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Originally published in Science Express on 28 April 2005
Science 3 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5727, pp. 1431 - 1435
DOI: 10.1126/science.1110252
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Research Articles

Earth's Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications

James Hansen,1,2* Larissa Nazarenko,1,2 Reto Ruedy,3 Makiko Sato,1,2 Josh Willis,4 Anthony Del Genio,1,5 Dorothy Koch,1,2 Andrew Lacis,1,5 Ken Lo,3 Surabi Menon,6 Tica Novakov,6 Judith Perlwitz,1,2 Gary Russell,1 Gavin A. Schmidt,1,2 Nicholas Tausnev3

Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse gases and aerosols, among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing 0.85 ± 0.15 watts per square meter more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years. Implications include (i) the expectation of additional global warming of about 0.6°C without further change of atmospheric composition; (ii) the confirmation of the climate system's lag in responding to forcings, implying the need for anticipatory actions to avoid any specified level of climate change; and (iii) the likelihood of acceleration of ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise.

1 NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY 10025, USA.
2 Columbia Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10025, USA.
3 SGT Incorporated, New York, NY 10025, USA.
4 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
5 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10025, USA.
6 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jhansen{at}giss.nasa.gov

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