# Earth's Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in
## Recent Decades

Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima, Benoit Meyssignac, Norman Loeb,
Maria Hakuba, Peter Pilewskie, Jason Cole, Kentaroh Suzuki, Thomas
Ackerman, Richard Allan, et al.

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► To cite this version:

Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima, Benoit Meyssignac, Norman Loeb, Maria Hakuba, et al. Earth's Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in Recent Decades. AGU Advances, 2025, 6 (3), 10.1029/2024AV001636. [hal-05335749](https://hal.science/hal-05335749v1)

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# AGU Advances

## COMMENTARY

10.1029/2024AV001636

**Peer Review** The peer review history for this article is available as a PDF in the Supporting Information.

**Key Points:**

* Earth's energy imbalance more than doubled in recent decades

* The large trend has taken us by surprise, and as a community we should strive to understand the underlying causes

* Our capability to observe the Earth's energy imbalance and budget terms is threatened as satellites are decommissioned

**Supporting Information:**

Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article.

**Correspondence to:**

T. Mauritsen,
thorsten.mauritsen@misu.su.se

**Citation:**

Mauritsen, T., Tsushima, Y., Meyssignac, B., Loeb, N. G., Hakuba, M., Pilewskie, P., et al. (2025). Earth's energy imbalance more than doubled in recent decades. AGU Advances, 6, e2024AV001636. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024AV001636

Received 7 JAN 2025
Accepted 17 APR 2025

**Author Contributions:**

**Conceptualization:** Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima, Benoit Meyssignac, Norman G. Loeb, Maria Hakuba, Peter Pilewskie, Jason Cole, Kentaroh Suzuki, Kirsten L. Findell, Bjorn Stevens

**Formal analysis:** Thorsten Mauritsen, Benoit Meyssignac, Peter Pilewskie

**Investigation:** Thorsten Mauritsen, Benoit Meyssignac, Peter Pilewskie, Kirsten L. Findell, Bjorn Stevens

**Methodology:** Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima, Benoit Meyssignac, Peter Pilewskie, Kirsten L. Findell, Bjorn Stevens

**Resources:** Thorsten Mauritsen

© 2025. The Author(s).
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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## Earth's Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in Recent Decades

Thorsten Mauritsen¹ ID, Yoko Tsushima² ID, Benoit Meyssignac³ ID, Norman G. Loeb⁴ ID, Maria Hakuba⁵ ID, Peter Pilewskie⁶ ID, Jason Cole⁷, Kentaroh Suzuki⁸ ID, Thomas P. Ackerman⁹ ID, Richard P. Allan¹⁰ ID, Timothy Andrews² ID, Frida A.-M. Bender¹ ID, Jonah Bloch-Johnson¹¹ ID, Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo² ID, Anca Brookshaw¹², Paulo Ceppi¹³ ID, Nicolas Clerbaux¹⁴ ID, Andrew E. Dessler¹⁵ ID, Aaron Donohoe¹⁶ ID, Jean-Louis Dufresne¹⁷, Veronika Eyring¹⁸ ID, Kirsten L. Findell¹⁹ ID, Andrew Gettelman²⁰ ID, Jake J. Gristey²¹ ID, Ed Hawkins²² ID, Patrick Heimbach²³ ID, Helene T. Hewitt²⁴ ID, Nadir Jeevanjee²⁵ ID, Colin Jones²⁵, Sarah M. Kang²⁶ ID, Seiji Kato²⁷ ID, Jennifer E. Kay²⁸ ID, Stephen A. Klein²⁹ ID, Reto Knutti³⁰ ID, Ryan Kramer³¹ ID, June-Yi Lee³¹ ID, Daniel T. McCoy³² ID, Brian Medeiros³³ ID, Linda Megner³⁴ ID, Angshuman Modak³⁵ ID, Tomoo Ogura³⁶ ID, Matthew D. Palmer³⁷ ID, David Paynter³⁹ ID, Johannes Quaas³⁸ ID, Veerabhadran Ramanathan³⁹ ID, Mark Ringer² ID, Karina von Schuckmann⁴⁰ ID, Steven Sherwood⁴¹ ID, Bjorn Stevens²⁶ ID, Ivy Tan⁴² ID, George Tselioudis⁴³ ID, Rowan Sutton⁴⁴ ID, Aiko Voigt⁴⁵ ID, Masahiro Watanabe⁴⁶ ID, Mark J. Webb² ID, Martin Wild³⁰ ID, and Mark D. Zelinka²⁹ ID

¹Department of Meteorology and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, ²Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK, ³Université de Toulouse, LEGOS (CNES/CNRS/IRD/UPS), Toulouse, France, ⁴NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA, ⁵Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, ⁶Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA, ⁷Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, BC, Canada, ⁸Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, ⁹Department of Atmosphere and Climate Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA, ¹⁰Department of Meteorology and National Centre for Earth Observation, University of Reading, Reading, UK, ¹¹Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA, ¹²European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, UK, ¹³Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK, ¹⁴Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium, ¹⁵Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA, ¹⁶Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory and Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA, ¹⁷LMD/IPSL, Sorbonne Université, Université PSL, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, CNRS, Paris, France, ¹⁸Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, and University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), Bremen, Germany, ¹⁹NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, USA, ²⁰Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA, ²¹Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory; Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA, ²²National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading, Reading, UK, ²³Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA, ²⁴Met Office, Exeter, UK, ²⁵National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, ²⁶Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, ²⁷NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA, ²⁸Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA, ²⁹Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA, ³⁰Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ³¹Research Center for Climate Sciences, Pusan National University, and Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea, ³²Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA, ³³National Science Foundation, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA, ³⁴Department of Meteorology at Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, ³⁵Centre for Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India, ³⁶National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan, ³⁷Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, and School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, ³⁸Leipzig Institute for Meteorology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany, ³⁹Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA, ⁴⁰Mercator Ocean international, Toulouse, France, ⁴¹ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia, ⁴²McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁴³NASA/GISS, New York, NY, USA, ⁴⁴Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Leeds, and University of Reading, Reading, UK, ⁴⁵Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ⁴⁶Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute (AORI), UTokyo Center for Climate Solutions (UTCCS), University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
**Visualization:** Thorsten Mauritsen

**Writing – original draft:**

Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima,
Benoit Meyyssignac, Norman G. Loeb,
Maria Hakuba, Peter Pilewskie,
Jason Cole, Kentaroh Suzuki, Thomas
P. Ackerman, Richard P. Allan,
Timothy Andrews, Frida A.-M. Bender,
Jonah Bloch-Johnson, Alejandro Bodas-
Salcedo, Anca Brookshaw, Paulo Ceppi,
Nicolas Clerbaux, Andrew E. Dessler,
Aaron Donohoe, Jean-Louis Dufresne,
Veronika Eyring, Kirsten L. Findell,
Andrew Gettelman, Jake J. Gristey,
Ed Hawkins, Patrick Heimbach, Helene
T. Hewitt, Nadir Jeevanjee, Colin Jones,
Sarah M. Kang, Seiji Kato, Jennifer
E. Kay, Stephen A. Klein, Reto Knutti,
Ryan Kramer, June-Yi Lee, Daniel
T. McCoy, Brian Medeiros, Linda Megner,
Angshuman Modak, Tomoo Ogura,
Matthew D. Palmer, David Paynter,
Johannes Quaas,
Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Mark Ringer,
Karina von Schuckmann,
Steven Sherwood, Bjorn Stevens, Ivy Tan,
George Tselioudis, Rowan Sutton,
Aiko Voigt, Masahiro Watanabe, Mark
J. Webb, Martin Wild, Mark D. Zelinka

**Writing – review & editing:**

Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima,
Benoit Meyyssignac, Norman G. Loeb,
Maria Hakuba, Peter Pilewskie,
Jason Cole, Kentaroh Suzuki, Thomas
P. Ackerman, Richard P. Allan,
Timothy Andrews, Frida A.-M. Bender,
Jonah Bloch-Johnson, Alejandro Bodas-
Salcedo, Anca Brookshaw, Paulo Ceppi,
Nicolas Clerbaux, Andrew E. Dessler,
Aaron Donohoe, Jean-Louis Dufresne,
Veronika Eyring, Kirsten L. Findell,
Andrew Gettelman, Jake J. Gristey,
Ed Hawkins, Patrick Heimbach, Helene
T. Hewitt, Nadir Jeevanjee, Colin Jones,
Sarah M. Kang, Seiji Kato, Jennifer
E. Kay, Stephen A. Klein, Reto Knutti,
Ryan Kramer, June-Yi Lee, Daniel
T. McCoy, Brian Medeiros, Linda Megner,
Angshuman Modak, Tomoo Ogura,
Matthew D. Palmer, David Paynter,
Johannes Quaas,
Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Mark Ringer,
Karina von Schuckmann,
Steven Sherwood, Bjorn Stevens, Ivy Tan,
George Tselioudis, Rowan Sutton,
Aiko Voigt, Masahiro Watanabe, Mark
J. Webb, Martin Wild, Mark D. Zelinka

**Abstract** Global warming results from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which upset the delicate balance between the incoming sunlight, and the reflected and emitted radiation from Earth. The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere, resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe. Despite the fundamental role of the energy imbalance in regulating the climate system, as known to humanity for more than two centuries, our capacity to observe it is rapidly deteriorating as satellites are being decommissioned.

**Plain Language Summary** Global warming is caused by the imbalance between the incoming radiation from the Sun and the reflected and outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth. The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere, resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Observations from space of the energy imbalance shows that it is rising much faster than expected, and in 2023 it reached values two times higher than the best estimate from IPCC. We argue that we must strive to better understand this fundamental change in Earth's climate state, and ensure our capacity to monitor it in the future.

Global warming results from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which upset the delicate balance between the incoming sunlight, and the reflected and emitted radiation from Earth. The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere (von Schuckmann et al., 2023), resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe (IPCC, 2021). Despite the fundamental role of the energy imbalance in regulating the climate system, as known to humanity for more than two centuries (Fourier, 1822), our capacity to observe it is rapidly deteriorating as satellites are being decommissioned (Loeb et al., 2024).

Worryingly, the observed energy imbalance is rising much faster than expected, reaching $1.8 \text{ Wm}^{-2}$ in 2023—or twice that predicted by climate models—after having more than doubled within just two decades (Figure 1). This strong upward trend in the imbalance is difficult to reconcile with climate models: even if the increase in anthropogenic radiative forcing and associated climate response are accounted for, state-of-the-art global climate models can only barely reproduce the rate of change up to 2020 within the observational uncertainty (Raghuraman et al., 2021). The continued rise in the energy imbalance since 2020 leaves us with little doubt that the real world signal has left the envelope of model internal variability. The root cause of the discrepancy between models and observations is currently not well known, but it seems to be dominated by a decrease in Earth's solar reflectivity (Goessling et al., 2024; Stephens et al., 2022), and model experiments suggest it could be due to poorly modeled sea surface temperature patterns, the representation and emissions of polluting aerosol particles, or something else (Hodnebrog et al., 2024).

The energy imbalance is the result of multiple factors: forcing, feedback and internal variability. The main forcing is that of anthropogenic emissions that lead to accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, emitted infrared radiation to space is reduced, driving a gradually increasing imbalance. Part of the positive greenhouse gas forcing is offset by the presence of anthropogenic aerosols, which cool climate by reflecting sunlight back to space and influence cloud reflection. The forcing from aerosols, even in recent decades, is poorly known (Bellouin et al., 2020). But some evidence suggests the cooling effect is weakening as governments address air quality issues (e.g., Hodnebrog et al., 2024). However, the rising surface temperatures also lead to more infrared emission to space, which reduces the energy imbalance, constituting a negative feedback mechanism. The warming further activates other climate feedbacks from clouds, water vapor, the cryosphere, etc., which together act to amplify global warming. Overall, the negative feedbacks are believed to dominate so that over the last decades the enhanced outgoing radiation from feedback mechanisms should have countered a substantial part of the increase in radiative forcing. In addition, internal variability arising from weather and slower modes, such as El Niño, can cause year-to-year fluctuations in the energy imbalance. This shows that there are many, sometimes counteracting drivers of the energy imbalance, all of which can play a role in determining the observed accelerating rate of increase. With an observed global warming of about 0.6 K over the 2001–2024
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Annual global mean energy imbalance observed from space during 2001–2024. The imbalance is derived from the CERES-EBAF Edition 4.2.1 data set (Loeb et al., 2018). The blue line shows the linear trend over the 2001–2024 period when full annual means are available. Gray shading shows years affected by major El Niño events.</figcaption></figure>

period, the enhanced outgoing radiation from feedback mechanisms should have countered a substantial part of the increase in radiative forcing, but that is not clearly evident from the observational record.

Much attention has been given to the record breaking surface temperatures in 2023 and 2024, and this has a bearing on the energy imbalance since it too beat all records in 2023. A large accumulation of energy in a single year, however, does not necessarily cause the temperature anomaly in that year. Rather, the temperature in 1 year is perhaps better thought of as the result of the energy accumulated in earlier years, combined with any rapid change in forcing (e.g., aerosol emissions, volcanic eruptions or solar forcing), internal variability within the climate system, as well as climate feedback mechanisms. The energy imbalance started to decrease already in the second half of 2023, and continued to weaken in 2024 (Figure 1), suggesting that stabilizing feedback mechanisms are now active in the aftermath of the El Niño event. A similar pattern was seen after the 2009/10 El Niño, but not nearly as pronounced for the 2015/16 event. Notably, the drop in 2024 relative to 2010 follows the overall upward trend and coming years will tell if the energy imbalance remains at this more modest level, or bounces back up to the high levels observed in recent years.

Disentangling the underlying causes and effects of changes in the energy imbalance relies heavily on observing trends in both the emitted infrared and reflected sunlight, and how they vary spatially and over seasons. The components of the Earth's energy imbalance are currently observed using a combination of NASA's CERES onboard several polar-orbiting satellites, and the total solar irradiance (TSIS-1) instrument on the International Space Station. The mean of these observations for 07/2005-06/2015 is constrained by estimates of the increase in interior energy, predominantly from rising ocean temperatures monitored using thousands of autonomous Argo floats (Johnson et al., 2016). The resulting radiation budget record requires an overlap of different instruments in orbit to ensure there are no discontinuities between successive missions and to prevent loss of critical data. If there is a gap in the record with this system, then our ability to track and understand changes in the energy imbalance is severely compromised (Loeb et al., 2024). Currently, four sets of CERES instruments are in space, and the Libera follow-on mission (e.g., Hakuba et al., 2024) with similar or improved capabilities is planned to launch in 2027. It is likely that within a decade Libera will be the only instrument in space as the other satellites are decom-

missioned. It will by then be a single point of failure, and at present, there are no formal plans to continue this vital record after Libera's mission-end. For solar irradiance, the follow-on total solar irradiance instrument (TSIS-2) is scheduled to launch in 2025, but has only a 3-year planned mission lifetime.

In the longer perspective there are complementary initiatives that focus on measuring the energy imbalance itself, and less so on the individual incoming and outgoing budget components. One US initiative is based on nearly spherical black satellites with accelerometers that will measure the radiation pressure (Hakuba et al., 2019), and a European proposed mission uses a constellation of satellites each equipped with four evolved wide field of view radiometers, complemented with cameras for spatial information (e.g., Hocking et al., 2024). By focusing on accurately measuring the energy imbalance itself, these direct measurements from space can be made inde- pendently from other systems. Neither of these proposed missions are yet funded, and even with sufficient funding, they are unlikely to fly before the second half of the 2030s. However, successful implementation of these missions will provide independent measurements, complementary capabil- ities and crucial redundancy when combined with the CERES/Libera line of instruments.

It will indeed be crucial to closely monitor and quantitatively understand changes in the Earth's energy accumulation, particularly during the coming

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Climate model global mean temperature and energy imbalance under a strong mitigation scenario meeting the 2° target (SSP1-2.6). Time series are estimated from the IPCC AR6 Earth system emulator (IPCC, 2021, Chapter 7 supplementary material). Displayed data are from (Meyssignac et al., 2023). Uncertainty ranges indicate the 90 percent confidence interval of the spread caused by uncertainties in forcing, the climate response, and the carbon cycle. The displayed uncertainty range therefore excludes internal variability. The dots mark the peak year on each time series.</figcaption></figure>
decades as the nations of the world take steps to keep global warming well below 2° (United Nations, 2015). Stabilizing global warming below 2° can still be achieved by swiftly phasing out fossil fuel burning. If successful, such mitigation efforts will first manifest in a peak, followed by a slowly declining trend in Earth's energy imbalance, essentially decades ahead of the temperature signal (Figure 2, Meyyssignac et al., 2023). It is in the energy imbalance that we can follow up and assess the effectiveness of the mitigation efforts on the fly. And if surprises lie ahead, for example, from unexpectedly large aerosol forcing (Hansen et al., 2023), or an unexpected loss of climate stability, then the imbalance is the first place this can be detected.

As a community we must work systematically to understand and quantify the underlying causes of the changes in the energy imbalance, not only far into the future, but also on a year to year basis, as questions mount with regards to the 2023 combined record imbalance and temperatures; an anomaly which has clearly caught us all off guard. And, together with funding agencies and policy makers, we must strive to secure a robust and reliable capability to observe the energy imbalance—the perhaps most fundamental quantity in the climate system—during this pivotal moment in history.

## Acknowledgments

This work was initiated following a dedicated session at a Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) meeting hosted at Boston College, Massachusetts, June 3–4, 2024. TM acknowledges support from the European Space Agency (ESA) Twelfth Earth Explorer program (EE12), the Swedish National Space Agency (Grant 2024-00122), the Swedish e-Science Research Centre (SeRC), the Swedish Research Council (Grant 2018-04274), and the European Union's Horizon 2020 program projects NextGEMS (Grant 101003470) and CERTAINTY (Grant 101137680). YT acknowledges support from the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by DSIT. BM acknowledges support from ESA climate space program on cross-ECV activity and the Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) program on sentinel-6 MF. MH carried out research at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). KS acknowledges support from the MEXT program for the Advanced Studies of Climate Change Projection (SENTAN) (Grant JMPXD0722680395) and JAXA/EarthCARE project. J.J.G. acknowledges support from the NOAA Cooperative Agreement with CIRES NA22OAR4320151 and NASA contract 80LARC20D0006, and notes that the statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or the U.S. Department of Commerce. MDZ was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Regional and Global Model Analysis program area. The work of MDZ was performed under the auspices of the U.S. DOE by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DEAC52-07NA27344. AG acknowledges that the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for the U. S. Department of Energy by the Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. LM acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (Grant 2022-00108).

## Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest relevant to this study.

## Data Availability Statement

CERES-EBAF Edition 4.2.1 data (Loeb et al., 2018) displayed in Figure 1 was downloaded from https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ as monthly global means. Model output displayed in Figure 2 is described in a supplement to the (IPCC, 2021) working Group 1 Chapter 7 (Smith et al., 2021), and Meyyssignac et al. (2023). The underlying model code and parameters are available on https://github.com/IPCC-WG1/Chapter-7.

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