How hot was August 2023?

Your monthly global temperature report

Figure 1 shows that the August 2023 anomaly was a record for August by a half degree Fahrenheit, or about a 30% increase over the previous record in 2016. August 2023 will likely end up an El Niño month.

Figure 1: August temperature anomalies. Data from NOAA.

Here is what NOAA has to say about August 2023:

The August global surface temperature was 1.25°C (2.25°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), making it the warmest August on record. This marked the first time an August temperature exceeded 1.0°C (1.8°F) above the long-term average. August 2023 was 0.29°C (0.52°F) warmer than the previous August record from 2016, but the anomaly was 0.10°C (0.18°F) lower than the all-time highest monthly temperature anomaly on record (March 2016). However, the August 2023 temperature anomaly was the third-highest anomaly of any month on record.

Figure 2 shows how August looks when compared to all months. We can see that the anomalies are tracking the El Niño curve, and assuming El Niño continues, we should expect large anomalies.

Figure 2. Temperature anomalies for all months. Data from NOAA.

To see how the heat was distributed around the globe, here is the map from NASA, Figure 3. The map matches what NOAA has to say:

Temperatures were above average throughout most of South America, Africa, Asia, North America, the Arctic and Oceania. Parts of southern North America, central South America, western and central Africa, central, southern, and eastern Asia, and northwestern and eastern Oceania experienced record-warm temperatures this month. Sea surface temperatures were above average across much of the northern, western, and southeastern Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Record-warm temperatures covered nearly 13% of the world's surface this August, which was the highest August percentage since the start of records in 1951.

Figure 3. Map from NASA.

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Data

ENSO data from Oceanic Niño Index (ONI)

June Global Temperature anomalies from NOAA NCEI