Summer 2026 Breaks Global Temperature Records

From New York to Tokyo, via Rome and New Delhi, the summer of 2026 was marked by extreme heat across the Northern Hemisphere, upending daily life for bicycle delivery workers, construction site laborers, beachgoers, and even the most vulnerable individuals within their own homes. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that August 2026 was the hottest month ever recorded globally, and that summer in Western Europe was the warmest since records began. Copernicus stated that the global average air temperature last month reached 16.96 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record set in July 2023 by 0.01 degree, and that Western Europe experienced “the hottest summer on record.” Samantha Burgess, Strategic Climate Officer at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the intergovernmental organization that operates the Copernicus service, said in the agency’s report yesterday, “August 2026 was an exceptional month in the history of global climate.” She added, “Humans have not experienced temperatures as high as those recorded today for at least 100,000 years, probably.”