The heat deaths have been estimated at regional level, and the researchers said the projections therefore identified where measures to protect people could be put in place and save lives. Such actions<\/a> could include better heat forecasts, cooling centres where people can shelter, increased staffing for medical facilities at the hottest times and protections for outdoor workers.<\/p>\n A graphic detailing the top 10 countries affected by El Ni\u00f1o-related heat deaths.<\/a><\/p>\n The El Ni\u00f1o currently heating up the planet burst through the highest temperature<\/a> ever recorded for the phenomenon on Monday, several months before its expected peak. The heat is so much greater than previous events that scientists have called it \u201cmind-blowing\u201d and \u201cGodzilla-level\u201d. El Ni\u00f1os are natural climate events but may be made worse by global heating<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe estimate of 451,000 people is such a large number that it can be numbing, but it is made up of parents and children, grandparents and neighbours, people going to work, caring for families, and living their lives,\u201d said Prof Michael Greenstone, co-founder of the Climate Impact Lab<\/a> and at the University of Chicago, who co-authored the report<\/a>.<\/p>\n The estimate of deaths is for the period September to February 2027, which is when current temperature forecasts end. But elevated levels of heat deaths are expected to continue until June or July 2027.<\/p>\n The most affected countries<\/a> in the next six months are the tropical nations of Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, India and Brazil. The US is in the top 20 most affected nations, with 3,500 projected additional heat deaths. More broadly, the Sahel region in Africa and south-east Asia are heavily affected.<\/p>\n Flooding in Benitu, South Sudan, 2023: the report estimates 5,600 deaths in South Sudan from the additional heat brought by the super El Ni\u00f1o in the next six months. Photograph: Luke Dray\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The El Ni\u00f1o is also a \u201cpostcard from our future\u201d, the researchers said, pushing up temperatures to the level the climate crisis is projected to deliver in 20 years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n \u201cIncreasing emergency response and better targeting our efforts can save many lives this year,\u201d said report co-author Dr Tamma Carleton at the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cBut 20 years from now, once today\u2019s extreme temperatures become the new normal, we don\u2019t want to be in a constant state of emergency.. We need to mobilise now to design, deploy and evaluate the tools that will save lives in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Down to Earth<\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The projections were made using peer-reviewed methods that track the month-by-month relationship between temperature and additional heat deaths in 24,378 regions across the world. This was combined with the forecasts for higher temperatures due to El Ni\u00f1o in the months ahead. The baseline was the number of heat deaths in the average month from 1996 to 2025.<\/p>\n Graphic<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cPeople have been able to forecast when there\u2019s going to be shocks to crops, and give advance warning of that,\u201d said Greenstone. \u201cThis new report is opening the door to being able to do it for an even more important outcome \u2013 I would say the most important outcome \u2013 which is death.\u201d The report will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, but Greenstone said that, given the urgency of the situation, \u201cit would have been irresponsible to sit on it\u201d.<\/p>\n Food supplies will also be hit by El Ni\u00f1o, with the World Food Programme warning in August that its impacts were likely to push about 50 million people into acute hunger<\/a> and drive prices up. A major El Ni\u00f1o in 1877-1878<\/a> led to more than 50m deaths due to drought and famine, with India, Brazil and China severely affected.<\/p>\n Prof Friederike Otto, at Imperial College London, told the Guardian on Monday: \u201cThe [current El Ni\u00f1o] event is a huge redistribution of energy in the climate system and is dangerous, because it is unfolding on top of a much warmer, human-influenced climate system.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, in many places around the world we will see never-before-experienced heat extremes, with all their consequences on health, food security and water stress. El Ni\u00f1o comes and goes, but as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels, it occurs on an increasingly hotter baseline, making it much more difficult for communities to deal with the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s climate forum 2026<\/a>: On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington, and our panel of experts\u2014including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here<\/a> or at guardian.live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 450,000 people are projected to die from the additional heat brought by the super El Ni\u00f1o…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-780078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Could](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790176331_916_1920.jpg\")
Could \u2018Godzilla\u2019 El Ni\u00f1o bring the hottest year on record? \u2013 video explainer<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790176334_996_500.jpg\")
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