It has been reported that our planet's average energy imbalance - EEI - has increased over the last decade.
It is discussed in this climate study group's document. EEI is a small difference between two large quantities (Earth absorbs and emits
about 240 W/m2 averaged over the entire planetary surface), but the change of EEI is well-measured from space.
Ten years ago, EEI had been reported to be 0.6 W/m2, averaged over 6 years. Now, current measurement series show that EEI has approximately doubled, to more than 1 W/m2.
The main reasons are evidently an increased growth rate of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and a reduction of human-made aerosols (fine particles in the air that reflect sunlight and cool the planet). The increase of average EEI is the basis for a projection that global warming will accelerate by as much as 50-100% in the few decades following 2010. There is detailed discussion of how climate modelling systems approximate the real behavior of earth oceans and clouds, and how much there is a delay in global response times towards equilibrium of energy balance. All the indications are that global warming is accelerating and we are likely to measure this in coming years as a faster rise in average surface temperature anomaly, and increased rate of accumulation of heat in our oceans.
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