Oceans globally recorded their hottest July ever last month, according to a new analysis. The severe ocean heat was evident around Europe, which is coping with a scorching summer.
Outside the polar regions, the ocean surface averaged 69.73 degrees F (20.96 degrees C), breaking the previous July record, set in 2023, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Ocean heat was particularly severe in the Pacific, thanks to an intensifying El Niño.
Land surface temperatures were only slightly less severe. Across both land and sea, last month was the second hottest July on record globally.
In Europe, heat records continue to fall. “July 2026 was the third consecutive month of exceptional heat in Western Europe, bringing the combined temperature for June and July to a new record for the region,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus.
Recurrent hot spells and meager rainfall have desiccated soils across Western Europe, making heat more severe. “As soils dry out, they lose their ability to provide natural cooling, allowing heat to build more readily,” Burgess said. “This is a clear example of how climate change is intensifying heat extremes, with heat and drought increasingly reinforcing one another.”
Drought has also drained rivers across Europe. Low water levels on the Danube River, on the border between Serbia and Romania, have revealed dozens of World War II shipwrecks. The ships belonged to a Nazi fleet that was sunk near the end of the war to slow the advance of Soviet forces. Elsewhere on the Danube, in Slovakia, authorities recovered an unexploded WWII bomb.
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