These temperatures were recorded before the coming El Ni\u00f1o weather system<\/a> had made much of an impact. El Ni\u00f1o is a naturally recurrent phenomenon<\/a> whereby wind changes over the Pacific lead to rising ocean temperatures and the transfer of huge amounts of heat to the atmosphere, with the consequences felt around the world in floods, droughts and heatwaves.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s system, likely to reach its full strength towards the end of the year, is forecast to be potentially the most intense on record<\/a>, as it is now supercharged by the climate crisis.<\/p>\n A wildfire rages near Santa Maria, California. Photograph: Benjamin Hanson\/Middle East Images\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said: \u201cWhile El Ni\u00f1o is starting to ramp up the heat, the underlying driver [behind this year\u2019s high temperatures] remains our relentless burning of fossil fuels. Climate change makes every El Ni\u00f1o hotter, and until we stop burning coal, oil and gas, these record-shattering months will simply keep on coming.\u201d<\/p>\n The effects of August\u2019s extreme heat are still being felt around the world, in the aftermath of devastating wildfires<\/a>, damage to harvests<\/a>, excess deaths from heatwaves<\/a> and disruptions to transport, business and public services<\/a> in many countries. Food price inflation<\/a> is likely to increase further, as the impacts of smaller harvests are felt in domestic markets and imports.<\/p>\n Stiell said: \u201cIf humanity doesn\u2019t cut the fossil fuel pollution \u2026 this summer\u2019s brutal heat, fires and droughts will seem mild compared to the permanent climate nightmare that will follow.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Down to Earth<\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Heatwaves in the UK left green spaces parched. Photograph: Thomas Krych\/Zuma\/Alamy<\/p>\n Although temperatures exceeded 1.5C above preindustrial levels, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement as the lower of two limits that governments would strive to keep<\/a>, such highs would need to continue for several years before the agreement was judged to be breached.<\/p>\n Data from the Copernicus Earth observation satellite service<\/a> confirmed that western and central Europe, as well as areas of Scandinavia and south-eastern Europe, had experienced much drier than usual conditions over the summer, while around the world much of the south of the US, northern Mexico, parts of Canada, the Maghreb, part of the Horn of Africa, Siberia, large parts of central Asia, China, South America, South Africa, and northern Australia were all also drier than average.<\/p>\n The Romanian section of the Danube had exceptionally low water levels because of extreme heat. Photograph: Vadim Ghird\u0103\/AP<\/p>\n The more temperatures rise above the 1.5C threshold, the greater the chance of reaching planetary \u201ctipping points\u201d that could push temperatures much higher and irretrievably break down key stabilisers of the climate system<\/a>, such as the Arctic ice cap and the Amazon rainforest. Ruth Fuller, chief adviser on climate to the environmental charity WWF UK, said: \u201cThis year has seen records broken left, right and centre, increasing the risk that natural systems will irreversibly change once they are pushed past tipping points<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Samantha Burgess, the strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates the Copernicus service, said: \u201cAugust 2026 was a remarkable month in the global climate record. It was both the warmest August and the warmest month ever recorded, with global temperatures reaching 1.65C above preindustrial levels, marking the return of global temperatures above 1.5C.<\/p>\n \u201cCombined with record global sea surface temperatures and the warmest summer on record for western Europe, these observations show how climate change is driving extremes across the atmosphere and the oceans. The impacts of these conditions are increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attempts to stoke a climate crisis culture war must be rejected or the world will face economic disaster,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-625471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789486593_211_500.jpg\")
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