India Today ·
At 1.65°C above pre-industrial baseline, how August 2026 is hottest month on record
A sizzling August, inside a strong El Nino, at a time of significant global warming has put measurable duress on farming and water resources around India
For nine straight months, global temperatures stayed below the mark the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change was built around. This August, the temperatures crossed back over it.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a service within the European Union’s Earth observation programme, reports that the global average surface air temperature last month was 16.96°C, which is 0.85°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.65°C above the estimated 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline. This was the first month above 1.5°C since November 2025.
