What to Expect from the 2026-27 Super El Niño

An El Niño climate pattern occurs every two to seven years, on average—but the El Niño that has already begun in the tropical Pacific may be one for the record books. Many climate scientists predict this “Super El Niño” will be the strongest ever recorded, with impacts that stretch around the world.

Julia Cole, professor and chair of the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, is the lead author of a new study about past El Niños. We asked her about her research, what to expect from the 2026–27 El Niño, and how the state of Michigan might be affected. 

For their research, Cole’s team examined modern and ancient corals from the Galápagos Islands and found that El Niño events in the last four decades were stronger than any in the 1,000 years prior to about 1850, when humans began impacting the climate with greenhouse gases. Cole’s team coordinated with local agencies, including the Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Research Station. The findings, published in Science, were supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the United Kingdom Natural Environmental Research Council. 

LSA: How did your team examine the coral from the Galápagos?

Julia Cole: We went to the Galápagos looking for these large, old corals, which we knew would preserve a history of ocean temperature in the chemistry of their skeleton. Corals build their skeleton over decades, even centuries, and we can sample those back a millimeter at a time. We were able to take a core from top to bottom, from young to old, from dozens of corals. Corals grow one to two centimeters per year by secreting layers of calcium carbonate, and the chemistry of these layers gives us a record of the seawater temperature over time as the corals were growing. We could see the history of temperature variations, and that the El Niños that occurred in the last 40 to 50 years were much stronger than the El Niños prior to that time period.

LSA: What can the powerful 1982–83 and 1997–98 El Niños tell us about the growing intensity of such climate phenomena as the planet warms?

JC: Our findings tell us that the big El Niño events of the last 40 years are not normal in the context of the last thousand years, and that the strength of El Niño changes in parallel with the warming of global temperature. In 1982–83, virtually all the corals in Galápagos were killed. In our cores, we are able to see that the coral stopped growing and then resumed growing. In 1997–98, the corals for whatever reason were able to survive that event. One possible explanation is that we think the 1982–83 event lasted a bit longer. What we didn’t know previously was how unusual that grouping of events was. Those are the strongest events that we have in the last 40 to 50 years, and what we saw was that the events of the last 40 to 50 years have no parallel in the pre-industrial record. Not even close. And it all tracks with the warmer world.

LSA: What does your team’s research suggest about El Niño 2026–27? 

JC: Our records give us a view into the past rather than the future, but what we can say is that we see that the system has strengthened because of the warming. I will add that El Niño is a really complicated phenomenon, and there are a lot of moving parts. Warming can act on any of those parts: the wind, the clouds, the way the ocean upwells. It can make stronger variability, and it can also make weaker variability. I hope this isn’t a projection into the future, but it does seem like the pattern of stronger El Niños is continuing. Along with stronger El Niños come stronger impacts, like droughts, floods, wildfire, and food insecurity. Changes in the hydrologic cycle also lead to issues like damage to infrastructure: floods that wipe out homes, highways, or railroads. They can also lead to health effects, such as diseases like cholera.

LSA: Many of our readers live in Michigan. How might El Niño affect the state, if at all?

JC: In the northern Midwest, we tend to see warmer winters, with less snow and more rain, and that’s the main effect. The farther you are from the Pacific, the more wobbly the system is, but that is the tendency.

LSA: What are a few ways we can prepare for such intense events?

JC: I think there’s a certain amount of preparedness that can be done. One of the things El Niño does is rearrange where we get rainfall and where we don’t get rainfall. We get stronger storms striking the southern part of the U.S., for example, and you can imagine trying to be more prepared by doing things like cleaning out culverts or repairing your roof. If you are anticipating drought, there are things that could be done such as plant different crops that can help to prevent food shortages, for instance, and other efforts to prevent wildfires in those areas. 

I do want to push back on the idea that we can prepare for and adapt and be ready for all of these hazards, even in the wealthiest countries. We can’t. With global warming leading to supercharged El Niños, we expect stronger climate extremes that will amplify ecological, infrastructural, and human losses. 

We know how to solve this problem, and in a way, it’s not that hard. We used to say it would cost too much money, but renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels now. We just need the political will to solve it, and we have to bring everyone around the table to get the buy-in to use energies that are renewable. I just moved into a fossil fuel-free community, and individual efforts like that can help, but what we really need is policy and regulatory change.

Top image: Courtesy photo by Greg Asner/DivePhoto. The Galápagos Islands are known for their astounding biodiversity, a result of high nutrients and the mixing of cool and warm waters, according to Julia Cole, chair of the LSA Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Middle and bottom images: Courtesy of Julia Cole, University of Michigan.