- Obschon weite Teile der Nordhalbkugel eine Kältewelle erlebten, war der vergangene Monat weltweit der fünftwärmste bisher gemessene Januar.
- Die Durchschnittstemperatur lag bei 12.95 Grad Celsius, wie der EU-Klimawandeldienst Copernicus in Bonn mitteilte.
- Das waren 0.51 Grad Celsius über dem Durchschnitt der Jahre 1991 bis 2020.
Der bisher wärmste Januar war der von 2025 – da lag die Temperatur 0.28 Grad über dem Januar 2026.
While much of the Northern Hemisphere experienced a cold wave, January 2026 ranked as the fifth-warmest on record globally, according to data released by the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service. This disparity highlights the increasingly complex and localized impacts of climate change.
The global average temperature for January was 12.95 degrees Celsius (55.31 degrees Fahrenheit), 0.51 degrees Celsius (0.92 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the years 1991 to 2020. The warmest January to date was in 2025, with a temperature 0.28 degrees Celsius (0.50 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in January 2026.
Looking specifically at Europe, the picture is different: January was the coldest since 2010, with an average temperature of -2.34 degrees Celsius (-3.97 degrees Fahrenheit) – 1.63 degrees Celsius (2.93 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than the average from 1991 to 2020. Other regions of the Northern Hemisphere were also affected by extreme cold, with severe snowstorms hitting the United States at the complete of January.
However, this cold was more than offset in the overall global statistics by record heat in the Southern Hemisphere. Intense fires raged in Australia and Chile, and heavy flooding impacted southern Africa.
