Global average temperatures between 2026 and 2030 are expected to remain at or near record highs, with a 75% chance that the five-year average will exceed 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline, according to a report released on May 28 by the UN World Meteorological Organization and the UK Met Office[s3,s4,s6-s12].
There is also an 86% probability that at least one year in this period will surpass 2024 as the warmest year on record globally. The year 2024 itself set a new high at approximately 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels[s3,s4,s6-s12]. The report projects the global mean near-surface temperature during 2026-2030 will fall between 1.3°C and 1.9°C above the 1850-1900 average[s3,s4,s6-s9,s11,s12].
The Arctic is expected to warm much faster than the global average, with winter temperatures rising about 2.8°C above the 1991-2020 baseline—more than 3.5 times faster than the rest of the world[s3,s4,s8,s10-s12]. Arctic sea ice in regions such as the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk is predicted to decline further each March from 2026 to 2030 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
An El Niño event forecast to begin late in 2026 could boost the chances of 2027 becoming a record-breaking warm year, says Leon Hermanson, lead author of the WMO report [6, 7, 8, 5]. "There is an El Niño predicted for the end of 2026, which increases the chances of the following year, 2027, being the next record-breaking year," Hermanson said [7].
Globally, the 11 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2015, underscoring a persistent warming trend [9, 6, 7, 5]. In Europe—the fastest-warming continent—record May heatwaves hit Britain, France, and Ireland between May 25-26, with Europe's average temperature increase since pre-industrial times reaching about 2.4°C versus the global rise of roughly 1.4°C [10, 11, 9, 5]. Researchers attribute Europe's rapid warming to human-driven greenhouse gas emissions and geographic factors including Arctic warming and more frequent blocking high-pressure systems that cause heatwaves. Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus director, noted a recent trend favoring anticyclonic conditions that make heatwaves more likely [10]. Dr Ben Clarke from Imperial College London said, "Almost all of this heat is driven by the human-induced greenhouse effect from fossil fuel emissions, with the actual distribution determined by several factors" [10].
The predictions also include wetter winters in northern hemisphere high latitudes and drier conditions in parts of the Amazon region during 2026-2030 [1, 2, 3, 8, 5]. The chance of annual global temperatures exceeding 2°C above the pre-industrial average in this period is extremely low, under 1% [3, 5].
Dr Melissa Seabrook from the UK Met Office emphasized the certainty of ongoing warming, saying, "There’s very clear evidence that the climate is warming and that the global average temperature is continuing to rise" [1]. Michael Jacobs of the University of Sheffield stressed urgency: "Climate change is happening, it is getting worse, and the only way of slowing it down is to move as fast as possible to renewable energy and electrification" [8].
The next key development will be monitoring the predicted El Niño event starting at the end of 2026, which is expected to influence global temperatures substantially in 2027 [6, 7, 8, 5].
