{"id":597885,"date":"2026-09-12T07:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597885\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T07:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:14:24","slug":"global-heat-stuck-on-high-august-was-earths-hottest-month-on-record-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597885\/","title":{"rendered":"Global heat stuck on high: August was Earth\u2019s hottest month on record, scientists say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earth cooked to its hottest month on record in August, blowing far past a key climate threshold, due to the dangerous double whammy of human-caused climate change<\/a> and a supersized El Ni\u00f1<\/a>o<\/a>, according to the European climate service Copernicus.<\/p>\n

August\u2019s sizzle also helped push the globe and the United States to swelter through the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer scientists have measured.<\/p>\n

Last month the world averaged 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit (16.96 degrees Celsius), which technically was one-hundredth of a degree Celsius more than the all-time global mark set in July 2023, but because that\u2019s also the uncertainty level, it\u2019s considered a tie, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead for Copernicus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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,\u201d Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler said in an email. \u201cThe interesting question is not whether we will keep breaking heat records (we will), but whether we\u2019re going to do anything about it or just stand there while the climate train runs us over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Globally, August was 1.65 degrees Celsius (nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, far exceeding the longer-term 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The eight hottest months on record have all been from July 2023 on, according to Copernicus data.<\/p>\n

\"TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-WEATHER-CLIMATE-DROUGHT-HEATWAVE\"Scorched grass in Hyde Park in London in August.Peter Nicholls \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cOur climate system is really operating well outside the range we would have expected just a decade ago,\u201d Burgess said Wednesday from a United Kingdom that has been beset with heat waves<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve transitioned from climate being very abstract and perhaps impacting the Global South or faraway 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\u2019ve seen this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global monthly ocean temperatures in August tied a March 2024 all-time record for warmest month recorded, while Aug. 22 set a record for hottest day recorded in the world\u2019s seas, according to Copernicus.<\/p>\n

An extra hot summer hits<\/p>\n

\u201cThis summer has really been exceptional. We\u2019ve seen records that existed for close to 100 years be broken, in the U.S. in particular,\u201d Burgess said.<\/p>\n

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> on Wednesday announced that for the first time, summer in the Lower 48 states was hotter than during the peak of the devastating Dust Bowl in 1936<\/a>. June through August of 2026 in the contiguous United States averaged 74.37 degrees (23.54 degrees Celsius), nearly four-tenths of a degree warmer than the mark set 90 years earlier. Globally, this past summer also tied, with 2024, for the hottest on record, according to Copernicus.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., August smashed heat records by more than half a degree Fahrenheit, averaging 75.58 degrees (24.21 degrees Celsius) and the average daytime high was a blistering 88.56 degrees (31.42 degrees Celsius), also a record. July was similarly record hot in the U.S., erasing another long-standing Dust Bowl mark.<\/p>\n

That records are regularly getting broken, and that August and not July, which is traditionally warmer, set an all-time record, are signs that human-caused climate change is accelerating, Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said.<\/p>\n

Copernicus data goes back to 1940. NOAA data for the United States goes back to 1895 and global data, which generally matches Copernicus data but takes longer to calculate, dates back to 1880.<\/p>\n

Fossil fuels, El Ni\u00f1o blamed<\/p>\n

Several scientists said while El Ni\u00f1o is a factor, this natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that warps and warms weather globally is nowhere as big a cause as the heat-trapping gases emitted as humans burn coal, oil and natural gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile El Ni\u00f1o is starting to ramp up the heat, the underlying driver 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 said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n

Burgess said El Ni\u00f1o generally adds only one- or two-tenths of a degree Celsius (two- to four-tenths Fahrenheit) to the global temperature with the overwhelming rest of the heat coming from the burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

This El Ni\u00f1o is forecast, however, to break records for strength in the coming months. And as temperatures continue to rise, heat waves, storms, floods and wildfires will get more frequent and more dangerous, said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.<\/p>\n

According to Hausfather, \u201cit is increasingly likely that 2026 ends up beating 2024 as the warmest year on record, and almost certain that 2027 beats both, potentially reaching as high as 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels on the back of an unprecedentedly strong El Ni\u00f1o event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some days may hit an even higher climate threshold, 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-1800s, Burgess said.<\/p>\n

\"TOPSHOT-ITALY-HEATWAVE-CLIMATE-WEATHER\"A man stands in front of a misting fan during a heat wave in Rome in August.Tiziana Fabi \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil humanity stops burning a 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,\u201d United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said. \u201cThis is the spiraling price of humanity\u2019s fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fueling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earth cooked to its hottest month on record in August, blowing far past a key climate threshold, due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-597885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}