January 2026 is among the five warmest on record, the European Observatory reports today. This announcement provoked the reaction of , who has openly questioned the existence of her and of the planet.
The Copernicus bulletin for January 2026
“January 2026 was the fifth warmest January on record globally, with an average surface air temperature of 12.95°C, 0.51°C higher than the 1991-2020 January average,” the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in its monthly bulletin.
January 2026 was just 0.28°C cooler than the warmest January on record in 2025, and 1.47°C warmer than the 1850-1900 average, as the pre-industrial era is defined.
Cold and extreme heat
“January 2026 was a stark reminder that the climate system can sometimes simultaneously produce very cold weather in one region and extreme heat in another,” summarized Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Record heat
The Southern Hemisphere recorded record heat in January, which helped spark deadly wildfires, the observatory said, citing those that swept through Australia, Chile and Patagonia.
Warmer-than-average temperatures were recorded in the Arctic, Greenland, South America, northern Africa, and Antarctica, C3S reports.
Severe cold
At the same time, severe cold waves have multiplied in recent weeks in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in North America, Siberia, as well as in Europe, with the result that January was the coldest on the European continent since 2010, with the surface temperature of the earth -2.34° Celsius below average.
President Donald Trump could not help but refer to the cold wave as it formed for America and Europe, who is known to characterize the scientific findings of climate change and global warming as a “fraud”.
The Trump rhetorical question
“Could the environmental rebels please explain to me what happened to that global warming?” the Republican billionaire quipped via Truth Social on Jan. 23, capitalizing the second part of the sentence as he usually does for emphasis.
