August Was World's Joint-Hottest Month On Record, Scientists Say

August 2023 tied with July 2023 as the hottest month ever recorded, with the globe's average temperature surpassing the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. This level of warming is the target that nearly 200 countries pledged to avoid under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

The joint record was marked by extreme weather events worldwide, including landslides and flash floods in Nepal and China's Tibet, wildfires from Indonesia to Greece and Belgium, and severe droughts in Hungary and Romania. August's average temperature of 16.96 degrees Celsius was 1.65 degrees Celsius higher than the 19th-century average.

Samantha Burgess, a strategic lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, noted the tangible effects of climate change on daily life in Europe, such as roads melting and train lines buckling. While the world has not yet technically surpassed the Paris Agreement's 1.5 C target, which measures long-term average temperatures, the U.N. has warned that sticking to this goal is now unlikely.

The UN urged governments to cut CO2 emissions more aggressively to prevent overshooting the target. The joint record also included the highest sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, driven by the formation of the El Nino weather pattern, which is expected to intensify in the coming months. This could further elevate global temperatures.