ArticleScience advances2025
Negligible contribution from aerosols to recent trends in Earth's energy imbalance.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Forcing closure suggests stronger aerosol forcing and higher climate sensitivity than the consensus.Science advances · 2026Article
- Aerosol effective radiative forcing increases Earth's energy imbalance in recent decades.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Climate models exaggerate greenhouse gas impact on recent interhemispheric temperature patterns and tropical climate.Nature communications · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During the 21st century, Earth's energy imbalance (EEI) at the top of atmosphere has markedly increased because of greater absorbed shortwave (SW) rather than reduced outgoing longwave radiation. Previous studies using single-forcing (aerosol-only) experiments attributed approximately half of the positive SW trend to reductions in anthropogenic aerosols, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). In contrast, our analysis using observations and reanalysis indicates that both aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions have made a negligible contribution to recent EEI trends. While NH anthropogenic aerosols have decreased, enhanced emissions from wildfires and volcanic activity in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) have produced comparable increases, yielding little net global impact. This hemispheric compensation also suggests that model-based estimates may overestimate aerosol influence by overlooking SH aerosol contributions. Despite uncertainties in aerosol proxies, the consistent results from two complementary proxies-satellite-derived aerosol index and reanalysis-based sulfate mass concentration-highlight the importance of accounting for natural source aerosols when assessing EEI trends.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.