Global warming is presently accelerating, raising the question whether
all climate forcing and feedback mechanisms have been accounted for.
Here a metabolic climate forcing and feedback mechanism is introduced,
providing an explanation for the observed accelerated global warming.
Based on more than 400,000 meteorological observations at various
latitudes, it is shown that temperatures at the Earth's surface
increasingly depart from thermodynamic equilibrium conditions towards
warming at all examined geographical locations because of a long-lasting
imbalance between the exothermic metabolic process of ecosystem
respiration and the endothermic metabolic process of photosynthesis.
Following the principles of the metabolic theory, metabolic imbalances
are attributed to warmer temperatures stimulating ecosystem respiration
at the same time as photosynthesis becomes light constrained. Since
metabolic imbalances are expected to continue until ecosystem
respiration becomes substrate limited, there is an urgent need to
navigate climate mitigation towards measures that can slow down
ecosystem respiration.