2026 almost certain to pass 1.5 degrees of warming
October was the warmest ever measured worldwide, the EU's Copernicus climate programme says, and exceptional drought left the Rhine and the Danube low.
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Illustrative photo: riannevanderwal / Pixabay Content LicenseLast month was the warmest October ever measured worldwide, and it is now almost certain that 2026 will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming, according to the latest data from the European Earth observation programme Copernicus. The global average temperature in October was 15.35 degrees Celsius, 1.75 degrees above the October average for 1850-1900.
For Europe, October was the second warmest; October 2022 was warmer. Temperatures in Western and Central Europe were above average, with the biggest outliers in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
Averaged outside the polar regions, the sea surface reached 20.95 degrees, a record.
October continued the pattern of extraordinary global warming, with record global and sea surface temperatures. An exceptionally strong El Niño is warming a climate already warmed by human activity even further.Samantha Burgess, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
It would be the second calendar year above 1.5 degrees; the previous one was 2024. The long-term average does not yet exceed 1.5 degrees, but the United Nations now assumes that this has become unavoidable. The UN argues for keeping the overshoot as short as possible.
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