If August felt like the hottest month on Earth … you’re right
(CNN) — Earth just had its hottest August on record and tied the benchmark for the hottest month ever recorded since at least 1940, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European climate monitoring agency.
The global average temperature during August was 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit (16.96 Celsius), which was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit (0.85 Celsius) above the 1991 to 2020 average. The record–hot month was driven partly by ocean temperatures that were, themselves, reaching record highs. Global sea surface temperatures tied the record for warmest monthly average logged in any month.
The months that comprise meteorological summer — June through August — tied with the summer of 2024 for the hottest such season on record, globally.
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All those broken records stem from two factors, Copernicus reported: long-term, human-caused global warming and the strengthening El Niño event in the tropical Pacific. That combination has, historically, brought devastating extreme events worldwide. The last time there was a significant El Niño was in 2023 and 2024, and that event led to a 13-month streak of record-breaking global temperatures in Copernicus’ records.
August may mark the start of a similar, if not even longer stretch, given the greater intensity of the ongoing El Niño, said Samantha Burgess, the strategic lead for climate at the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
El Niño events feature hotter-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific that help drive numerous changes in weather patterns. That has certainly been the case this year.
Western Europe saw its hottest summer on record, blowing away previous benchmarks, Copernicus data shows. And according to a separate release on Wednesday from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US also saw its hottest summer on record, too, beating the Dust Bowl era record of 1936 as well as 2021, which had previously been tied for the title.
Europe saw a series of record-shattering heat waves this summer, along with wildfires in places that typically do not see them, such as the UK. In the US, a series of heat domes drifted across much of the Lower 48 states, setting up prolonged periods with record-breaking heat, particularly across the southwestern states.
The fact that temperatures during August beat July’s is in itself unusual, Burgess said.
It is rare for August to be hotter than July when it comes to global average temperatures, since typically July is when the planet sees its hottest weather. In fact, since 1940, August’s heat has only beaten July’s global average temperatures four times, not including this year, Burgess said, with the most recent occurrence taking place in 1985.
“We’re at a real inflection point for society,” Burgess said. “We’ve seen catastrophic climate events around the world, and I think this summer we’ve really seen the impacts hitting people everywhere.” She cited a growing recognition in Europe after this blistering summer that the region is “maladapted to our current climate.”
“One of the key takeaways is that the warmer our background climate is, the more intense, more frequent, and more long-lasting the extremes are,” Burgess said.
The global average surface air temperature was 2.97 degrees Fahrenheit (1.65 Celsius) above the preindustrial average, marking the first time since November of last year that any month had exceeded the Paris Agreement’s long-term 1.5-degree climate target.
In a report released last week, the United Nations Environment Program found that over the long-term, that aspirational temperature target is likely to be exceeded, given the lack of steep cuts to planet-warming climate pollution.
Previous research has shown that the odds of potentially catastrophic climate impacts increase the greater that warming exceeds that 1.5-degree mark.
The-CNN-Wire
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