Congratulations! You’ve just experienced the hottest month on record.

August was the planet’s hottest month on record, capping a surprisingly bleak summer with record-breaking heat. As El Niño strengthens and climate change continues to heat up, we’re likely to see new records next year.

Data from Copernicus, the European Union’s climate agency, shows that last month tied with July 2023 as the hottest month on Earth. (July is also typically the hottest month of the year.) This July also tied for the second hottest July on record with July 2024, and June 2026 tied for the second hottest June on record. The news follows a separate statement Wednesday from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which said it was the hottest summer in the U.S., breaking the previous record set during the Dust Bowl.

The hot summer is a grim sign that burning fossil fuels is raising temperatures around the world, while causing more intense and longer-lasting heat waves.

“August 2026 was a remarkable month in global climate history,” Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said in a statement. “Combined with record global sea surface temperatures and the warmest summer on record in Western Europe, these observations show how climate change is driving extreme events in both the atmosphere and oceans. The impacts of these conditions are increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems around the world.”

According to Copernicus, the average global temperature in August was 1.65 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial average levels. While the world has been hot this summer, locally the effects have resulted in dangerous and sometimes deadly consequences.

Photograph: Ufuk Celal Guzel/Getty Images

Researchers estimate that about 35,000 people died during heat waves in Germany, France and Spain this summer. Record fires also raged in parts of Europe, causing the first documented fire cloud in France and threatening a key NASA observatory in Spain. In North America, wildfires in Canada and the northern US have filled areas of the Northeast with smoke.

Climate change has raised background temperatures, but El Niño roiling the eastern Pacific has added to the heat. El Niño usually coincides with a temporary increase in global temperature of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius. El Niño is predicted to reach record strength this year and change weather around the world. But the full impact on the planet’s temperature won’t be felt until next year, meaning next summer could be even hotter than the one we just experienced.

Climate scientists have warned that the world needs to keep long-term average warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. While temperatures above the threshold for one month are not a consistent violation of that temperature, they are a sign that the world is getting closer to it.

Earlier this month, the UN warned in a report that the world was likely to cross the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold within a few years. To slow and ultimately reverse rising global temperatures, the world needs to stop burning fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

“This summer’s scorching heat, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “We need to make the deviation above 1.5 degrees as small and short as possible. This requires exceeding ambition.”