‘Super El Niño’ Projected To Bring 450,000 heat related deaths, according to report — These Are the 10 Countries Most at Risk

The Climate Impact Lab has published a research paper titled, simply, “451,000 at Risk.” Its premise is that the world faces a “Super El Niño.” Under these circumstances, the authors project, “451,000 lives will be lost due to heat in the first nine months (June–February) of El Niño, compared to a normal year.”

The calculation is based on excess deaths: it compares the average number of heat-related deaths recorded each year from 1996 to 2025 with the projected number for September 2026 through February 2027.

The figure includes El Niño-caused deaths from drought, flooding, and hunger. A careful reading shows that approximately 239,000 of these deaths are projected to occur in the future. The remainder—approximately 212,000—reflects deaths already estimated to have occurred from this heat between June and August.

The authors define a “Super El Niño” as one that pushes global temperatures 2.1°F above normal. One of the most striking aspects of the research is that this is a temperature level scientists had not expected to see for another 20 years. This powerful weather event will raise temperatures for several months before they fall back to early-2026 levels. From there, temperatures will rise again gradually, toward that same level now forecast for 20 years from now. In other words, this spike represents a brief “back to the future” moment. As the authors put it, “These anomalously warm conditions will resemble the higher temperatures that climate change is projected to deliver 20 years in the future and will lead to 44% more extremely hot days than we would expect in a normal year.” They also describe the event as “a postcard from the future.”

Most of these deaths are projected to occur in the Global South—130 emerging nations across Oceania, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The heat will arrive in waves: the earliest deaths are expected in Africa, before the extreme heat moves on to Indonesia, Brazil, and India.

The research also shows that about 60% of projected deaths will occur in just ten countries (see table below). A per capita breakdown makes the toll on Africa especially clear: South Sudan (47 deaths per 100,000 people), Chad (39 per 100,000), Niger (37 per 100,000), and Sudan (35 per 100,000). Population figures are drawn from the World Bank.

Michael Greenstone, co-founder of the Climate Impact Lab and a professor at the University of Chicago, told The Guardian: “People have been able to forecast when there’s going to be shocks to crops, and give advance warning of that. This new report is opening the door to being able to do it for an even more important outcome—I would say the most important outcome—which is death.”

The top 10 countries are shown below:

Rank	Country	Projected Deaths	Share	Deaths per 100,000 People
1	Nigeria	31,400	13.2%	13.5
2	Indonesia	19,300	8.1%	6.8
3	Sudan	17,500	7.3%	34.7
4	India	15,800	6.6%	1.1
5	Brazil	13,300	5.6%	6.3
6	Niger	10,000	4.2%	37.0
7	Dem. Rep. of Congo	10,000	4.2%	9.2
8	Chad	7,900	3.3%	38.9
9	Philippines	6,500	2.7%	5.6
10	Vietnam	5,600	2.3%	5.5