August 2026 ties July 2023 as hottest month on record, Copernicus reports

Lower 48 summer surpasses 1936 Dust Bowl peak, NOAA says

Earth recorded its hottest August on record in 2026, tying the all-time global monthly temperature mark set in July 2023, the European climate service Copernicus said Wednesday. Copernicus attributed the August heat to the combined effects of human-caused climate change and El Niño.

The month averaged 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit (16.96 degrees Celsius). That was technically one-hundredth of a degree Celsius above the July 2023 mark, but the difference equaled the level of measurement uncertainty and was considered a tie, said Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’s strategic climate lead.

August was 1.65 degrees Celsius (nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, above the longer-term 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The eight hottest months on record have all occurred from July 2023 onward, according to Copernicus data.

The heat also extended to the oceans. Global monthly ocean temperatures in August tied the all-time record set in March 2024, while Aug. 22 set a record for the hottest day measured in the world’s seas, Copernicus said. Globally, the summer tied 2024 as the hottest on record.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday that, for the first time, summer in the Lower 48 states was hotter than during the peak of the Dust Bowl in 1936. June through August 2026 in the contiguous United States averaged 74.37 degrees Fahrenheit (23.54 degrees Celsius), nearly four tenths of a degree warmer than the mark set 90 years earlier.

August in the United States averaged 75.58 degrees Fahrenheit (24.21 degrees Celsius), more than half a degree Fahrenheit above the previous record. The average daytime high reached a record 88.56 degrees Fahrenheit (31.42 degrees Celsius). July had already erased another long-standing Dust Bowl mark with similarly record temperatures.

“This summer has really been exceptional. We’ve seen records that existed for close to 100 years be broken, in the U.S. in particular,” Burgess said.

Copernicus records extend to 1940. NOAA’s United States data extend to 1895, while its global data date to 1880. NOAA’s global measurements generally match Copernicus data but take longer to calculate.

Several scientists said El Niño contributed to the heat but was a much smaller factor than the heat-trapping gases emitted by burning coal, oil and natural gas. El Niño is a natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that affects weather around the world.

“While El Nino is starting to ramp up the heat, the underlying driver remains our relentless burning of fossil fuels. Climate change makes every El Nino hotter, and until we stop burning coal, oil, and gas these record-shattering months will simply keep on coming,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

Burgess said El Niño generally adds only one or two tenths of a degree Celsius, or two to four tenths of a degree Fahrenheit, to the global temperature, with fossil fuel burning accounting for the overwhelming remainder. The current El Niño is forecast to break records for strength in the coming months.

Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said the regular pace of broken records, along with August rather than the traditionally warmer month of July setting an all-time mark, indicated that human-caused climate change was accelerating.

Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler said the warming matched forecasts made by scientists decades ago. “It is now time to stop acting surprised that our warming planet keeps getting warmer. This is occurring exactly as forecast by scientists literally decades ago,” Dessler said in an email. “The interesting question is not whether we will keep breaking heat records (we will), but whether we’re going to do anything about it or just stand there while the climate train runs us over.”

Hausfather said it was increasingly likely that 2026 would surpass 2024 as the warmest year on record and almost certain that 2027 would surpass both. He said 2027 could reach as high as 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels because of an unprecedentedly strong El Niño event. Some individual days may reach 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-1800s levels, Burgess said.

“Our climate system is really operating well outside the range we would have expected just a decade ago,” Burgess said Wednesday from a United Kingdom affected by heat waves. “We’ve transitioned from climate being very abstract and perhaps impacting the global South or far away places to climate impacting and disrupting our daily lives with schools closing, hospitals being overwhelmed, roads melting, train lines buckling. And the reality is we will get more of these conditions that we’ve seen this summer.”

Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said continued temperature increases would make heat waves, storms, floods and wildfires more frequent and more dangerous.

United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell attributed the continuing records to coal, oil and gas use. “Until humanity stops burning colossal amount of coal, oil and gas, the pollution this causes will keep baking our planet, and extreme heat will keep smashing all-time records, killing millions and costing trillions, hitting transport and health systems, and pushing up prices for household basics like food,” Stiell said. “This is the spiraling price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fueling.”