Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: AGU Advances
Incoming radiation from the Sun is balanced by reflected and emitted radiation from Earth, but greenhouse gases trap radiation in Earth’s atmosphere, causing energy to accumulate in the atmosphere, oceans, and land.
Mauritsen et al. [2025] discuss how recent work analyzing Earth’s energy imbalance reveals that it is increasing much faster than predicted and is now almost double what has been predicted by climate models. The current discrepancy between the measured energy imbalance and that predicted by climate models is likely caused by a decrease in Earth’s solar reflectivity, possibly because models have not correctly accounted for sea surface temperature patterns or effects of aerosol particles.
Understanding these changes in Earth’s energy imbalance and their effects on global warming is critical to science and policy. However, these measurements rely heavily on several satellites scheduled for decommissioning, threatening our understanding of our climate future.
Citation: Mauritsen, T., Tsushima, Y., Meyssignac, B., Loeb, N. G., Hakuba, M., Pilewskie, P., et al. (2025). Earth’s energy imbalance more than doubled in recent decades. AGU Advances, 6, e2024AV001636. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024AV001636
—Kristina Vrouwenvelder, Executive Editor, AGU Advances
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