“It is partly favored by the beginning of a new El Niño phenomenon”

The oceans continue to increase in temperature and set records. We have the latest data from June 21, when unprecedented temperatures were reached, and it is not any type of sensor or satellite calibration error. And when two of the most advanced and precise climate measurement systems on the planet issue exactly the same warning, science leaves little room for doubt: Earth’s oceans are warmer than ever for this time of year.

Double confirmation. What is truly relevant about this milestone is not the number on the thermometer, but the solidity of this data. On the one hand, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which It is the European referenceaimed at 20.86 ºC on June 21. On the other hand, Copernicus Marine Service frame on this same day 21 ºC.

Its importance. In climatology, it is crucial that two metrics with different methodological approaches converge on the same result. This double confirmation drastically reduces the probability that the record depends on a single measurement method or an instrumental failure.

The Child. This ocean thermal anomaly does not occur in a vacuum, but already at the end of May and beginning of June, the World Meteorological Organization warned that the probability of El Niño developing was unusually high, urging governments to prepare their impact mitigation plans.

The suspicions were confirmed on June 11, 2026 when the Climate Prediction Center of the US NOAA issued its ENSO Diagnostic Discussiondeclaring officially that El Niño conditions were already present in the equatorial Pacific and that the phenomenon had developed strongly during the previous month.

An important nuance. As experts point out, the fact that record temperatures coincide with the onset of El Niño does not imply complete causality. It must be taken into account that El Niño is a natural phenomenon that warms the tropical Pacific, but by itself it does not explain why the North Atlantic or the southern seas are burning.

What we are experiencing is a dangerous temporal coincidence, as El Niño is overlapping a relentless background global warming trend, driven by human-made emissions. Anthropogenic warming has raised the “base temperature” of the planet and, if you add to that artificially high base the natural peak caused by El Niño, the result is the breakdown of global thermometers that we are seeing this month.

Its effects. The sea acts as the Earth’s great thermostat, absorbing approximately 90% of the excess heat from the climate system. But this buffering capacity has limits and, above all, severe consequences. For example, a warmer sea evaporates more water and this means more atmospheric “fuel” to trigger extreme storms and more intense hurricanes.

The experts. If we turn to the voices of third-party researchers who have interpreted these results, Sergio Moreno, technician at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, in statements to SMC, states the following:

Regarding the implications of these observations, as the authors already mention, the trend of increasing sea surface temperature, which has been experienced for years, seems to be accelerating, partly favored by the beginning of a new episode of the El Niño phenomenon. Although there is always a certain degree of uncertainty in any prediction, everything seems to indicate that temperature records will continue to be broken in the coming months and years, accompanied by more intense and less predictable weather phenomena.

In Xataka | Global warming has stepped on the accelerator at an unprecedented rate and we are getting closer to the point of no return