August 2026's climate data shows the month tied with July 2023 as the joint-hottest month ever recorded globally, according to the EU's Copernicus climate service. The record, driven by human-caused climate change combined with a strengthening El Niño, matters because it pushed monthly temperatures past the critical 1.5C warming threshold and capped a summer that saw western Europe and the UK experience their hottest conditions on record, with scientists warning of real human and economic costs.

Global temperatures in August were 1.65C above pre-industrial levels, and while a single month breaching 1.5C does not mean the limit has been permanently crossed, it signals a worrying trend. The UK recorded its hottest summer since 1884, an outcome the Met Office says was made around 130 times more likely by climate change, while researchers noted the heat disrupted schools and hospitals, damaged food production and fuelled fires and drought, contributing to tens of thousands of deaths across Europe. Experts including UN climate chief Simon Stiell and Imperial College London's Dr Clair Barnes said the records reflect humanity's continued reliance on fossil fuels, warning that El Niño's strongest effects are still to come over the next year.