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Observational evidence of increasing global radiative forcing
  • +4
  • Ryan Kramer,
  • Haozhe He,
  • Brian Soden,
  • Lazaros Oreopoulos,
  • Gunnar Myhre,
  • Piers Forster,
  • Christopher Smith
Ryan Kramer
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Haozhe He
University of Miami
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Brian Soden
University of Miami
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Lazaros Oreopoulos
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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Gunnar Myhre
CICERO Center for International Climate and Environmental Research
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Piers Forster
University of Leeds
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Christopher Smith
University of Leeds
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Abstract

Changes in atmospheric composition, such as increasing greenhouse gases, cause an initial radiative imbalance to the climate system, quantified as the instantaneous radiative forcing. This fundamental metric has not been directly observed globally and previous estimates have come from models. In part, this is because current space‐based instruments cannot distinguish the instantaneous radiative forcing from the climate’s radiative response. We apply radiative kernels to satellite observations to disentangle these components and find all‐sky instantaneous radiative forcing has increased 0.53±0.11 W/m2 from 2003 through 2018, accounting for positive trends in the total planetary radiative imbalance. This increase has been due to a combination of rising concentrations of well‐mixed greenhouse gases and recent reductions in aerosol emissions. These results highlight distinct fingerprints of anthropogenic activity in Earth’s changing energy budget, which we find observations can detect within 4 years.