August joint hottest month on record as climate change and El Niño drive heat

August was the joint-hottest month ever recorded, tying with July 2023, according to the EU's climate service.

Temperatures for the month were 1.65C above pre-industrial levels - surpassing the critical 1.5C threshold agreed by countries to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

The month also capped western Europe's warmest summer, with high temperatures pushing the season past the deadly heat of 2003.

Dr Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at Copernicus, described August as "a remarkable month in the global climate record", and its impacts had been "increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world".

UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the record clearly showed humanity's impact on the climate.

On top of the ongoing impact of the use of fossil fuels, the rise of a powerful El Niño is making matters worse, the researchers have said.

The one currently being experienced is still strengthening and could become one of the most powerful on record, according to the Copernicus team.

The impact of El Niño is expected to impact monsoon rains and storms in Asia such as here in the Philippines, where tens of thousands of people were recently displaced by floods

That prospect follows a summer that drove western Europe to its warmest on record.

This figures carried "a very real human cost", said Dr Clair Barnes, an extreme weather researcher at Imperial College London.

The heat across the UK and Europe disrupted schools, strained hospitals, hit food production, fuelled fires and drought, and claiming "tens of thousands of lives", she said.

"Until we stop burning fossil fuels these records will continue to tumble, and the extremes will worsen faster than we are able to adapt. Crucially, how much worse we allow it to get remains within our hands."