The El Niño numbers are so strong that they are beginning to make half the world nervous. We have to be able to differentiate risk from hysteria

“More than 1.80 degrees, 3.46 standard deviations“These two figures simply summarize the enormous El Niño problem that is upon us. And yet, they say much more than they seem.

Because, while social networks are filled with phrases like «2026 will be the year when we look back and say: “there, that was when the relatively stable climate system that we have had for 10,000 years really broke down”», are just the data that two of the largest agencies in the world have just retired.

Let’s start with what we are clear about. The El Niño of 2026 is real and is coming (very) strong. After an almost testimonial Niña and as we have been counting these months, the Pacific has stepped on the accelerator and on June 11 it made an appearance. The CPC The NOAA estimates that the event is “very strong” between November and January at 63%, the highest since 1950.

So, anyway, the figures cannot surprise anyone either.

The problem is that they are inflated. That +1.80 with which the text began is the traditional Niño 3.4 index, the absolute. In short: it is the index that measures how far the Central Pacific is from its historical average. And it’s the index we’ve been using all these years.

The problem is that there was one small detail that clouded the data and that, sooner or later, we had to address: climate change. In an ocean that warms with each passing day, both La Niña and El Niño start from different places than in previous decades. We were inflating Los Niño and deflating Las Niñas without meaning to.

For this reason, in 2026, NOAA adopted the RONI, a relative index that discounted the effect of climate change. And, in this sense, the data circulating on the internet is true and worrying, yes; but incomplete.

And does the photo change much from the ONI to the RONI? Since we don’t have updated data, let’s go to April: according to NOAAthe ONI marked +0.23 °C, while the RONI was at −0.24 °C. That is to say, the difference is considerable, but the situation is much less critical.

So… the system isn’t broken? The reaction to the runaway ONI hits the mark, but misses the mark. Evidently, El Niño has not gone crazy: it is a mechanism with thousands of years behind it that works on a relatively new world.

We could see an obvious example this June: the warmest observed in the global ocean, one in which marine heat waves covered 82% of its surface.

And now…. what? In the short term, an increasingly stronger El Niño. It is true that in Spain we are relatively safe from what happens in the Pacific; but, sooner or later, we are going to notice it. As half the world is already noticing.

Image | BenBaso

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