August has matched the hottest month ever logged worldwide, as global temperatures surged to 1.65C above pre-industrial levels, scientists have reported.
The month drew level with July 2023 as the hottest calendar month in the temperature record and also set a new mark as the warmest August recorded globally, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Across Western Europe, Copernicus said this summer was the hottest on record, edging past the long-standing peak set in 2003.
2026 saw the hottest ever June-August period for 1.3bn people
Copernicus scientists said August heatwaves extended a spell of extreme temperatures that began in May. Severe drought has affected the UK, France, Hungary, Romania and Serbia, while major rivers including the Rhine, the Danube and the Dnieper registered exceptionally low flows.
Worldwide, August came in at 1.65C above the estimated 1850-1900 average, a period before humans began burning fossil fuels at scale. That activity releases greenhouse gases that will keep pushing temperatures higher until overall emissions are reduced to zero — a goal known as net zero.
Scientists said the month also signalled a return to temperatures above a key 1.5C threshold compared with pre-industrial averages, the first time the figure has been exceeded since November 2025.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations committed to keeping long-term warming “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C, in an attempt to avoid the worst impacts of climate change such as more intense droughts, heatwaves and floods, rising seas and collapses in wildlife.
People use umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun in London last month
Last month also delivered record-high sea surface temperatures, which scientists linked to global heating caused by burning fossil fuels and rapidly warming Pacific waters associated with the strong El Nino weather pattern.
Sea surface temperatures outside the polar regions reached their highest for any August on record at 21.07C, and were also the joint highest for any month, matching March 2024.
‘Warmest August and warmest month ever recorded’
The hottest months recorded
Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF, said: “August 2026 was a remarkable month in the global climate record.
“It was both the warmest August and the warmest month ever recorded, with global temperatures reaching 1.65C above pre-industrial levels, marking the return of global temperatures above 1.5C.
“Combined with record global sea surface temperatures and the warmest summer on record for Western Europe, these observations show how climate change is driving extremes across both the atmosphere and the oceans.
“The impacts of these conditions are increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Dr Burgess said Europe is “maladapted” for the current climate, “let alone future climate extremes” that are yet to occur.
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She said scientists have been presenting governments with evidence for decades, but the scale of extreme weather is rising as the planet warms.
“The implications of heat on health in particular are enormous and what we’ve seen this summer is that ultimately Europe is maladapted to our existing climate, let alone future climate extremes that are already built into the pipeline,” Dr Burgess said.
Dr Burgess said cities and infrastructure must be updated “to make sure we’re much more resilient to future climate change that’s coming at us rapidly”.
“We’re a couple of months out from COP31 in Turkey and we really need to see much more ambitious climate action, both on the mitigation side to get to net zero as quickly as possible,” she added.
Reacting to the new data, Gareth Redmond-King, head of international programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said another “warning siren” was sounding two months before the UN climate summit Cop31.
He said: “World leaders gathering ahead of Cop31 in the coming weeks know the solution: cut greenhouse gas emissions rapidly towards net zero while strengthening resilience to the impacts already locked in.
“The task now is to match the scale of the science with the scale of action, supporting communities already on the front line of climate impacts while accelerating the transition away from coal, oil and gas to bring our climate back into balance.”
People seek relief from high temperatures in Nice, France
‘These numbers should surprise no one’
Prof Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said: “I run the risk of sounding like a broken record, but these numbers should surprise no one.
“You don’t need to be a climate scientist to see the evidence of climate change, you just need to look out of your window.
“While El Nino is starting to ramp up the heat, the underlying driver remains our relentless burning of fossil fuels.”
“Climate change makes every El Nino hotter, and until we stop burning coal, oil, and gas, these record-shattering months will simply keep on coming,” she said.
Minister for climate transition Katie White said: “Our hottest summer ever is a brutal reminder that we’re not waiting for climate change to arrive in Britain, we’re living in the middle of it.
“With kids too hot to sleep, families worrying about older relatives, farmers watching fields dry out, and firefighters and our armed forces battling wildfires, we’ve all woken up to a reality none of us wants for the people and places we love.
“That makes us more determined to act, with some of the biggest and boldest action in a generation to electrify our economy and tackle climate change with clean energy made in Britain.
“We’re seizing the opportunity to upgrade Britain, backing our best scientists, entrepreneurs and technologies to make us happier, healthier and wealthier.”
