Last month tied July 2023 as the planet’s hottest month on record, European scientists said on Thursday, as human-caused warming pushes the Northern Hemisphere’s muggiest, most uncomfortable time of year into new realms of stickiness and discomfort. Dangerous heat hammered Europe for the fifth time since May. Temperatures soared into the triple digits across the southern United States from California to Texas.

South Korea recorded its highest temperature reading in modern history: 108.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the southern city of Yangsan on Aug. 2. August tied the record for the oceans’ hottest month in history as well, scientists said, as El Niño conditions caused warm water to accumulate at the surface of the tropical Pacific. This extra warmth will spread to the rest of the planet in the months ahead, making the globe’s average temperatures likely to break more records through the end of the year and into 2027.

These observations show how climate change is driving extremes across both the atmosphere and the oceans, said Samantha Burgess, a climate scientist at Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service, which published the analysis of August temperatures. The impacts of these conditions are increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world. August’s sweltering temperatures capped the warmest summer on record for both Western Europe and the contiguous United States.

Across the lower 48 states, the average temperature last month was 75.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest on record for August and 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Wednesday.