Where will 2026 rank among the hottest years on record?

The core case for Yes is that 2026 is already tracking extremely hot in the global land-ocean record, and the main climatic driver now tilting the odds is the developing El Niño. Through September, 2026 ranked second year-to-date globally, which means it is close enough to 2024 that a strong final quarter can plausibly close the gap. The standout detail is the extraordinary ocean warmth: September sea-surface temperatures were record-high for that month, and the Niño 3.4 region has strengthened enough to raise the odds that late-2026 and early-2027 warmth will remain elevated. Because the annual title is determined by the full-year average, persistent ocean heat over the last three months can matter a great deal, especially when the year is already near the top of the distribution.

The main counterweight is that 2024 set a very high bar and had the advantage of being the benchmark year throughout the comparison. 2026 did not clearly lead by September, and that matters because a year that is still behind late in the calendar needs an unusually strong finish to overtake an established record holder. NOAA-style conservative outlooks also remind us that even when a year looks like a top-three finish, first place is much harder to call than a simple warm-year classification. The fact that some statistical models still favor second place indicates that the current evidence supports a favorite, but not an overwhelming certainty.

Market sentiment appears to sit between the cautious institutional baseline and the more aggressive climate-forecasting view. The market is pricing Yes around 71.5%, which is sensible given that the record heat signal is real but not fully locked in. Berkeley Earth’s very high first-place probability reflects the unusually warm oceans and El Niño dynamics, but that estimate is not identical to a final-resolution guarantee because final ranking depends on how the rest of the year evolves and how the annual mean compares with 2024. The key question is whether the late-year anomaly is strong enough to offset the gap accumulated earlier in the year; my judgment is that it is more likely than not, but still leaves meaningful room for a near-miss if the El Niño peak arrives too late or weakens sooner than expected.