New data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirm that August was the joint-hottest month since instrumental records began, with the global average surface air temperature reaching 16.96 C. That level put last month more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages and tied it with July 2023 as the warmest month on record, C3S said.
August’s extreme conditions were felt across multiple continents. Scientists have indicated that climate change likely contributed to the landslides and flash floods that killed hundreds in Nepal and China’s Tibet, though investigations into the precise causes and mechanisms are ongoing. Wildfires flared across regions from Indonesia to Greece and Belgium. Meanwhile, parts of Europe endured severe drought, with Hungary and Romania singled out by the data.
C3S noted that ocean temperatures outside polar regions also recorded their joint-highest monthly sea surface temperatures on record, underscoring that last month’s heat was not confined to land. In the tropical Pacific, the emergence of the El Nino weather pattern helped drive record-high temperatures there, and forecasts indicate El Nino is expected to strengthen in the coming months, which could push global temperatures higher.
Temperatures registering more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial times carry particular significance because the Paris Agreement’s aspirational limit of 1.5 C refers to a long-term, decades-averaged rise in global temperatures. C3S’s datasets, which extend back to 1940 and are cross-checked with global records reaching to 1850, show that last month was the first month since November 2025 in which the world’s average temperature exceeded 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.
Measured against the planet’s average surface temperature in the 19th century, before large-scale fossil fuel combustion, August’s 16.96 C represents an increase of 1.65 C, C3S said. The agency reiterated that emissions from burning oil, coal and gas are the main driver of the observed climate changes.
Evidence of heat-driven disruptions in Europe was plain in C3S’s analysis and in commentary from operational forecasters. Samantha Burgess, strategic lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, described visible impacts across the continent, citing roads melting, train lines buckling, school closures, hospitals stretched past capacity and atypical wildfires for the season. The agency’s data corroborated that western Europe is emerging from its hottest summer on record, with many areas experiencing unusually low river flows and depleted soil moisture following a sequence of heatwaves that began in May and severely affected crops.
At the international policy level, the distinction between a temporary monthly peak and a sustained breach of the Paris goal was emphasized. The global long-term warming level currently sits at about 1.4 C above pre-industrial levels, meaning the 1.5 C Paris threshold has not yet been crossed in the multi-decade sense the agreement targets. The United Nations, however, stated last week that maintaining the long-term 1.5 C objective is no longer feasible and called on governments to accelerate cuts to carbon dioxide emissions to curb overshoot risks.
C3S’s temperature records and their historical cross-checking provide the empirical basis for the agency’s conclusion that August was one of the warmest months on record. With sea surface temperatures and large-scale atmospheric patterns like El Nino reinforcing each other, C3S highlighted a continued elevated risk that near-term global temperatures could rise further.
Implications and immediate observations
August’s global heat spike produced both humanitarian and environmental consequences documented in official data and expert statements. The combination of high land and sea surface temperatures, persistent drought conditions in parts of Europe, and extreme precipitation events in other regions created a complex pattern of impacts that played out across agriculture, infrastructure and public health systems.