The world experienced its warmest October on record, and 2026 is all but certain to become the second calendar year after 2024 to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Friday, November 6.

October 2026 had an average global surface air temperature 1.75 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, Copernicus said in its monthly bulletin, making it the warmest October ever recorded and a third straight month above the 1.5-degree threshold, Reuters reported.

Copernicus said 2026 is most likely to be the second-hottest year on record, with about a 20 percent chance of tying or exceeding 2024, currently the warmest year on record, AFP reported. An exceptionally strong El Nino weather pattern in the tropical Pacific is turbocharging human-driven global warming, the service said.

What the 1.5-degree line means

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That target refers to a long-term average, so a single year above the mark does not by itself mean the Paris limit has been breached, Copernicus noted.

Even so, the service said the four-year average from 2023 to 2026 is also expected to top 1.5 degrees — a sign of how close the long-term average is moving to the threshold. Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus, linked the exceptional heat to the strong El Nino on top of human-driven warming.

Forecasters cited by AFP say the same El Nino could help make 2027 the hottest year on record.

The Copernicus bulletin lands days before world climate talks open in Turkey, where governments will argue over how fast to cut emissions. Read: COP31 opens Monday in Antalya with 200 nations

For Punjab and the wider region, hotter years mean harsher summers, heavier monsoon extremes and greater heat risk for outdoor workers, including farm workers at home and Punjabi workers across the Gulf — where summer temperatures already test safety limits.

Sources: Copernicus Climate Change Service monthly bulletin, November 6, 2026, reported by Reuters and by AFP via Phys.org.