GENEVA, September 14 — El Niño was one of the drivers behind the hottest August ever measured on Earth, the World Meteorological Organization said Friday, citing newly released data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
The global average surface air temperature in August was 1.65°C higher than the estimated pre-industrial baseline, and the global surface temperature was 1.32°C above the 20th-century average — the warmest August since records began in 1850, according to the US National Centers for Environmental Information. All 10 of the warmest Augusts on record have occurred since 2016, the data shows.
Oceans and ice
Global sea surface temperature reached an all-time observed high in August 2026. The northern hemisphere experienced its warmest summer, while the southern hemisphere had a near-record warm winter. The Arctic and Antarctic each had below-average sea ice coverage.
Western Europe saw heatwaves in August, continuing an exceptional run of extreme heat that began in May. Severe drought conditions were reported in France, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and the United Kingdom, and large parts of central and eastern Europe saw widespread dryness, in some cases persisting since May.
Water flow levels were exceptionally low in major European rivers, including the Rhine, Danube, Southern Bug and Dnieper.
El Niño’s fingerprints
El Niño influenced global tropical cyclone activity as well as heavy rainfall and floods in some countries, the WMO reported. Other countries were impacted by drought, with El Niño conditions favouring the intensification of seasonal wildfires across Indonesia, as reported by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. The UN weather agency will present an update on this year’s climate at the next UN climate conference, COP31, in Antalya, Turkey, in November.
WMO uses datasets from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, NOAA, NASA and others for its State of the Global Climate reports. The head of the UN’s climate body has warned that treating global warming as a partisan issue is dangerously out of step with reality, as he set out a stark account of the economic toll climate change is already inflicting on Europe, in a statement dated 10 September 2026.
In a separate report dated 9 September 2026, climate hazards were described as shutting millions of children out of school in 2025. When the creek beside Taudibura Garo’s school in Papua New Guinea floods, the water rises through the pit toilets, making the school unsafe and sending the 16-year-old and her classmates home without being able to finish.
What to watch next: the WMO’s El Niño Update and its presentation at COP31 in Antalya in November, where the agency will lay out how the pattern is expected to shape rainfall and temperature into next year.
