August 2026 ties record as world’s hottest month

August 2026 tied as the hottest month ever recorded globally, pushing average temperatures above the critical 1.5°C threshold as extreme weather swept across several regions, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said.

The month tied with July 2023 for the highest global average temperature on record and was 1.65°C warmer than the 19th-century pre-industrial average, according to Copernicus.

It was the first month since November 2025 when global temperatures rose more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold that nearly 200 countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to pursue efforts to avoid exceeding in the long term.

A single month above 1.5°C does not mean the Paris Agreement target has been permanently breached, as the goal refers to average warming over the long term.

Extreme weather hits around the world

The record heat coincided with a series of extreme weather events and climate-related disasters.

Scientists said climate change likely contributed to conditions behind deadly landslides and flash floods in Nepal and Tibet, although the precise role of warming is still under study.

• Nepal flood death toll passes 1,000

Wildfires also spread from Indonesia to Greece and Belgium, while Hungary and Romania experienced severe drought.

Western Europe recorded its hottest summer on record, with unusually low river flows and soil moisture putting furtherpressure on farmers after repeated heatwaves damaged crops.

“The narrative around climate change has really transitioned from being quite an abstract concept that happens in a faraway place, to disrupting our daily lives,” Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts told Reuters.

She pointed to melting roads, buckling railway lines, school closures, overwhelmed hospitals and record wildfires as examples of Europe’s vulnerability to rising temperatures.

• Wildfires destroy homes across England as heatwave intensifies
• UN warns wildfires and heat waves threaten global air quality
• Canada wildfires force thousands to evacuate

Oceans also reach record temperatures

The heat extended to the world’s oceans, with sea surface temperatures outside the polar regions tying the highest level recorded for any month.

In the tropical Pacific, the developing El Niño weather pattern helped drive record temperatures.

El Niño is forecast to strengthen in the coming months, potentially adding more heat to a planet already warming because of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

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