Energy budget constraints on historical radiative forcing

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 10 February 2020; doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0696-1

Earth’s energy imbalance from human and natural drivers—effective radiative forcing—is difficult to constrain, contributing to uncertainty in long-term climate change. A top-down observational constraint reduces IPCC AR5 assessed uncertainty by nearly 40% and suggests models are biased low.