With all the July model runs now in, it is very likely that 2026 will see the largest El Niño event since records began in the late 1800s – and potentially by a truly mind-blowing margin. The median estimate is now 3.6C, roughly 0.8C hotter than the prior record (2.75C). www.theclimatebrink....

My current prediction for 2026 global temperatures (using ERA5) is 1.58C, but year-to-date temperatures are only 1.45C: dashboard.theclimate... This seems like a bit gap, so I thought I'd look at how big a gap there is between year to date and final annual values in past years:

I enjoyed listening to Bill McKibben on Ezra Klein's podcast. Its refreshing to hear a strong case for a future of clean energy abundance and highlight a lot of positive energy trends. That said, there are a few points where I'd add nuance to Bill's arguments. www.nytimes.com/2026...

Why is AC so rare in much of Europe? Well, until recently it simply wasn't hot enough to need it. Here is the average number of days above 30C (86F) for major cities over time:

Folks skeptical of human-driven warming like to point to a period of somewhat less rapid warming from 1900-1945. In a new analysis at TCB, I dig into the different factors driving it, and find that humans, natural factors, and variability all played an important role: www.theclimatebrink....

The global surface temperature record is one of the most iconic figures in climate science. We now have 12 different groups of researchers from the US, UK, EU, Japan, and China (among others) that have calculated it and found nearly identical results:

Fascinating report by Lily Bermal that despite the Trump admin's efforts more than half of carbon reductions under the IRA remain intact, at least for the power sector. This is in part due to continuing cost-competitiveness of solar and wind post-subsidies ceepr.mit.edu/workin...

July ECMWF runs are in and forecast an even more extreme El Niño event than the prior June runs. ENSO3.4 region temperatures reach 3.9C in December, and forecasts are around 0.3C warmer than they were in June.

We are nearly done with the first order draft of the IPCC AR7 report (working group 1). Register to review our work and provide feedback!

On this hot fourth of July it is worth reminding folks that its not the sun that's causing global warming. Solar output (as measured by satellites) has been flat over the past 50 years when global temperatures have shot up. Its our emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

I spent some time last weekend putting together a personal website that has an automatically-updating list of my blog posts, articles, op-eds, and media mentions. Surprisingly easy to do now with tools like Claude Code:

June 2026 was the second warmest June on record (after 2024) in the ERA5 dataset, at 1.39C above preindustrial levels. While we expect warmer temperatures later this year as El Niño kicks in, 2026 is now increasingly likely (~86% chance) to be the second warmest year on record.

I used the newly (re)released Fable 5 release to give my Climate Dashboard a major design improvement – and add a bunch of new features in the process. Check it out at: dashboard.theclimate...

Go home CFSv2, you're drunk. 😳

The first July ENSO model runs are now available from the two Canadian models (CanSIPS CanESM5 and GEM-NEMO). There is abig (~0.6C) increase in the projected El Nino intensity for CanESM5, which had been one of the cooler models, and a smaller 0.2C bump for GEM-NEMO.

My colleague Frauke Kracke is organizing a session on surficial mineralization for carbon dioxide removal at the AGU this year. If you are working on something related, submit an abstract! agu.confex.com/agu/a...

Heat pumps are air conditioners. And air conditioners are (unidirectional) heat pumps. Opposing access to AC for ostensibly "climate" reasons is shortsighted, as they are a key adaptation technology to prevent suffering even while we continue to work to reduce emissions.

NEW ANALYSIS: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time What's that you say? Something something demand, something something ZEV mandate? Take a look at the data: www.carbonbrief.org/...

Heat waves are driven by weather patterns but occur on the backdrop of a rapidly warming world. Without climate change the current European heat wave would have been ~3.2 °C (5.8 °F) cooler. Heat impacts are non-linear, so this higher severity can lead to much greater suffering

Truly insane that being pro-AC is somehow more right-wing than left-wing in Europe. AC is life saving under climate change. Progressives should absolutely support it. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Join us this Thursday: @rarohde.bsky.social on findings from our May 2026 temp update, @hausfath.bsky.social w/ updates on the El Niño outlook, and what current conditions, including the heat building across Europe, signal for the remainder of 2026. Open to all. To register: tinyurl.com/57nwt93d

With all the June runs in, here is how 13 different model expect the spatial evolution of tropical SST anomalies by November:

Last week, Frontier announced that we are doubling the size of our advanced market commitment to support the development of durable carbon removal, with an additional $915 million from both existing Frontier members and new ones like Anthropic

The world has warmed by around 1.4C since 1850. It took 148 years for the first half of that warming to occur, and just 27 years for the second half!

Neat piece in today's Washington Post highlighting my projections for global temperatures in 2026 and 2027 in light of the potentially record setting El Niño event developing later this year: www.washingtonpost.c...

Our 2026 Indicators of Global Climate Change paper is out! We find that the human-induced warming was 1.37C in 2025, and the current rate of warming is 0.27C per year, on track to firmly pass 1.5C in about four years: essd.copernicus.org/...

One advantage of having future predictions on my Climate Dashboard is that I can look back at how well they have performed compared to actual observations. For example, here are all the past ENSO predictions vs actual ENSO3.4 temps: dashboard.theclimate...

With June runs in for all the ENSO models and the "spring predictability barrier" mostly behind us, the odds of a record-breaking El Niño event this fall have continued to increase. Here are all the latest runs (including today's C3S updates):

Global CO2 emissions have slowed down, therefore we expect atmospheric CO2 to be lower than if emissions continued to grow. I did a figure quite similar to @hausfath.bsky.social a while back & it is the same story (& similar numbers): www.theclimatebrink.com/p/plateauing... But, is it correct? 1/

A number of folks were asking how much of this change comes from slower fossil fuel growth (e.g. due to cheap clean energy and some coal-to-gas switching) and how much comes from declining land use emissions.

Claude Fable 5 (nee Mythos) is out today. One of the ways I like to test new models is by giving them daily global temperature data (ERA5) and asking them to come up with some creative and compelling visualizations. Here is how Fable did!

Global CO2 emissions have plateaued since 2013, leading to a slower growth in atmospheric CO2 than would have otherwise been the case. In a new analysis at The Climate Brink, I've taken look at what would have happened if emissions had continued to grow: www.theclimatebrink....

Carbon Brief is launching a new fortnightly climate science newsletter called "Cited"! Sign up here to get the latest updates from our awesome science team:

We have a new paper out on the value of reversible carbon storage in a zero-emissions world, led by Allegra Mayer and with Dr. Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Jerome Dumortier, and Eric Slessarev! We try and answer the question of when it makes sense to "rent" vs "buy" CDR: pubs.acs.org/doi/10....

The new ECMWF June runs are pretty hot, but they are just trying to keep up with CFSv2!

May 2026 was the second warmest May on record in the ERA5 dataset, at 1.42C above preindustrial (1850-1900) levels.

Another big El Nino update: CanSIPS (the Canadian modeling group) updated their April 30th run to a new May 31st one, with a big impact (+0.9C) on the cooler CanESM5 model. That model, along with Germany's DWD, had been the only ones perviously forecasting a relatively weak event.

The latest CFSv2 model results for El Nino (ONI) anomalies later this year are kinda nuts, with a peak at nearly 3.9C in November. NOAA needs to once again raise the y-axis range; here is what it should look like without all the runs above 4C cut off:

If we can get global CO2 emissions to zero, we generally expect the world to stop warming. But why this occurs is fascinating: cooling from falling atmospheric CO2 is more or less perfectly counterbalanced by warming from ocean temperature equilibration.

Today the @wmo-global.bsky.social released projections of where temperatures may end up over the next five years (baed on 13 different models and 250 ensemble members): wmo.int/resources/pu... Their estimates for 2026 and 2027 are quite close to my (updated) ones:

While the shale gas revolution has transformed the US electricity system, so has the rise of wind and solar which have added nearly as much generation as gas since 2005. Both have met new demand while decimating US coal generation.

Predicting the future of energy is hard, and reality has a way of moving in directions we don't anticipate. Andrew Dessler has a new piece over at The Climate Brink on how energy systems have evolved in the US compared to expectations: www.theclimatebrink....

I've got to say that I'm really disappointed in the recent discourse surrounding the RCP8.5 scenario. The lack of context and understanding is something I expected from the usual suspects, but it's frustrating to see such bad takes from people and outlets who should know better.

Thomas Crowther, co-author of the debunked Science article claiming planting a trillion trees can be a major solution to the climate crisis, is in The Guardian today, doubling down on his claim that "nature" can be a preferred solution to the climate crisis. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

My latest post has been weeks in the making, but is particularly timely because RCP8.5 has been in the news this week: open.substack.com/pub/thesarap...

People have asked me what I think, so... Scenarios, schmenarios… www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...

NEW – Factcheck: Trump’s false claims about the IPCC and ‘RCP8.5’ climate scenario | @rtmcswee.carbonbrief.org @ceciliakeating.carbonbrief.org @hausfath.bsky.social Read here: buff.ly/727LWJo

Where would CO2 emissions go if there was no climate policy? People have been trying to answer that question for years, & depending on socioeconomics and model, CO2 emissions could rise (like RCP8.5) or even decline (like RCP4.5)! www.theclimatebrink.com/p/on-the-dea... 1/

Two things can be true: • RCP8.5 was never a realistic "business as usual" scenario • The world has made real progress bending the emissions curve down Glen Peters, Piers Forster, and I explain in a new article: www.theclimatebrink.... 1/11

Also understand that if your take is that every single study ever done with a scenario that is not to your liking needs to be re-done once a new set of scenarios comes out, then you both don't understand how science works and how research works, or, alternatively, you're just incredibly in bad faith