Earlier this week, NASA released the July global land-sea surface temperatures. It shows that July set a new record for global temperature – it was 1.45C above the 1880-1905 average.
Fri 14 Aug 2026 15.31 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Earlier this week, NASA released the July global land-sea surface temperatures.
My summary? Not good.
July set a new record for global temperature – it was 1.45C above the 1880-1905 average.
And it was not a one-off. April, May, June and July this year all had temperatures that were above the level ever seen before 2024:
It’s worth noting that this is happening before we get the full impact of the “supercharged” El Niño that is about to hit us.
In the first part of 2026, the annual average of global temperatures was falling from the record peak reached in August 2024. But the trough appears to have been reached, and temperatures are going back up:
The big problem with this is that if that is the “low temperature”, then we really need to reconsider what is normal.
From 1965 to 2010, global temperature mostly rose in a linear fashion (yes, ups and down, but the trend was pretty straight). But now, temperatures have absolutely busted out of the 45 years channel of peaks and troughs.
Going from what we observed from 1965-2010, you would have expected a temperature that is 1.28C above the 1880-1909 average to be a “peak year”. Instead, what we have seen is that the 1.41C in April this year is now a low point.
Temperatures are not just rising; they are rising faster.
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