World

Report: Ocean Temperatures Hit Record Levels in July

Is this an unprecedented climate catastrophe or are scientists manipulating the data?

Published AUG 10

Report: Ocean Temperatures Hit Record Levels in July

Story

Above: Aerial view of Kastrosikia beach in the municipality of Preveza, Greece, on Aug. 9. Image credit: Vlasov Sulaj/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The Facts

Global average sea surface temperatures outside polar regions reached 20.96°C in July, surpassing the previous July record of 20.89°C set in 2023, with El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific cited as a contributing factor.
Yonhap News Agency
The Irish Times
The EU’s Copernicus climate change service recorded that sea surface temperatures reached record highs for July on the Atlantic coast and western Mediterranean. It also found that severe marine heatwaves had swept the seas near Europe.
Bild
The Irish Times
The rising sea temperatures were partly caused by evolving El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific, Copernicus said. However, global surface air temperatures in July 2026 fell lower than in July 2024 by a margin of 0.01°C.
Fox 56
Guardian
Western Europe recorded its hottest June-July period ever, with an average temperature of 21.62°C — 2.79°C above the 1991-2020 average — surpassing the previous record set in 2022, according to the Copernicus service.
ABC News
Daily Mail
Exceptionally low rainfall and soil moisture were recorded across France, Spain, parts of Germany and the U.K., causing river flows on the Seine, Rhine and Danube to fall below long-term averages, disrupting water and energy supplies.
Berliner Morgenpost
RTE.ie
July 2026 marked the third consecutive month of exceptional heat in western Europe, with four heatwaves recorded since May.
NewsBytes
Anadolu Agency

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Climate-concerned narrative

Ocean temperatures matching the 2023 all-time high aren't a coincidence; they're a compounding disaster where every time the ocean reaches that ceiling, the land-based damage gets worse. Western Europe is living through a climate catastrophe — three straight months of record heat, over 500,000 hectares burned, and major rivers running dry reveal a continent under siege.

Mother Jones

Dinnu daniel on X

Climate-skeptic narrative

Blaming record ocean heat on a single year's CO2 emissions is textbook energy accounting abuse. The observed 23 zettajoule increase already reflects ENSO shifts, internal variability and decades of accumulated forcing — not 2025 emissions, which could account for under 1 zettajoule at most.

Bjorn Lomborg on X

Watts Up With That?