Report: August 2026 ties as hottest month recorded

The European Union's climate change monitoring body said August tied the record for the hottest month ever recorded globally. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a report released on Thursday that the global average surface air temperature in August this year was 16.96 degrees Celsius, matching the record high set in July 2023.

The Paris Agreement on fighting climate change pledges efforts to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But the global average rose 1.65 degrees last month. The three-month average for Western Europe from June to August this year was 2.54 degrees above the 1991-2020 average.

This surpassed the previous record set in the summer of 2003.  An official of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts noted that climate change is "increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world."