Rising temperature
On July 21, 2026, the world temperature was at a record high for the time of year (image below).
On July 21, 2026, the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was also at a record high for the time of year (image below).
The temperature in the Tropics was at a record high for the time of year on July 22, 2026 (image below).
On July 21, 2026, the temperature in the Arctic was at a record high for the time of year (image below).
The Arctic is especially vulnerable to high temperatures. The amount of insolation received by the Arctic is very high at this time of year. Furthermore, high Arctic temperature peaks were earlier reached in 2016, when a very strong El Niño was present. This time, the 2026 El Niño is on track to be even stronger.
Insolation changes with the seasons and also changes between day and night. In the image below, adapted from Wikipedia, latitude is on the vertical axis and time of year is on the top horizontal axis.
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| [ The June Solstice in 2026 occurred on June 21, 2026. ] |
In the Arctic, annual insolation is at its highest at the June Solstice, i.e. June 21 for the year 2026. Around this time of year, the sunlight has less distance to travel through the thinner atmosphere over the Arctic, compared to the atmosphere at the Equator. Therefore, less sunlight gets absorbed or scattered over the Arctic before reaching the surface.
In addition, the high angle of the Sun produces long days, while sunlight is also concentrated over a smaller area. Above the Arctic Circle, the Sun does not set at this time of year, so solar radiation continues all day and night. During the months of June and July, insolation over the Arctic is higher than anywhere else on Earth.
How much sunlight does reach the Arctic surface further depends on weather conditions such as clouds and how much heat gets pushed by the wind toward the North Pole. As temperatures have risen over the years, the Jet Stream has become more deformed, increasing the danger that heatwaves over land extend over the Arctic Ocean. Deformation of the Jet Stream can also lead to increasingly strong winds speeding up ocean currents that can abruptly push huge amounts of ocean heat into the Arctic ocean, as further discussed at the post Arctic sea ice July 2022.
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| [ Arctic heating up most strongly ] |
This partly explains why the temperature rise is accelerating most strongly in the Arctic. The image on the right, adapted from NASA, shows anomalies versus 1951-1980 as high as 3.88°C.
Further contributing to the strong rise in the Arctic are albedo changes, loss of the latent heat buffer, and jet stream changes that can cause more heatwaves and more ocean heat moving into the Arctic Ocean and result in methane releases.
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| [ forecast for August 2, 2026 ] |
Very high temperatures are increasingly occurring at higher altitudes. The image on the right shows a forecast for August 2, 2026, of high temperatures reaching Canada, as illustrated by the image on the right.
A recent study led by Christina Schädel warns that permafrost fires and thaw will release 63 Gt C for each degree Celsius rise in temperature, while emissions from permafrost fires and thaw are often excluded from calculations of anthropogenic emissions.
A recent Northern Hemisphere lakes study led by Jian Zhou finds that as a critical thermal threshold of mean winter air temperature gets crossed, the sensitivity of ice loss increases by up to 22-fold.
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| [ forecast for August 8, 2026 ] |
The image on the right shows a forecast for August 8, 2026, of high temperatures hitting a large part of South Dakota, further showing that high temperatures can reach higher latitudes north.
The forecast also constitutes a warning that higher temperatures at higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere come with the danger of massive thawing of Arctic permafrost, melting of Arctic sea ice and releases of large amounts of greenhouse gases.
Sea surface temperature
As temperatures at higher latitudes rise, the danger increases that a huge amount of warm, salty water suddenly gets pushed into the Arctic Ocean by a cyclone, destabilizing sediments at the seafloor and triggering eruptions of methane from hydrates. This danger has been discussed in many earlier posts such as this 2018 post.
As illustrated by the image below, the world (60°S–60°N, 0–360°E) sea surface temperature was 21.2°C on August 5, 2026, a record high temperature and 0.99°C higher than 1982-2010 (which is not pre-industrial). The globe (inset bottom left) shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on August 5, 2026.
Ocean heat is getting pushed along the path of the Gulf Stream from the North Atlantic through the Fram Strait into the Arctic Ocean and - to a lesser extent - from the North Pacific through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean.
The image below shows sea surface temperatures as high as 33.3°C (or 91.94°F) around North America on August 2, 2026. The image also illustrates geographic conditions facilitating the Gulf Stream to push ocean heat north in the Atlantic Ocean toward the Arctic.
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| [ Sea surface temperatures as high as 33.3°C, click on images to enlarge ] |
The 2026 El Niño
The 2026 El Niño is on track to cause very high sea surface temperatures over the next few months.
The image below, adapted from NOAA, shows a sea surface temperature anomaly versus 1991-2020 forecast dated July 31, 2026, for the Niño3.4 region (which is most indicative for El Niño development). Forecasts approach 5°C for parts of some members and exceed 4°C for part of the CFS.v2 (Coupled Forecast System version 2) ensemble mean (the black dashed line).
The image below shows a sea surface temperature anomaly forecast dated July 31, 2026, for the Niño3 region. Forecasts of many members partly exceed 5°C, while part of the mean approaches 5°C.
The image below shows that the sea surface temperature in the Nino3.4 region was 29.59°C on August 4, 2026, 2.75°C higher than 1982-2010 and a jump of 3.84°C in a span of less than 7 months from the 25.75°C recorded on January 9, 2026. The globe (inset bottom) shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on August 4, 2026 with the Nino3.4 region highlighted in the Pacific Ocean.
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| [ click on images to enlarge ] |
The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1971-2000 on August 4, 2026. A huge amount of ocean heat has accumulated in the Pacific Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean, overwhelming colder areas that were previously present in the oceans.
High and rising air and sea surface temperatures threaten to devastate sea ice. Arctic sea ice typically reaches its minimum extent in September. An Arctic Blue Ocean Event would strongly speed up acceleration of the temperature rise. The 2026 El Niño is still getting stronger and is on track to continue into early 2027. Antarctic sea ice typically reaches its minimum extent in February, so an Antarctic Blue Ocean Event could follow in early 2027.
Sea ice
The combination image below shows Arctic sea ice concentration on August 4, 2026 (left), and Arctic sea ice thickness on August 4, 2026 (right).
As illustrated by the image below, the global sea ice extent was 2.9 million km² lower than 1981-2010, a deviation of -4.11σ, on July 27, 2026 (highlighted in black). The year 2025 is highlighted in blue and the years 2023 and 2024 are highlighted in purple.
The above image shows that the 2026 global sea ice extent anomaly has come down since the 2026 El Niño started to develop. The 2026 El Niño is on track to strengthen over the coming months, which spells bad news for both Arctic sea ice and Antarctic sea ice, and comes with the danger that a Double Blue Ocean Event will occur.
Conclusion
The situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates the danger to be acknowledged, while facilitating rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as in this 2022 post and this 2025 post, and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.
Links
• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org
https://climatereanalyzer.org
• NASA - Goddard Institute for Space Studies
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp
• Blue Ocean Event
• ECMWF - The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
https://charts.ecmwf.int
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2610752123
discussed on facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10164551691999679
• Permafrost and wildfire carbon emissions indicate need for additional action to keep Paris Agreement temperature goals within reach - by Christina Schädel et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03189-5
discussed on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10163804667894679
• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html
• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html
• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html
