August was joint hottest month on record, says European climate agency

August 2026 has been confirmed by the EU's Copernicus climate service as the joint-hottest month ever recorded globally, tying with July 2023, with the record driven by a combination of long-term climate change and a strengthening El Niño pattern. The finding matters because global temperatures for the month exceeded the critical 1.5C threshold that countries have agreed to try to avoid breaching, and it capped a summer in which western Europe recorded its warmest conditions on record, surpassing even the deadly heat of 2003. UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the record was clear evidence of "humanity's fossil fuel addiction", while Copernicus's Dr Samantha Burgess said record air and ocean temperatures showed climate change was now driving extremes across both the atmosphere and oceans.

Global temperatures in August were 1.65C above pre-industrial levels, though a single month above 1.5C does not mean the threshold has been permanently breached. The UK recorded its hottest summer since 1884, an outcome the Met Office found had been made around 130 times more likely by human-caused climate change, with Imperial College London's Dr Clair Barnes noting the heat disrupted schools, strained hospitals, hit food production and contributed to tens of thousands of deaths across the UK and Europe. Scientists said the ongoing strengthening of El Niño means its full effect on global temperatures, including on monsoon rains and storms in Asia, has yet to be felt over the coming year, so further records are likely.