August 2026 ties for hottest month ever recorded
Scientific American · LC · trust 46/100
The looming El Niño conditions, combined with the warming effects of climate change, contributed to the historic temperatures
Visitors to Zakrzówek Lake in Kraków, Poland, cool down in water as a heat wave moves to the nation’s southern region and temperatures in the city reach 38 degrees Celsius on August 5, 2026.
August 2026 has tied for the hottest month ever, sharing the record with July 2023, according to new data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The global surface air temperature for August was 16.96 degrees Celsius, or 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s the warmest August ever recorded and some 1.65 degrees C above the preindustrial average. That exceeds the 1.5- degree-C increase that the Paris Agreement once identified as the tipping point for irreversible damage from global warming. The United Nations admitted last week that consistently surpassing that threshold is now “unavoidable.”
That temperature statistically matches the previous record, which was set in July 2023 at 16.95 degrees C, or 62.51 degrees F.
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
World ocean temperatures this August also tied with March 2024 for the highest on record across all months. Western Europe and the U.S. had their hottest summers overall, according to Copernicus and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.
The record may come as no surprise after a summer marked by extreme weather, from wildfires to floods, and on the cusp of what scientists believe will be a historic El Niño . This cyclic climate phenomenon drives up temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, altering the world’s climate and weather patterns for months. Together, these factors all likely contributed to August’s record-breaking heat—but human-driven climate change is the main cause of extreme temperatures and is only set to accelerate.
Marc Alessi , a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted in a statement to Scientific American that “this El Niño is occurring on top of a changed climate from the burning of fossil fuels.” Indeed, scientists believe that, regardless of whether 2026 breaks the record for hottest year ever, 2027 almost certainly will do so because of the El Niño conditions.
“We now live in a completely different climate than the one that existed 50 years ago,” he said.
Mary Randolph is a news intern at Scientific American based in New York. Her work has been featured by Smithsonian Magazine, Pew Research Center, the Local News Initiative and various local newsrooms.
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
Read the original at Scientific American →
Open in TruthVane →