August was the joint-hottest month ever recorded around the world, with global temperatures hitting 1.65C above preindustrial levels, scientists announced Thursday - a sentence that should probably come with a complimentary cold towel and a stern talk with humanity.
August 2026 tied with July 2023 for the hottest month on record, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. Sea surface temperatures also soared to their highest levels ever recorded for August, because the oceans apparently wanted in on the misery.
And here's the kicker: these temperatures were logged even before the coming El Niño weather system has made much of an impact. El Niño is that naturally recurring phenomenon where wind changes over the Pacific send ocean temperatures rising and dump huge amounts of heat into the atmosphere, with consequences felt worldwide in floods, droughts, and heatwaves. This year's El Niño, likely to peak toward the end of the year, is forecast to be potentially the most intense on record - now supercharged by the climate crisis, like a house fire with a turbocharger.
Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, put it plainly: "While El Niño is starting to ramp up the heat, the underlying driver [behind this year's high temperatures] remains our relentless burning of fossil fuels. Climate change makes every El Niño hotter, and until we stop burning coal, oil and gas, these record-shattering months will simply keep on coming."
The fallout from August's extreme heat is still being tallied worldwide: devastating wildfires, damaged harvests, excess deaths from heatwaves, and disruptions to transport, business, and public services in many countries. Food price inflation is likely to climb further as smaller harvests ripple through domestic markets and imports - because nothing says "climate crisis" like paying more for bread.
Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, noted that the economic and social damage of the summer is still being counted. "Extreme heat [has been] killing millions and costing trillions, hitting transport and health systems, and pushing up prices for household basics like food," he said. "The evidence is irrefutable: this is the spiralling price of humanity's fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fuelling." He called for governments to respond with "a faster shift to clean energy, which is now cheaper than fossil fuels, protecting our forests and the ocean, and building climate resilience" - radical ideas like "use the cheaper thing" and "maybe protect the planet."
Temperatures did exceed 1.5C above preindustrial levels, the lower of two limits set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement that governments pledged to strive to keep. Such highs would need to persist for several years before the agreement is judged breached, but the UN conceded the "overshoot" this month and said large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would be needed to fix it - because nothing pairs better with record heat than a giant vacuum cleaner.
Data from the Copernicus Earth observation satellite service also confirmed that western and central Europe, along with areas of Scandinavia and southeastern Europe, saw much drier than usual conditions over the summer. Meanwhile, much of the southern US, northern Mexico, parts of Canada, the Maghreb, part of the Horn of Africa, Siberia, large parts of central Asia, China, South America, South Africa, and northern Australia were all drier than average. Basically, if you were hoping for rain, you were in the wrong hemisphere.
The further temperatures rise above the 1.5C threshold, the greater the chance of hitting planetary "tipping points" that could push temperatures much higher and irreversibly break down key climate stabilisers like the Arctic ice cap and the Amazon rainforest. Ruth Fuller, chief adviser on climate to WWF UK, said: "This year has seen records broken left, right and centre, increasing the risk that natural systems will irreversibly change once they are pushed past tipping points."
Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates the Copernicus service, called August 2026 "a remarkable month in the global climate record." She added: "It was both the warmest August and the warmest month ever recorded, with global temperatures reaching 1.65C above preindustrial 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 the atmosphere and the oceans. The impacts of these conditions are increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world."
So, to recap: hottest month ever, hottest August ever, hottest sea surface temperatures for August ever, and El Niño hasn't even hit its stride yet. The only thing breaking faster than these records is our ability to pretend this is normal.