According to the European global warming monitor, this past August—the world’s third-hottest on record—with its devastating wildfires and intense heatwaves, highlighted the urgent need to address climate change and prepare for its deadly effects.
Southwest Europe endured its third summer heatwave, while fires ravaged Spain and Portugal. Simultaneously, many parts of Asia experienced above-average temperatures during a scorching month that neared all-time highs.
The world’s oceans, which help regulate the Earth’s climate by absorbing excess heat, also approached record-high temperatures for the month. Hotter seas are linked to more severe weather extremes.
“With the world’s oceans also remaining unusually warm, these events underscore not only the urgency of reducing emissions but also the critical need to adapt to more frequent and intense climate extremes,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Humanity’s emissions of planet-heating gases, primarily from burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, have continually driven global temperatures higher. Copernicus measures these changes using billions of satellite and weather readings from both land and sea, with their data going back to 1940.
The global average temperature for August was 1.29 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a figure that was slightly cooler than the record set in 2023 but tied with 2024.
The Fallout of a Warming Planet
While these incremental rises may seem small, scientists warn that they are already destabilizing the climate, making storms, floods, and other disasters more frequent and more powerful.
In its monthly bulletin, Copernicus noted that Western Europe experienced the continent’s most significant above-average temperatures, with Southwest France and the Iberian Peninsula being particularly affected. According to the Carlos III Health Institute, a 16-day heatwave in Spain led to over 1,100 deaths. Wildfires in both Spain and Portugal forced thousands of people to evacuate. Scientists last week stated that human-caused climate change made the hot, dry, and windy conditions that fueled these fires 40 times more likely.
Outside of Europe, temperatures were most significantly above average in Siberia, parts of Antarctica, China, the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the Middle East. Record-breaking ocean temperatures were recorded in the North Atlantic, west of France and the United Kingdom. The Mediterranean region’s temperature was more varied and less extreme than in 2024. This year, the weather agencies of the UK, Japan, and South Korea each announced that they had experienced their hottest summers on record.
