broke heat records this summer, and scientists are already warning that 2027 could turn out hotter still, MIT Technology Review reported, because a fast-developing El Niño event hasn't finished building yet.

Western Europe's June-July average hit 21.62°C, 2.79°C above the 1991-2020 baseline, beating the previous record set in 2022, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The contiguous US logged its warmest month on record dating back to 1895: July 2026 averaged 76.9°F, edging out July 1936 and July 2012 by a tenth or two of a degree, with overnight lows running 3.7°F above average, a record in their own right. South Korea's hottest reading came on August 3, when Yangsan hit 42.5°C, the highest temperature in the country's 122 years of modern weather observation.

“Persistent high-pressure systems trapped heat over Western Europe. The extreme temperatures also amplified widespread drought.”

— Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate, Copernicus Climate Change Service

The reason 2027 draws attention now, rather than after the fact, comes down to El Niño's typical timing. The World Meteorological Organization expects the current event to intensify into a strong El Niño between August and October, and the US Climate Prediction Center puts a 63% chance on a very strong event running from November through January 2027. Model consensus points to a peak roughly 3.6°C above average, nearly a full degree past the prior record. El Niño's warming effect on global surface temperatures has historically landed in the calendar year after the event forms, which is why 2015-16 and 2023-24 both pushed their biggest temperature spikes into the second year rather than the first.

“One of the fastest onsets in the observational record.”

— Zeke Hausfather, Climate scientist

Underneath both the immediate heat and the El Niño forecast sits the same longer-term driver: burning fossil fuels keeps adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and that raises the floor every heat wave builds from. Regions aren't warming at the same rate, though. Europe is heating at 0.56°C per decade over the past 30 years, according to Copernicus's State of the Climate report, more than double the global average of 0.27°C per decade, and second only to the Arctic, which is warming at roughly 0.75°C per decade. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has framed the added risk from El Niño in blunt terms.

“El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther and cross borders with devastating speed.”

— António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

• Western Europe: hottest June-July on record, 2.79°C above the 1991-2020 baseline
• Contiguous US: hottest month on record dating to 1895, July 2026 averaged 76.9°F
• South Korea: national record of 42.5°C set in Yangsan on August 3, its hottest reading in 122 years
• El Niño peak expected between November 2026 and January 2027, roughly 3.6°C above average

None of this guarantees 2027 will feel hotter on the ground than 2026 did everywhere at once, since regional weather still varies year to year even inside a strong El Niño cycle. What the forecast does establish is a mechanism: a warming event that's still gathering strength, layered on top of a baseline that keeps climbing every year fossil-fuel emissions continue. Whether the next twelve months bring relief or just a pause before a bigger spike is, for now, closer to a probability than a certainty, but the scientists tracking it aren't treating it as a coin flip.

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