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| World's hottest summer | 
Data: ECMWF/ERA5 via Brian Brettschneider. Chart: Axios Visuals
The first of many batches of last month's temperature data is in, and it's official:
Why it matters: The unmistakably large jump in meteorological summer's global average surface temperature compared to past years is a telltale reflection of deadly heat waves and record-warm oceans.
According to preliminary data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service's ERA5 data set, the global average surface temperature for June through August was about 1.17°F above the 1991-2020 average.
This beat the previous record-hot summer of 2019 by nearly 0.54°F.June and July were each record-hot months. July ranked as the warmest month since the dawn of the instrument era in the 19th century. Zoom in: Numerous U.S. cities set records for hottest summers.
Those include: New Orleans, Miami, Baton Rouge, Houston, Corpus Christi and Phoenix. Many others had top-10-warmest summers, including Dallas, Atlanta, Austin, Jacksonville, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.Cities in the Pacific Northwest also had top-10-warmest summers, including Portland and Seattle. Globally, Australia had its warmest winter since reliable records began there in 1910. All-time winter heat records were set in multiple locations in South America, from Brazil to Chile.
Europe saw repeated, scorching heat waves that broke all-time seasonal records in Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Switzerland. In Tokyo, daytime highs rose above 86°F every day during August — a first for any month since data began there in 1875.
In Japan, August was the hottest month on record.
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