August 2026 was the joint-warmest month ever recorded, according to the latest monthly bulletin from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, tying exactly with July 2023.
The global average surface air temperature for the month was 16.96°C, which is 0.85°C above the 1991-2020 average for August and 1.65°C above the estimated 1850-1900 pre-industrial level.
Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said August 2026 was "a remarkable month in the global climate record", with "global temperatures reaching 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels, marking the return of global temperatures above 1.5°C".
That second figure is the one the monthly bulletins are watched for. Copernicus recorded the month as 1.65°C above the estimated pre-industrial average, "marking the first month above 1.5°C since November 2025" - a threshold the global record had spent the intervening nine months below.
The oceans registered the same pattern. The average sea surface temperature across the extra-polar oceans, between 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north, was 21.07°C, the joint highest on record for any calendar month, matching March 2024. The highest daily sea surface temperature ever recorded over the extra-polar ocean, 21.11°C, was also set during the month.
Over European land, the August average was 20.26°C, or 1.10°C above the 1991-2020 average, making it the fourth-warmest August on record for the continent.
The monthly figure came in the same season that western Europe recorded its warmest summer on record, surpassing the long-standing 2003 record. Copernicus described the 2026 season as marked by "a succession of exceptionally early, persistent and intense heatwaves" across the region, in a run of heat that began in May.
Sea ice told a less uniform story. Arctic sea ice extent was the 12th lowest on record for August, and the 13th lowest by the end of the month. Antarctic sea ice extent was the fourth lowest for August.
Copernicus publishes these bulletins monthly using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations, which is what allows a figure such as 16.96°C to be stated at all, and what makes a tie between two separate months detectable rather than theoretical.
And it is the tie that deserves attention, because climate records are now kept to a precision at which a dead heat is possible, and nobody has written the rules for one. July 2023 and August 2026 have finished level. The record book cannot separate them.
Every other body that keeps records has a procedure for this. Trophies are shared. Titles are held jointly. In the absence of a tie-break, the honour sits with both parties until one of them is beaten.
The Questionable Times' analysts therefore record the world's hottest month as a joint title, currently held by an August and a July, who will be expected to defend it together next season. Neither was available for comment, both having already happened.