Climate and Weather · Kalshi ·July 20, 2026 ·Edited by Samuel Jo Crowd ahead of press

2026 closes in on hottest-year record as El Niño builds

June 2026 registered as Earth's second-hottest June on record, while western Europe endured its hottest June ever amid a record heatwave, according to Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization. A developing El Niño could amplify that warmth through the remainder of the year, and The Weather Channel reports the climate pattern may drive 2026 into the ranks of the hottest years ever recorded. KSL.com notes that 2026 is already on track to be even hotter than 2025 in parts of the American West. The specific question is whether NASA GISS's unsmoothed Land-Ocean Temperature Index for 2026 will exceed both the 2025 value and the 1.28-degree-Celsius threshold. Traders lean toward No at 70%, a stance that runs cooler than the coverage's trajectory would suggest, with -1.6 pts over the past day.

Background

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies maintains the Land-Ocean Temperature Index, a surface-temperature record that combines land-station and ocean measurements and is reported annually in both smoothed and unsmoothed versions. The unsmoothed figure is the raw annual anomaly relative to a baseline period, and it is the value this question resolves on. The year 2025 already set records in many regions, with Utah logging its hottest year on record, per KSL.com. El Niño, a periodic warming of the equatorial Pacific that tends to boost global average temperatures, typically peaks in boreal winter and can elevate temperatures in the year following its onset. Copernicus and the WMO both confirmed that western Europe experienced its hottest June on record in 2026, while globally June ranked second-warmest, narrowly behind a prior year.

The precedent

• The El Niño event of 2015-16 helped drive 2016 to what was then the hottest year on record globally, a mark NASA GISS confirmed in its Land-Ocean Temperature Index.
• Every year since 2015 has ranked among the top ten warmest years in NASA GISS's surface temperature record.

Context compiled by Crowdtells from the public record — verify before relying on it.

What to watch

The market resolves December 31, 2026, when NASA GISS publishes its final unsmoothed Land-Ocean Temperature Index value for the year. Key milestones before then include monthly GISS temperature anomaly releases through the fall and winter, and the expected maturation of the El Niño pattern that The Weather Channel identifies as a potential driver of record annual heat. A sustained jump in monthly anomalies would shift the trajectory.

AI-written briefing grounded in 5 sources and the live market, edited by Samuel Jo. Odds are crowd probabilities, not advice — how this works.