August was the hottest month ever recorded around the world, blowing far past a key climate threshold, due to the dangerous double whammy of human-caused climate change and a supersized El Nino, the European climate service Copernicus said Thursday.
August's sizzle also helped push the globe and the United States to swelter through the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer scientists have measured.
Last month, the world averaged 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit (16.96 degrees Celsius), which technically was one-hundredth of a degree Celsius more than the all-time global mark set in July 2023, but because that's also the uncertainty level, it's considered a tie, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead for Copernicus.
"It is now time to stop acting surprised that our warming planet keeps getting warmer. This is occurring exactly as forecast by scientists literally decades ago," Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler said in an email.
"The interesting question is not whether we will keep breaking heat records (we will), but whether we're going to do anything about it or just stand there while the climate train runs us over."
