"June and July 2026 will be record-breaking months for heat," says new Copernicus report for Western Europe.

Western Europe recorded its warmest June-July on record, and July 2026 was the second warmest globally, tied with July 2024, according to information released by the EU Commission's Copernicus monitoring programme. Sea surface temperatures in the extrapolar ocean reached the highest value ever recorded for the seventh month of the year, partly reflecting the development of the El Niño phenomenon in the equatorial Pacific.  

Arctic sea ice extent in July ranked sixth among the lowest for a month, with particularly low sea ice cover in the northern Barents Sea, around Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. 

In July, Antarctic sea ice extent ranked fifth lowest, with below-average sea ice coverage in most oceans except the Amundsen Sea. Much of Western Europe and large parts of Central and Eastern Europe experienced above-average drought conditions during the same month, primarily associated with extreme temperatures and exceptional wildfires. River flows were well below average, if not extremely low, in much of the drought-affected regions, impacting multiple sectors. 

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Outside Europe, parts of northern Canada, the central United States, the Maghreb, parts of the Horn of Africa, Siberia, south-central Asia, parts of inland China, parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia recorded below-average precipitation. 

(Adnkronos)