We have been able to explore in the Universe, but our living planet is unique. Life on Earth is dependent on many finely balanced, interwoven cycles that come together to produce the right circumstances for us.
Earth's delicate energy system is dependent on the input and output of the Sun.
Climate systems are dictated by this cycle. The seasonal change in energy balance on Mars is thought to cause the planet's notorious dust storms.
The energy cycle on Earth was fairly balanced before the 17th century. In the last 15 years, the imbalance has doubled.
Kevin Trenberth is an atmospheric scientist from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.
The only way to estimate the discrepancy is through an inventory of the changes in energy.
The data from all components of the climate system were reviewed by Lijing Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Moon takes the full impact of the Sun's energy, which leads to a surface temperature of around 100C. Most of the energy is absorbed by the Moon and returned to space as heat.
This process on Earth is changed by the atmosphere. Molecules in our atmosphere catch heat before it reaches space. Unfortunately for us, these are the greenhouse gasses, which have now blanketed the planet in a too-snug blanket.
The researchers explain in their paper that the extra trapped energy affects the surroundings on the way to its final destination.
Understanding net energy gain and how much heat is redistributed within the Earth system is important. How much heat could be moved to a place where it wouldn't warm up?
Everyone has focused on increasing temperatures, but that's only one part of the extra energy. Only 4 percent of it goes into raising the land temperature and 3 percent into melting ice.
They found that almost 93 percent is being absorbed by the ocean.
It's enough to increase the severity of extreme weather events if less than 1% of the excess energy whirls around in our atmosphere.
Increased atmospheric turbulence might be helpful.
The climate system gets rid of energy by moving it to space because of the weather events.
The gasses trap solar radiation before it becomes long-wave heat. Both reflective clouds and ice are being disrupted.
There's not enough information for a comprehensive Earth system model to accurately predict outcomes beyond the short term. The framework they use to consider each Earth system component may be improved.
Cheng says that "modeling the Earth energy imbalance is challenging and the relevant observations need improvements."
Understanding how all forms of energy are distributed across the globe will help us understand our future.
The research was published in an environmental journal.
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