Global Heat Puts August Level With Record

“The evidence is irrefutable: this is the spiralling price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fuelling,” he said.

Burning coal, oil and gas continues to increase the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. That long-term warming trend forms the background against which natural climate patterns now operate, with increasingly severe results.

How is El Niño adding to the heat?

Researchers said the emergence of a powerful El Niño was making the underlying warming worse. El Niño is a natural climate pattern in which a band of the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes unusually warm.

That process releases large amounts of heat stored in the ocean into the atmosphere, typically pushing average global temperatures higher for about a year. It does not cause climate change, but when it arrives on top of decades of fossil-fuel emissions, it gives an already warming planet another push.

The current El Niño was still strengthening, according to the Copernicus team, and could become one of the most powerful ever recorded. Its largest effect on global temperatures was expected over the following year.

That means the recent run of temperature records may not have reached its limit. With oceans already registering unprecedented heat and the atmosphere following closely behind, the next phase is unlikely to be subtle.