August was joint hottest month on record, says European climate agency — SkimNews
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- Copernicus reported that August tied July 2023 as the hottest month ever recorded.
- August temperatures averaged 1.65C above pre-industrial levels, exceeding the 1.5C threshold countries agreed to avoid the worst climate consequences.
- Researchers said climate change and a strengthening El Niño drove the record, with the phenomenon's largest effect on global temperatures expected over the coming year.
- Western Europe recorded its warmest summer on record, surpassing the deadly heat of 2003.
- The UK had its hottest summer since records began in 1884; the Met Office estimated human-caused climate change made it around 130 times more likely.
- Heat across the UK and Europe disrupted schools, strained hospitals, hit food production, fueled fires and drought, and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Why it matters: For communities, hospitals, food producers and ecosystems, the cost is already concrete: schools were disrupted, hospitals strained, food production hit, fires and drought fueled, and tens of thousands of lives claimed. A monthly 1.5C breach does not mean permanent failure, but it shows those harms arriving as records fall.
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