| Outcome | Probability | Yes Bid | Yes Ask | 24h Change | Volume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hottest | 0% | 0¢ | 0¢ | — | $0 | Trade → |
This market asks whether 2026 will be the warmest calendar year on the instrumental global record; it aggregates expectations about near-term climate variability and the trajectory of human-caused warming. The outcome matters for understanding short-term climate risk and for signaling how natural variability and forcings combine in the near term.
Global mean surface temperatures have trended upward over decades, and several recent years rank among the warmest on record. Superimposed on that trend are year-to-year swings driven by phenomena such as El Niño and volcanic aerosols, so whether any particular year becomes the warmest depends on the combination of the long-term trend and short-term natural drivers.
Market prices synthesize traders' judgments about whether 2026 will exceed prior annual records under the contract's settlement definition; they reflect collective expectations and new information but are not guarantees of future observations.
The market will use the exact global temperature metric and dataset specified in the contract terms (for example, a particular agency's global mean surface temperature for the calendar year); check the market's rules page to see which dataset and calculation method will be used for settlement.
The market's close is currently listed as TBD; settlement will occur after the contract's designated data provider releases the official 2026 annual value according to the market's settlement schedule — preliminary agency estimates typically appear in the weeks to months after year-end and may be followed by later revisions as documented in the market rules.
An El Niño during 2026 increases the chance that the global annual mean will reach or exceed previous record highs because it tends to add a global-scale warming anomaly, while a La Niña tends to have the opposite effect; the strength and timing of ENSO relative to the calendar year matter for the annual average.
The decisive dataset will be the one named in the contract. Commonly referenced providers include national agencies and research centers that publish global annual temperature estimates (e.g., agencies that maintain global mean surface temperature products), but the contract specifies which agency/version controls settlement.
Settlement follows the version and timing rules in the contract. If the contract ties settlement to the initially published or a specific revised version from the named provider, that version governs the outcome; read the event's settlement rules to see how later corrections are handled.