The world had the warmest August ever in 2026, so did India; confirmed a climate report published on Thursday as well as recent reports of Indian Meteorological Department. The report, prepared by climate science analysis platform Climate Brink and shared in their dashboard, also predicts that 2026 is likely to become the warmest year ever.
“August 2026 was the warmest August on record in the Copernicus/ECMWF ERA5 dataset (the most trusted dataset to the scientists) at 1.65°C above preindustrial levels. This beat the prior record set in August 2024 by a fairly wide margin,” pointed out a scientist associated with the analysis. The pre-industrial period is considered the benchmark as the human induced temperature-rise started after that timeline.
During the global climate summit in 2015 at Paris, countries unanimously agreed to keep the temperature rise within 1.5 C as the climatic impacts are expected to become extremely severe, especially for people living in mountain areas, close to sea and lowline areas as well as for the aquatic ecosystem, post that limit. Recently released UN reports also point out that world is all set to enter permanently into the 1.5°C rise era, with the average temperature can settle at best around 1.8°C though several climatic models predict the rise to reach 2°C or beyond.
2024 temperature record set to be broken
“With 8 months of the year now in, and greater certainty in El Nino forecasts for the remainder of the year, it is now looking like 2026 is likely, around ~75% chance, to be the warmest year on record,” he added.
“This year is on track for 1.62°C ±0.05°C above preindustrial,” says the report, a copy of which is with The Plurals, which is higher than the highest annual global average temperature rise recorded so far during 2024, which was in the range of 1.55°C to 1.60°C above the pre-industrial benchmark.
IMD confirms the trend in India
Indian Meteorological Department confirmed that the global trend is consistent in India. “August 2026 was the hottest August recorded in India since nationwide record-keeping began in 1901,” said India Meteorological Department (IMD) director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra to Telegraph. IMD data shows that the national average mean temperature soared to 28.01°C, surpassing the historical normal of 27.34°C by 0.67°C, while the average minimum temperature, the nighttime temperature, also broke a 125-year record, reaching 24.36°C against the normal of 23.68°C.
“The Indian temperature rise trend is consistent to the global trend as we had warmest August both globally and also in India,” pointed out K J Ramesh, former IMD director general, to this correspondent on Thursday
Kolkata top on heat list
Analysis accessed in the global report shows that Kolkata is the highest warming city among Indian metros during last year with a 1.4°C rise compared to preindustrial global benchmark followed by Bengaluru with 1.3°C.
“This is consistent with the trend over last 50 years. We have recently published an international paper where we have shown using latest UN analysis available that the rise of average temperature during 1858 to 2018 was highest, about 2.7°C, in Calcutta at a global benchmark being followed by Tehran and Moscow,” pointed out a senior professor in Calcutta University.