Credit: CC0 Public DomainSunlight is in, reflected, and emitted. This is the planet's fundamental energy balance. Our planet will remain in equilibrium if the sun, clouds, ice caps, and land surfaces send energy as far as possible back to space.This system has been in balance for decades. The sun continues to shine in and the Earth doesn't emit enough infrared radiation or reflected solar radiation. Extra heat around the globe, 90% of which is in the ocean, adds energy to global climate systems. It manifests in many ways, including higher temperatures, rising sea level, flooding, droughts and more severe blizzards.Climate scientists have been warning for half a century that this is the inevitable consequence of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But climate deniers continue to say that these observed changes may be natural variations.Scientists have held that scientists cannot determine if the imbalance has been caused by humans or climate change. Shiv Priyam Raghuraman is a Princeton graduate student in atmospheric-oceanic sciences (AOS). "Our study showed that it was almost impossible for Earth to cause such a large imbalance increase with its own oscillations or variations, even given the observational record."His co-authors and he used satellite observations to determine that the Earth's energy imbalance is increasing. Raghuraman collaborated with David Paynter, of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory (GFDL), a NOAA funded national laboratory on Princeton's Forrestal Campus. Raghuraman also worked with V. Ramaswamy Ramaswamy who is a professor in geosciences at Princeton University. Today's Nature Communications article contains Raghuraman's paper.Raghuraman stated that it is extremely unlikely less than 1% that this trend can be explained through natural variations in climate.What is causing the energy imbalance?Raghuraman stated, "Increasing greenhouse gases means that more infrared energy is trapped. The classic greenhouse effect will therefore increase." This is true, but it is also false. The greenhouse gas heating effect is cancelled because the warmer planet radiates more infrared energy away from space. The imbalance increases are due to the fact that we receive more sunlight, but reflect less. This is because there are fewer aerosols in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, which means that the U.S. has cleaner air, while European sea-ice drops. Bright white sea ice is more reflective than sea water so Earth's reflection is decreasing.The Princeton and GFDL researchers also noted that the oceans hold 90% of this excess heat. This close connection between ocean heating and increasing energy imbalance makes the Earth's energy imbalance important for marine health, sea level rise, and global climate change. Researchers hope to track the historical trends of this energy imbalance and understand its components, which will help improve models for future climate change and drive mitigation and policymaking.They stated that satellite data provides evidence of a human-influenced climate. "Knowing human activity is responsible in the acceleration of planetary temperature uptake requires significant policy and societal actions to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions, to limit further increases in Earth’s energy imbalance."Continue reading Direct observations show that humans are throwing the Earth's energy budget out of balance.More information: Nature Communications Shiv Priyam Raghuraman and colleagues, Anthropogenic forcing and response yield observed positive trend of Earth's energy imbalance. Nature Communications (2021). Information from Nature Communications Shiv Priyam Raghuraman and colleagues, Anthropogenic forcing and response yield observed positive trend Earth's energy imbalance (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24544-4
