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Europe\u2019s climate monitor said Thursday that August was the hottest month ever recorded around the world and warned of worse to come, as an unprecedented El Nino pattern grows stronger.<\/strong><\/p>\n Global temperatures over land and sea soared to all-time highs in August and capped an extreme summer of heatwaves and wildfires that ranked the hottest on record for western Europe and the contiguous United States.<\/p>\n The Copernicus Climate Change Service said global average air temperatures in August were 16.96C \u2014 surpassing by 0.01C the previous record for a single month set in July 2023. The EU monitor said it considered the two months joint-highest given the narrow difference.<\/p>\n Copernicus observations go back to 1940, but evidence from ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons puts today\u2019s climate in a much starker historical context.<\/p>\n \u201cHumans haven\u2019t seen temperatures as hot as today for, arguably, at least the last 100,000 years,\u201d Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which oversees Copernicus, told AFP.<\/p>\n UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the \u201cevidence is irrefutable: this is the spiralling price of humanity\u2019s fossil fuel addiction\u201d.<\/p>\n The exceptional summer also drove ocean temperatures to record highs for three straight months, said Simon van Gennip from Mercator Ocean International on Thursday.<\/p>\n Marine heatwaves have persisted in some overheated basins for more than 60 days, \u201chighlighting just how unusual and persistent\u201d the situation was, he said.<\/p>\n Global sea surface temperatures set a new all-time daily high in August and equalled the hottest month for oceans ever recorded.<\/p>\n Copernicus said the main driver was global heating from burning coal, oil and gas, but also sharp-rising temperatures in the Pacific, where a historic El Nino is gaining strength.<\/p>\n El Nino episodes are characterised by unusually warm Pacific waters but trigger major global changes in rainfall and winds, raising the odds of wild weather thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n Global forecasters predict this year\u2019s event will peak later this year at an intensity never observed in the modern era.<\/p>\n On Thursday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said there was a 75 percent chance it \u201cwould exceed the strength of previous El Nino events dating back to 1950\u201d.<\/p>\n Copernicus said its influence was already being felt in Indonesia, where a long, intense dry season has fed wildfires that have torched swathes of Borneo island.<\/p>\n But climate scientists said the worst was yet to come \u2014 and August\u2019s extraordinary heat was just a preview.<\/p>\n Even ordinary El Nino episodes have a temporary warming effect, boosting global heat and compounding the impact of long-term climate change.<\/p>\n That extra heat often helps make the year after El Nino peaks the hottest on record globally.<\/p>\n Scientists expect 2027 to become a record-setting year but Burgess said 2026 could also prove historic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expected 2026 to be top five but now it\u2019s second place, maybe in first place\u2026 We\u2019ve seen a striking reminder of how quickly the climate system can shift when multiple drivers have aligned,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The double whammy of climate change and El Nino would mean records \u201cfalling over the next six months\u201d, said Burgess, an ocean scientist and strategic lead for at ECMWF.<\/p>\n \u201cClimate change makes every El Nino 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 from Imperial College London.<\/p>\n Copernicus said that western Europe experienced its hottest summer, outstripping the long-standing 2003 record.<\/p>\n The season was marked by severe, back-to-back heatwaves that shut schools, dried up rivers and primed the land for devastating wildfires.<\/p>\n Between mid-July and mid-August, the continent\u2019s EuroMomo monitoring platform estimated that Europe saw more than 32,000 excess deaths.<\/p>\n But it was abnormally hot elsewhere too \u2014 Copernicus said the June to August period was the equal-warmest globally on record, on par with 2024.<\/p>\n An AFP analysis of Copernicus data showed that regions home to around 900 million people lived through the hottest July ever observed.<\/p>\n And on Wednesday, NOAA said the contiguous United States has endured its hottest summer on record.<\/p>\n The summer has been \u201cexceptional\u201d, but the climate will \u201ccontinue to get more extreme unless we turn off the tap to global emissions\u201d, said Burgess.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u2013 \u2018Striking\u2019 \u2013<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2013 Extremes \u2013<\/strong><\/h2>\n