Impact of Climate Change: August 2026 Declared the Hottest Month in Human History
According to the European climate agency Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the global average air temperature in August was the highest recorded for any month in human history.
A major factor behind August becoming the hottest month was the rise in ocean temperatures, which reached record levels. In fact, the period from June to August was recorded as the hottest summer in history. According to the C3S report, the rise in temperatures caused by human activity, combined with the strengthening of El Niño, made August the hottest month on record.
El Niño is a climate phenomenon in which a large part of the Pacific Ocean becomes significantly warmer than normal, contributing to a rise in global temperatures.
In contrast, during La Niña, Pacific Ocean temperatures are lower than normal.
The combination of these climate patterns can contribute to extreme heat around the world, as was last seen in 2023 and 2024.
When El Niño began in 2023, every month for 13 consecutive months was subsequently recorded as the hottest month in history. A similar trend could potentially begin again with August 2026. According to C3S estimates, Western Europe experienced its hottest summer on record this year, while the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also declared this season the hottest summer on record in the United States.
C3S said it was also unusual that August temperatures surpassed those of July. August is rarely warmer than July; generally, July is the hottest month of the year. C3S experts said that devastating climate impacts are being observed around the world and that people everywhere have been affected. They said extreme weather is continuing to intensify and that this severity is expected to persist over the long term.
The global average temperature in August was 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels. It was also the first month since November 2025 in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5°C.
The 2015 Paris Agreement set a goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C. Meanwhile, a recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said the long-term target of keeping temperatures under control is unlikely to be achieved because emissions of greenhouse gases driving global warming have not been reduced sufficiently.
