Earth’s Average Temperature Sets New Record, August Becomes Hottest Month Ever Recorded

September 11, Kathmandu – The European Union’s (EU) climate monitoring agency released a report on Thursday revealing that August 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded worldwide. During this period, ocean temperatures also surged to unprecedented levels. Western Europe has experienced its hottest summer on record this year.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service’s assessment prompted a warning from the United Nations, emphasizing that the planet will remain in grave danger unless humanity curtails its use of fossil fuels.

Copernicus’s datasets date back to 1940, but other evidence such as ice cores, tree rings, and coral skeletons help scientists put today’s climate into a much longer historical context.

Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts stated, “Humans have not seen temperatures this high in the past 100,000 years.” According to Copernicus, the global average air temperature in August reached 16.96 degrees Celsius. This surpasses the previous July 2023 record by just 0.01 degrees Celsius. Due to the minimal difference, Copernicus regards both months jointly as the hottest ever.

Scientists have attributed this warming primarily to human activities, especially burning coal, oil, and gas, which have raised Earth’s temperature by approximately 1.4 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era. This increase has intensified the severity and likelihood of extreme weather events. Greenhouse gas emissions reached a new peak in 2025.

Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, commented on the Copernicus report: “The evidence is irrefutable. This is the cost humanity pays for the exploitation of fossil fuels and the resulting global climate crisis.”

Ocean surface temperatures worldwide also broke new daily records. August marked the hottest month ever recorded for sea surface temperatures, setting records for three consecutive months.

Over 90 percent of the heat generated from greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed by the oceans, preventing the land from heating even more. However, this has caused significant harm to marine life, coral reefs, and coastal regions.

Extremely hot areas such as the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Tropical Pacific Oceans witnessed their previous temperature records being shattered. The Tropical Pacific is experiencing one of the most powerful El Niño weather systems of the modern era, rapidly intensifying.

During these events, Pacific Ocean waters become unusually warm, influencing areas thousands of kilometers away. This results in flooding in Peru, droughts in Africa, and wildfires in Australia.

The natural El Niño climate cycle temporarily raises global temperatures, compounding the already elevated baseline caused by long-term warming.

Scientists expect temperature records to continue being broken in the coming months. This “super” El Niño is predicted to peak around December, potentially making 2026 and 2027 the hottest years on record.

Frederik Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, remarked, “Climate change makes each El Niño hotter. Unless we stop burning coal, oil, and gas, record-breaking months will keep coming.”

Copernicus reported that August ended Western Europe’s hottest summer on record, surpassing the previous benchmark set in 2003. Throughout this period, intense heat waves persisted from June to August, causing schools to close, rivers to dry up, and wildfires to spread.

Between mid-July and mid-August, the European EuroMOMO monitoring platform estimated over 32,000 excess deaths in the region.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution Network concluded that the heatwaves would have been impossible without climate change.

However, this exceptional heat was felt globally. On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the United States experienced its hottest summer ever recorded.

According to Copernicus data, around 900 million people reside in areas that had their hottest July on record. Samantha Burgess, ocean scientist at the ECMWF, stated, “Not only Europe but other parts of the world experienced extraordinary heat as well, breaking century-old temperature records.”

She added, “If we do not halt the flow of global emissions, the climate will become increasingly extreme.”