August recorded as hottest month ever globally

Global temperatures reached 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels as extreme heat, drought, wildfires and rising ocean temperatures intensified worldwide August 2026 tied July 2023 as the hottest month ever recorded, with the planet's average temperature reaching 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The record comes as climate change continues to intensify extreme weather, while a strengthening El Niño threatens to push global temperatures even higher in the months ahead. Global temperatures hit another record C3S said August had an average global surface air temperature of 16.96°C, making it jointly the warmest month in records dating back to 1940. The temperature was 1.65°C above the 19th-century average, before humans began burning coal, oil and gas on an industrial scale. Emissions from fossil fuels remain the main driver of human-caused climate change. August was also the first month since November 2025 in which global average temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Temperatures above 1.5°C are significant because the 2015 Paris climate agreement established that level as the lower of two limits that nearly 200 countries agreed to strive to prevent in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. However, a single month above 1.5°C does not technically mean the Paris target has been permanently breached. The threshold is assessed using a long-term average over decades, and global warming currently stands at around 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels. The UN said last week that keeping long-term warming within 1.5°C is no longer possible and urged governments to accelerate cuts in carbon dioxide emissions to limit the extent of any overshoot. El Niño could drive temperatures higher Scientists said the record heat was driven by the continuing effects of human-caused climate change combined with the growing influence of El Niño. El Niño is a naturally recurring climate pattern in which changes in winds over the Pacific cause unusually warm ocean temperatures and release large amounts of stored heat into the atmosphere. Its effects can be felt around the world through heatwaves, floods and droughts. The current El Niño is still strengthening and could become one of the most powerful on record, according to the Copernicus team. Its strongest influence on global temperatures is expected over the coming year, meaning the current sequence of record-breaking temperatures could continue. The tropical Pacific has already recorded exceptionally high temperatures as the El Niño pattern develops. Oceans also reach record heat The extreme heat was not limited to land. The world's oceans outside the polar regions also recorded their joint-highest sea surface temperature for any month on record, according to C3S. The combination of record air temperatures and ocean heat shows how climate change is driving increasingly severe extremes across both the atmosphere and the oceans. Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said El Niño was beginning to add heat, but the underlying driver remained the continued burning of fossil fuels. She said climate change makes every El Niño hotter and warned that record-breaking months would continue unless coal, oil and gas consumption is reduced. Western Europe records hottest summer August also capped the hottest summer ever recorded in western Europe, with extreme heat surpassing the deadly summer of 2003. Western and central Europe, parts of Scandinavia and southeastern Europe experienced much drier-than-usual conditions during the summer. The combination of repeated heatwaves and unusually low river flows and soil moisture created additional problems for farmers after extreme heat since May damaged crops. The impact was also reflected in the United Kingdom, which experienced its hottest summer since records began in 1884. The UK Met Office found that human-caused climate change made the conditions around 130 times more likely. Heat disrupts daily life across Europe Samantha Burgess, strategic lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said the extreme conditions had exposed how poorly adapted communities were to intensifying heat. She pointed to melting roads, buckling railway lines, school closures, overwhelmed hospitals and record wildfires occurring unusually early or intensely for the time of year. Burgess said climate change had moved from being an abstract issue occurring far away to something increasingly capable of disrupting people's daily lives. Dr Clair Barnes, an extreme weather researcher at Imperial College London, said the summer heat across the UK and Europe had carried a 'very real human cost.' She said the heat disrupted schools, placed pressure on hospitals, damaged food production, fuelled fires and drought, and contributed to tens of thousands of deaths. Barnes rejected the idea that such extreme summers should simply be accepted as the 'new normal,' warning that records would continue to fall and extremes would worsen until fossil fuel burning is stopped. Wildfires, drought and floods hit worldwide Extreme weather and climate-related disasters affected countries across the globe during August. Scientists said climate change likely contributed to landslides and flash floods that killed hundreds of people in Nepal and China's Tibet, although researchers are still studying the precise links. Wildfires surged from Indonesia to Greece and Belgium, while severe drought affected Hungary and Romania. Other regions also experienced unusually dry conditions, including the southern United States, northern Mexico, parts of Canada, the Maghreb, the Horn of Africa, Siberia, large areas of Central Asia, China, South America, South Africa and northern Australia. The extreme heat also left behind devastating wildfires, crop damage, excess deaths and disruptions to transport, businesses and public services in many countries. Smaller harvests are expected to put further pressure on food prices as their effects reach domestic markets and increase dependence on imports. Climate impacts carry growing economic cost UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the full economic and social cost of the extreme summer was still being calculated. He said extreme heat was killing millions, costing trillions, putting pressure on transport and health systems and pushing up the prices of household essentials such as food. 'The evidence is irrefutable: this is the spiralling price of humanity's fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fuelling,' Stiell said. He called on governments to accelerate the transition to clean energy, protect forests and oceans and strengthen climate resilience. Scientists warn records will continue to fall Dr Samantha Burgess of Copernicus described August as a 'remarkable month in the global climate record,' saying its effects were increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems worldwide. She said record air temperatures, record ocean heat and an exceptional European summer demonstrated how climate change was driving extremes across both land and oceans. C3S records stretch back to 1940 and are cross-checked against global temperature records dating back to 1850. The latest data underline the growing pressure on governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly as the developing El Niño could add further heat to an already warming planet. With El Niño expected to strengthen toward the end of 2026, scientists warn that the world may not have seen the last of these temperature records.