Left: Observed changes in the Earth heat inventory for the period 1971–2020. Right: Estimates of the Earth energy imbalance for successive overlapping 20-year periods and the most recent decade (right). Shaded regions indicate the very likely range (90–100 % probability), while the stars show the CERES (NASA Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) estimates for comparison. Credit: Forster et al. (2026)
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The planet is heating up more quickly than ever before.
For decades, greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity have been building up in the atmosphere and trapping ever-higher levels of heat.
The resulting asymmetry between incoming solar energy and energy radiated back out into space — known as “Earth’s energy imbalance” — provides a direct measure of the extent to which humans are disrupting the Earth’s climate system.
