Global temperatures reached unprecedented levels in August, according to the European climate monitor Copernicus, which reported that the month was the hottest ever measured worldwide, while Europe endured its worst summer on record.
“August 2026 was a remarkable month in the annals of global climate,” summarized Samantha Burgess, a scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), in the agency’s monthly bulletin. “Humans have in all likelihood never before experienced temperatures as high as today’s at any point in at least the last 100,000 years,” she told AFP.
From New York to Tokyo, by way of Rome and New Delhi, the summer of 2026 was marked by extreme heat across the Northern Hemisphere, disrupting daily life for cyclists and motorbike couriers, outdoor workers, beachgoers, and vulnerable people even within their own homes.
With average air temperatures reaching 16.96°C, August 2026 was the hottest month ever recorded, regardless of season, according to the institute, whose data stretches back to 1940. Second place belongs to July 2023, at 16.95°C — a gap so marginal that Copernicus considers the two months statistically tied.
The June-to-August period was also the hottest three-month stretch ever recorded globally, matching the record set in 2024, the European agency noted — a finding released just a day after the US weather service reported the country’s hottest summer in 130 years.
Other climate data sources allow scientists to draw conclusions stretching back much further in time. By these measures, the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has experienced in the last 125,000 years.
“As humanity continues to burn colossal quantities of coal, oil and gas, the resulting pollution will keep overheating our planet, and heatwaves will keep shattering records,” said Simon Stiell, head of the UN’s climate agency. “The solutions are clear,” he continued, pointing to a “faster transition to cleaner forms of energy” and the “protection of our forests and oceans.”
The El Niño climate pattern is also cyclically raising ocean temperatures this year, triggering droughts and floods. Scientists fear it will further intensify rising temperatures and extreme weather events.
Europe overheating
The global average temperature in August was 1.65°C above the pre-industrial baseline, Copernicus also reported — far above the most ambitious threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, and the first time that limit has been breached since November 2025.
Over the course of the summer and the heatwaves that defined it, the bodies of billions of people were put to the test. Western Europe endured a “sequence of early, persistent and intense heatwaves,” living through its hottest summer on record — hotter even than 2003, Copernicus found.
Across the continent, the average atmospheric temperature last month stood at 20.26°C, or 1.10°C above pre-industrial levels, making it the third-hottest summer ever recorded worldwide.
