Updated interactive visualization of climate forcing data - 2025 data now added

[Clive Elsworth]

All - you might like to see my updated interactive visualization of climate forcing data used by the IPCC in their reports. Today I added data from 2025:

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMTgzYTU4YWItMTc4Ni00NDBmLWI3OGUtMTY5MTVjYWFlOTQxIiwidCI6IjZlY2YzYTJkLTE4ZDMtNDdlNi1hYzZiLTFjNTIwMGE3ZjhmOSIsImMiOjh9

(Data from Forster et al, University of Leeds, UK, via Github.)

 

On the so-called energy transition, Mark Mills makes the most sense to me:

• Green Energy Dreams, Fossil Fuel Realities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2hYZ-JJ6k
• Global Markets "Recoupling" to Oil and Commodities: https://youtu.be/PipEtGPA-tk?t=522

 

Clive

[John Nissen]

Hi Clive,

Thanks for your updated interactive graph of forcing from 1850 to 2025.  There was a spurt in the 70s, and from 1980 the global temperature was rising and the Arctic temperature rising about 4x faster.  The overall forcing tripled from around 1.0 W/m2 in 1980 to 3.1 W/m2 in 2025.  The rate of warming has doubled from 0.18C per decade to around 0.36C per decade.  If it stays at 0.36C per decade, on a linear extrapolation global temperature will reach 2C by 2040, 3C by 2070 and 4C by 2100.  

Many of us believe that there is an existential threat for civilisation without cooling intervention: both to keep global warming below 2C and to halt the Arctic meltdown.  Environmentalists assume that the global temperature will continue to rise, and we will all have to adapt to climate change and more extreme heat.  Climate experts continue to peddle emissions reduction as the best that can be done, claiming  intervention is too risky.  The public are kept in the dark.

BTW, does the natural forcing in your graph include the cooling effect from increased thermal radiation as the planet heats?

Cheers, John

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[Clive Elsworth]

Good question John, which made me think for a while.

 

The answer below from Gemini is much as I thought:

 

In short: Radiative forcing (RF) data is calculated using a specific reference temperature profile (usually the pre-industrial state), but the definition itself requires holding the surface temperature constant to isolate the "push" from the greenhouse gas. While the values are "roughly correct" for Earth-like conditions, they are not universal constants; they would change significantly if Earth’s baseline temperature were substantially different.

 

Most "best-estimate" forcing data is calculated using the Earth’s state in the year 1750 as the baseline (IPCC, 2021).

 

Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF): This is the modern standard used by the IPCC. It allows "rapid adjustments" (like the stratosphere and troposphere warming up slightly or clouds shifting) but strictly holds the global mean surface temperature constant (Smith et al., 2020).

 

My chart uses ERF data from Forster et al, all of which we can assume is calculated for the baseline mean surface temperature of 1750. This applies to all ERF data including volcanic and solar forcings (‘Natural’ in my chart). ERF data is not perfect, but close enough to be considered useful. That’s how I understand it.

 

N.B. So, given that baseline temperature is assumed, there is no accounting for feedbacks such as water vapour or cloud and sea-ice feedbacks.

 

Someone from the Forster team confirmed to me that their ERF forcings can be simply added, which is what my interactive chart does. Page 2 enables different forcings to be selected in isolation and displayed separately or added together depending on the Detail Level selected:

 

 

Here’s a more friendly link to it: Interactive Radiative Forcings Chart - 6 pages 

 

(Error bars are calculated as approximations.)

 

Clive Elsworth

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[John Nissen]

Thanks, Clive, 

But you've not quite understood the question.  As the planet warms, it produces more thermal radiation.  This extra radiation power can be calculated in W/m2 using Boltzman's formula assuming it is effectively black-body radiation.  This is then masked by GHGs such that the increase in thermal radiation output from the planet is much less than calculated.  If a baseline of 1750 is used by IPCC, it suggests that the increase in thermal radiation has been ignored. I would like to see an extra line in the graph for natural cooling through extra thermal output, as opposed to volcanoes etc.

When you look at the CERES satellite data, it measures all thermal output.  As the planet has warmed considerably over the 20 years of data, the thermal output may have actually decreased.  I would need to examine the data more closely.  Nobody seems to have distinguished between the black-body radiation effect and the GHG masking effect in the total thermal output (longwave radiation).

Having said all that, the important thing for our future is to react to the extraordinary decrease in outgoing shortwave radiation due to the planet's decreased albedo over recent years, markedly affecting the Earth's Energy Imbalance.   It is commensurate with a reduction in SO2 from ships and planes, and the CERES location data supports this.  Ships and planes should have tanks of less refined fuel which they can use when away from populated areas where the SO2 could harm health.  The SO2 from the refinement process should go into the stratosphere for maximum cooling effect!

Cheers, John

[Dr Tom Harris]

Hi John,

Dissecting the CERES data does show an increase in outgoing long wave radiation from the Planck effect you suggest. Interestingly though the increase is not coming from clear sky areas since the GHG accumulation seems to be rising fast enough to counter the increase in radiation from the surface. The increase is coming from long wave radiation from clouds. I think there are two reasons for this, firstly clouds are warming up and also condensing at higher altitudes so releasing their latent heat with less of an air barrier to pass through the GHGs before reaching space. The value is big though, since 2000 cloudy area long wave outgoing radiation has increased by 0.88W/m2. This is despite the drop in cloud area over the same time which is roughly 1.5million km2 of average global annual cloud cover (roughly the land area of Mongolia).

I’ve an article breaking it down here: https://drtomharris.substack.com/p/earths-energy-imbalance-quarter-century 

Tom

Dr Tom Harris
Ross-on-Wye UK
Born at 318 ppm CO2 - 26% less than today

HPAC Member

https://drtomharris.substack.com

Any views or opinions expressed in this email are entirely my own and do not represent the views of my previous clients including InnovateUK or any projects I was involved in professionally.

On 4 May 2026, at 11:19, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks, Clive, 

But you've not quite understood the question.  As the planet warms, it produces more thermal radiation.  This extra radiation power can be calculated in W/m2 using Boltzman's formula assuming it is effectively black-body radiation.  This is then masked by GHGs such that the increase in thermal radiation output from the planet is much less than calculated.  If a baseline of 1750 is used by IPCC, it suggests that the increase in thermal radiation has been ignored. I would like to see an extra line in the graph for natural cooling through extra thermal output, as opposed to volcanoes etc.

When you look at the CERES satellite data, it measures all thermal output.  As the planet has warmed considerably over the 20 years of data, the thermal output may have actually decreased.  I would need to examine the data more closely.  Nobody seems to have distinguished between the black-body radiation effect and the GHG masking effect in the total thermal output (longwave radiation).

Having said all that, the important thing for our future is to react to the extraordinary decrease in outgoing shortwave radiation due to the planet's decreased albedo over recent years, markedly affecting the Earth's Energy Imbalance.   It is commensurate with a reduction in SO2 from ships and planes, and the CERES location data supports this.  Ships and planes should have tanks of less refined fuel which they can use when away from populated areas where the SO2 could harm health.  The SO2 from the refinement process should go into the stratosphere for maximum cooling effect!

Cheers, John

On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 8:51 AM Clive Elsworth <Cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk> wrote:

Good question John, which made me think for a while. 

 

The answer below from Gemini is much as I thought:

 

In short: Radiative forcing (RF) data is calculated using a specific reference temperature profile (usually the pre-industrial state), but the definition itself requires holding the surface temperature constant to isolate the "push" from the greenhouse gas. While the values are "roughly correct" for Earth-like conditions, they are not universal constants; they would change significantly if Earth’s baseline temperature were substantially different.

 

Most "best-estimate" forcing data is calculated using the Earth’s state in the year 1750 as the baseline (IPCC, 2021).

 

Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF): This is the modern standard used by the IPCC. It allows "rapid adjustments" (like the stratosphere and troposphere warming up slightly or clouds shifting) but strictly holds the global mean surface temperature constant (Smith et al., 2020).

 

My chart uses ERF data from Forster et al, all of which we can assume is calculated for the baseline mean surface temperature of 1750. This applies to all ERF data including volcanic and solar forcings (‘Natural’ in my chart). ERF data is not perfect, but close enough to be considered useful. That’s how I understand it.

 

N.B. So, given that baseline temperature is assumed, there is no accounting for feedbacks such as water vapour or cloud and sea-ice feedbacks.

 

Someone from the Forster team confirmed to me that their ERF forcings can be simply added, which is what my interactive chart does. Page 2 enables different forcings to be selected in isolation and displayed separately or added together depending on the Detail Level selected:

 

<image001.png>

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[Tom Goreau]

Sorry Clive, the “natural graph” (basically solar radiation variability at the ground) how do you define “fast oxidizable” and “slow oxidizable” categories below?

 

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[Tom Goreau]

Sorry sent too soon. The “natural” line is clear, and includes volcanic eruptions with the strongest being Krakatoa and the strongest of all, Tambora, missing off the time scale.

 

Are “fast oxidizable” and “slow oxidizable” based on gases that react quickly or slowly with reactive oxygen free radicals, such as nitrogen and sulfur gases versus methane?

 

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[Clive Elsworth]

Hi John

 

You said: “Nobody seems to have distinguished between the black-body radiation effect and the GHG masking effect in the total thermal output (longwave radiation).”

 

I asked Gemini AI: “What are the most accessible papers that distinguish between and explain the black-body radiation effect and the GHG masking effect that results in Earth's total thermal output (longwave radiation)?”

 

Here’s its answer:

Distinguishing between the black-body radiation effect (often called the Planck response) and the greenhouse gas (GHG) masking effect is fundamental to understanding Earth's energy balance. While the black-body effect dictates how much energy a surface wants to radiate based on its temperature, the GHG masking effect determines how much of that energy actually escapes to space.

 

1. Conceptual Distinction

·         The Black-body Radiation Effect (Planck Response): Based on the Stefan-Boltzmann Law ($j^* = \sigma T^4$), any object with a temperature $T$ emits thermal radiation. As Earth's surface warms, it emits significantly more infrared energy. This is a powerful "stabilizing feedback" because it allows the planet to shed excess heat quickly as it warms (IPCC, 2021).

·         The GHG Masking Effect (Greenhouse Effect): Greenhouse gases like $CO_2$ and $H_2O$ are opaque to specific frequencies of this infrared radiation. They absorb the "upward" thermal energy from the warm surface and re-emit it at the colder temperatures of the upper atmosphere. Because the emission to space now comes from a colder layer, the total thermal output (Outgoing Longwave Radiation, or OLR) is reduced or "masked" compared to what the surface originally emitted (Jeevanjee et al., 2021).

 

2. Most Accessible Papers

The following papers are widely regarded by educators and researchers for their clarity in separating these two mechanisms.

A. The Best General Overview: Pierrehumbert (2011)

Raymond Pierrehumbert’s article in Physics Today is arguably the most cited "accessible" explanation of planetary temperature.

·         Key Distinction: He explains the "energy balance" by showing that the greenhouse effect doesn't just "trap" heat; it shifts the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) emission point to a higher, colder altitude. He clearly separates the "black-body" emission of the surface from the "atmospheric insulation" provided by GHGs.

·         Why it’s accessible: It uses clear analogies (like the "stratified" atmosphere) and focuses on the fundamental physics rather than complex climate modeling code.

Source: Pierrehumbert, R. T. (2011). Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today, 64(1), 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3541943 (Cited by: 120+)

 

B. The "Spectral Masking" Perspective: Jeevanjee et al. (2021)

This paper is unique because it introduces the term "spectral masking" to describe why Earth’s warming doesn't look like a simple black-body shift from space.

·         Key Distinction: The authors show that while the surface warms and tries to emit more energy (the black-body effect), the increased humidity ($H_2O$ is a GHG) "masks" that extra emission in specific spectral bands. This "masking" is why the net increase in OLR is much smaller than the $T^4$ law would suggest for the surface alone.

·         Why it’s accessible: It provides beautiful, "colorful" visualizations of the infrared spectrum that make the abstract concept of "forcing" immediately intuitive.

Source: Jeevanjee, N., Seeley, J. T., Payne, A. E., & Fueglistaler, S. (2021). A colorful look at climate sensitivity. Physics Today, 74(4), 40–46. https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4724

 

C. The Formal Framework: IPCC AR6 (2021)

For the most precise definitions used in modern science, Chapter 7 of the Sixth Assessment Report is the definitive source.

·         Key Distinction: It formally defines the Planck Feedback (the black-body response) as the primary stabilizing factor of the climate and distinguishes it from Radiative Forcing (the masking effect of GHGs). It explains that the "Effective Radiative Forcing" is the net result of the GHG mask minus the initial atmospheric adjustments (IPCC, 2021).

·         Why it’s accessible: While the full report is massive, the "Executive Summary" and "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ 7.1) sections of Chapter 7 are written specifically for a broad audience.

 

Source: IPCC. (2021). The Earth's Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.009

 

---

Summary of Mechanisms

Feature	Black-body (Planck) Effect	GHG Masking Effect
Physics Law	Stefan-Boltzmann ($T^4$)	Beer-Lambert (Absorption)
Role in Climate	Stabilizing: Increases OLR as Earth warms.	Destabilizing: Decreases OLR by blocking surface emission.
Visual Signal	Shift in the height/area of the curve.	"Bites" or "notches" taken out of the spectrum.
Primary Paper	Pierrehumbert (2011)	Jeevanjee et al. (2021)

References

Jeevanjee, N., Seeley, J. T., Payne, A. E., & Fueglistaler, S. (2021). A colorful look at climate sensitivity. Physics Today, 74(4), 40–46. https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4724

IPCC. (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896

Pierrehumbert, R. T. (2011). Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today, 64(1), 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3541943

 

My charts show only climate forcings, which I loosely describe (and think of) as warming/cooling influences. Jim Hansen calls them perturbations.

 

Further answers in blue below.

 

Clive

 

 

From: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of John Nissen
Sent: 04 May 2026 11:19
To: Cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Peter Wadhams <peter....@gmail.com>; Chris Vivian <chris....@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [HPAC] Updated interactive visualization of climate forcing data - 2025 data now added

 

Thanks, Clive, 

 

But you've not quite understood the question.  As the planet warms, it produces more thermal radiation.  This extra radiation power can be calculated in W/m2 using Boltzman's formula assuming it is effectively black-body radiation.  This is then masked by GHGs such that the increase in thermal radiation output from the planet is much less than calculated.  If a baseline of 1750 is used by IPCC, it suggests that the increase in thermal radiation has been ignored. I would like to see an extra line in the graph for natural cooling through extra thermal output, as opposed to volcanoes etc.

 

When you look at the CERES satellite data, it measures all thermal output.  As the planet has warmed considerably over the 20 years of data, the thermal output may have actually decreased. 

That’s right. Today’s energy imbalance of more or less 1.2W/m^2 means that 1.2W/m^2 is going into heating up mainly the oceans. That assumes the amount of energy (strictly power) entering the top of the atmosphere hasn’t changed. As shown on my chart, the solar forcing changes but much less than many of the other forcings.

 

I would need to examine the data more closely.  Nobody seems to have distinguished between the black-body radiation effect and the GHG masking effect in the total thermal output (longwave radiation).

See main answer above from Gemini.

 

Having said all that, the important thing for our future is to react to the extraordinary decrease in outgoing shortwave radiation due to the planet's decreased albedo over recent years, markedly affecting the Earth's Energy Imbalance.   It is commensurate with a reduction in SO2 from ships and planes, and the CERES location data supports this.  Ships and planes should have tanks of less refined fuel which they can use when away from populated areas where the SO2 could harm health.  The SO2 from the refinement process should go into the stratosphere for maximum cooling effect!

 

SO2 emissions away from populated areas:

• Ships – yes, especially in areas where typically a single low cloud layer is susceptible to brightening (MCB).
• Planes – only when flying high enough up in the stratosphere. In the upper troposphere they would increase cirrus clouds, which would produce an overall warming effect. That’s because they block more heat than they radiate upwards because it’s so cold there in the upper troposphere.

 

As you know, people like me prefer MCB to SAI. But either of them would be much better than the current ‘emissions reduction alone’ policy.

 

Cheers, John

 

 

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[Clive Elsworth]

>Are “fast oxidizable” and “slow oxidizable” based on gases that react quickly or slowly with reactive oxygen free radicals?

 

Yes, see example below, drilled down to ‘Fine’ level. I chose them myself and would be keen to hear if you think there’s a better selection:

 

 

If you hover over the big volcanic periods the salient ones indicate the volcano and location:

 

Clive

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[Dan Miller]

Be careful when watching the videos below. Mark Mills is part of a rightwing libertarian think tank that wants to promote fossil fuels.

When he says that renewables can’t scale, remember that mineral extraction needed for 100% renewables would still be less than 1% of current fossil fuel extraction.

Dan

[Cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk]

Dan

 

Do you have references for your claim below?

 

I am less interested in the politics of Mark Mills than his numbers.

 

Clive

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[H simmens]

Clive,

With a bit of help from AI here’s my response to your question:

Every year, roughly 15 billion tons of fossil fuels are mined and extracted globally. The IEA projects that a clean energy economy by 2040 would require about 28 million tons of transition minerals per year — meaning the current fossil fuel system requires approximately 535 times more mining annually than a fully transitioned clean energy economy would. 

The coal comparison specifically:

When total mining requirements are calculated — including waste rock — coal has a mining footprint roughly 26 times higher than solar power and more than 50 times higher than nuclear, measured per gigawatt-hour of electricity generated. 

Multiple peer-reviewed studies now concur that even when the full build-out of grid networks, hydrogen, electrolyzers, grid storage, nuclear, and other technologies is included alongside solar, wind, and EVs, total ore extraction declines through decarbonization — not increases. 

Mills compares the upfront mineral cost of building renewable infrastructure against the upfront cost of building fossil fuel infrastructure — and stops there. He doesn’t include the ongoing, indefinitely-repeating mineral extraction required to actually run the fossil fuel system decade after decade. 

It’s a comparison that would be like evaluating the cost of an electric car versus a gas car while counting only the sticker price and ignoring a lifetime of fuel purchases.

 Methodologically, it’s indefensible — and given his physics-and-math posture, he certainly knows it.

The one genuinely valid concern embedded in his argument is about which minerals and where — cobalt, lithium, and rare earths are geographically concentrated, sometimes sourced under poor labor and environmental conditions, and supply chains are currently under-diversified. 

That’s a real governance challenge. But it’s an argument for better mining regulation and supply chain policy, not against the energy transition.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author  of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

“A wonderful achievement, a SciencePoem, an Inspiration, a Prophecy, also hilarious, Dive in and see"

 Kim Stanley Robinson

@herbsimmens

On May 4, 2026, at 1:17 PM, Cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk wrote:



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[Dan Miller]

You can look him up:

Google:

The National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA) is a right-leaning energy think tank based in the United States. It was launched in 2024 and operates as an affiliate of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), one of the most influential conservative think tanks in the country.

…

It’s easy to show the dominance of fossil fuel energy now and make it seem like an energy transition is impossible… especially if you ignore the risks of continued fossil fuel use!  But you can also look at history, including recent history (like China’s scaling of renewables) to show that things are possible when we choose to do them. So far, we are choosing to fail (by not implementing policies to phase out fossil fuels, scale CDR, and research SRM). But someday, we may choose to succeed.

Dan

On May 4, 2026, at 10:17 AM, Cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk wrote:

Dan

 

Do you have references for your claim below?

 

I am less interested in the politics of Mark Mills than his numbers.

 

Clive

On 04/05/2026 17:28 BST Dan Miller <dann...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

 

Be careful when watching the videos below. Mark Mills is part of a rightwing libertarian think tank that wants to promote fossil fuels.

 

When he says that renewables can’t scale, remember that mineral extraction needed for 100% renewables would still be less than 1% of current fossil fuel extraction.

[Brian Cady]

A well-illustrated explanation of earth's radiative heat loss, GHGs influence and the recent albedo losses: https://drtomharris.substack.com/p/earths-energy-imbalance-quarter-century

Brian

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http://hopefulvision.blogspot.com

[rob de laet]

Hi Brian, 

Read it and Harris's analysis is largely right. He correctly identifies that the surge in Earth's Energy Imbalance (0.34 → 1.44 W/m² in 25 years) is driven overwhelmingly by albedo decline rather than by extra greenhouse trapping. He spells out that shortwave reflection loss is the dominant ladder rung, that cloud area has shrunk by roughly 1.58 million km², and that "the majority is due to cloud changes, both cover and brightness." His ladder diagram, his framing of W/m² as the right yardstick, and his alarm about acceleration are all on solid ground.

The hiatus is what he leaves out: the cooling capacity of the biosphere itself.

Having diagnosed clouds as the problem, Harris never asks why the clouds are dimming. He gestures at two causes — less sea ice and less industrial aerosol pollution — then jumps to solutions: Carbon Dioxide Removal (slow) and Solar Radiation Modification (fast but risky). The entire biological side of cloud formation is simply absent. Yet clouds need condensation nuclei, and a large share of those nuclei are biogenic: forest-emitted volatile organic compounds over land, and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) from phytoplankton over the oceans. Marine DMS production has fallen sharply since industrialization, and that decline is itself a forcing on the same order of magnitude as deforestation CO₂. A meaningful chunk of the very albedo collapse Harris is alarmed about is a biological signal, not just a cryosphere or industrial-aerosol signal.

This matters most in the tropics, and Harris's global-mean framing obscures that. The tropical zone receives the lion's share of incoming solar radiation — sun nearly overhead year-round, minimal seasonal dimming — so it is the place where small changes in surface energy partitioning translate into large changes in global heating. Tropical rainforests, mangroves, savannas, and the phytoplankton-rich tropical and subtropical oceans evolved precisely as machinery for handling that flux: dense canopies that pump prodigious volumes of water aloft, daily convective cloud towers that reflect sunlight before it ever reaches the ground, and biogenic aerosol production that keeps marine stratocumulus decks bright. Destroying these biomes doesn't just remove a carbon sink — it dismantles the planet's primary heat-dissipation system at its highest-energy latitudes. Every hectare of Amazon converted to pasture, every coral-reef-and-mangrove coastline degraded, every stretch of tropical ocean depleted of phytoplankton heats the planet faster than the equivalent loss at higher latitudes, because the energy throughput there is so much greater.

This is where the Bowen ratio becomes essential. It is the ratio of sensible heat flux (heat that directly warms the air above a surface) to latent heat flux (heat carried aloft as water vapor through evapotranspiration, only releasing when the vapor condenses higher up). It is the single number that determines whether incoming solar energy stays at the surface to bake the boundary layer or gets pumped upward, often above the bulk of the greenhouse layer, where it can radiate to space more efficiently.

The contrast is dramatic. A forest canopy receiving the same solar input as bare ground routes roughly 100 W/m² into evaporation and only ~15 W/m² into sensible heat — a Bowen ratio around 0.15. Bare or degraded ground reverses that: ~15 W/m² latent, ~60 W/m² sensible — a Bowen ratio of 4 or more. Same planet, same energy budget, completely different fate for the energy. Forest vs. bare ground differs by 2–3 W/m² in surface energy partitioning, comparable in magnitude to the entire accumulated fossil fuel forcing signal — and in the tropics, where insolation is highest, the absolute effect is larger still.

Stacked across the five forcing layers — fossil CO₂, deforestation CO₂, soil carbon loss, ocean degradation, and biological cooling loss — our calculations attribute roughly 45% of total anthropogenic heating to the degrading biosphere. That is not a rounding error on the fossil-fuel story; it is nearly half the problem, and crucially it is the half that is restorable on years-to-decades timescales rather than the centuries CO₂ requires.

Harris uses W/m² as his common currency but applies it only to top-of-atmosphere radiative balance. Extended consistently to the surface — and to the Bowen ratio that governs how that surface energy is divided — it surfaces a third lever sitting between his slow-CDR and risky-SRM options: restoring the living systems, especially in the tropics, that brighten clouds, pump latent heat aloft, and seed precipitation. He diagnoses an albedo emergency correctly; he just doesn't see that we dismantled a large piece of the biological cooling machinery ourselves, and could rebuild it.

Best, 

Rob de Laet 

Project Lead Cooling the Climate

Member of the EcoRestoration Alliance

Fellow fo the Schumacher Institute

Planetary Solvency Taskforce

Co-founder of Senang Eco Services

WhatsApp: +55 71 992617846

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[Clive Elsworth]

Dan

 

FYI I’m also right-leaning.

 

I disagree with Mark Mills that a tax on fossil fuels wouldn’t favour development of other forms of energy. I think it would favour them. But before taxing fossil fuels, shouldn’t their subsidies be removed globally by treaty? Not that there’s any chance of that any time soon!☹ The Hormuz blockade is already having a much bigger effect in the right direction.😊

 

But I find Mills’s numbers and most of his arguments perfectly plausible.

 

People’s numbers and arguments are far more interesting to me than their political leaning.

 

Clive

 

From: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Dan Miller
Sent: 04 May 2026 19:03
To: Cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [HPAC] Updated interactive visualization of climate forcing data - 2025 data now added

 

You can look him up:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/04C2934C-0F43-4782-AF8A-32B8BD8C3AB2%40gmail.com.

[Tom Goreau]

Just removing fossil fuel subsidies, 7.1 Trillion dollars a year, might do the trick by levelling the playing field.

 

At that point each energy source should be taxed to cover the damages their use causes.

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/02ae01dcdc61%247ac45d60%24704d1820%24%40EndorphinSoftware.co.uk.

[John Nissen]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the excellent and detailed breakdown of CERES data for 2000 to 2025.  It explains a lot for everyone's benefit.  I can hardly fault it; but is some of it controversial among the climate experts?

CERES data

On the longwave/thermal radiation (LW) side, you explain that the GHG growth has been just greater than the increase from black-body (Planck) radiation, though this might change due to a sharp increase in the global temperature to over 1.5C just over the past three years:

Long wave clear sky radiation should be providing cooling and up until 2020 it was doing so. It has now flipped to providing some additional heating. The trend is for this to continue as more and more GHGs accumulate in the atmosphere. It is likely this aspect will temporarily return to zero or even be positive as the last year has seen a strong increase in output, probably due to the surface heating experienced in the last three record warm years, which have averaged more than +1.5ºC, being slowly radiated upwards.

On the shortwave/solar radiation (SW) side, you confirm what I was saying.  It does appear that the decrease in SO2 emissions has had a major effect on the EEI.

Implications of EEI on global warming

As for the implications on EEI, I think you should have pointed out that the equilibrium sensitivity for climate forcing is based on doubling of CO2e rather than just CO2.  Because the forcing from other gases is about half the forcing from CO2, we can make a rough calculation of where we are now.  CO2e is now over 500 ppm, according to NOAA [1].  CO2 is now 434 ppm, which is 156 ppm above the preindustrial 278 ppm.  64% of forcing comes from CO2, and 36% from other gases [1].   This gives ~522 ppm for CO2e (156 * 100/64 = 243.75 above preindustrial).  Doubling of CO2e to 556 ppm could come very soon, giving a possible equilibrium temperature of 4C.  With current warming of 0.35C or 0.36C per decade, we are likely to reach 4C before 2100.  With accelerated warming, it could be worse.

Implications for the future of humanity

The implications for the future of civilised society are absolutely dire without a lot of SAI cooling!  At 4C, climate change and sea level rise would be existentially catastrophic, even without tipping points.  When we consider tipping points in the Arctic, then the slide towards inevitable existential catastrophe has already started.  SAI deployment is extremely urgent.

Climate restoration is eminently feasible

If the SAI nettle is grasped NOW, then there is a real possibility of restoring the planet to a healthy state over the next few decades.  The window of opportunity is closing by the day.

Cheers, John

[1] Google AI search result:

As of early 2026, the effective atmospheric concentration of all greenhouse gases, expressed as \(CO_{2}\) equivalent (\(CO_{2}e\)), is now over 500 ppm, according to NOAA's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI). [1]

While \(CO_{2}\) alone has reached roughly 422.7 ppm, the total warming impact is much higher when including methane (\(CH_{4}\)), nitrous oxide (\(N_{2}O\)), and other synthetic gases. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Key Metrics (2025–2026 Context)

• Total \(CO_{2}e\) Concentration: ~500 ppm (including direct forcing from major greenhouse gases).
• Total \(CO_{2}e\) Emissions: Global greenhouse gas emissions reached over 55 gigatons (\(GtCO_{2}e\)) in 2021, with 2022 energy-related greenhouse gases reaching an all-time high of 41.3 Gt.
• Methane's Role: Methane accounts for approximately 16% of the warming effect of long-lived greenhouse gases. Methane has a GWP of 28–30 (over 100 years), or up to 80+ over 20 years.
• \(CO_{2}\) Concentration: The global average \(CO_{2}\) concentration hit 422.7 ppm in 2024. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Understanding \(CO_{2}e\) (Forcing Included)

The \(CO_{2}e\) figure is a standardized measure that converts the warming impact of other gases into the amount of \(CO_{2}\) that would create the same amount of warming. [1, 2]

• \(CO_{2}\) (64%): Main driver of warming, with a 50% increase over pre-industrial levels.
• \(CH_{4}\) (16%): Strong short-term effect (around a decade in the atmosphere).
• \(N_{2}O\) (6%): Persistent over a century, with a high GWP.
• Other Gases (24%): Includes F-gases (HFCs, CFCs) which have high warming potential. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Note: The IEA 2022 Report indicates that energy-related greenhouse gas emissions (including \(CO_{2}\) and methane) reached 41.3 Gt, with 2022 showing a 1% increase. [1]

[Dr Tom Harris]

Hi John,

Thanks for the feedback.

The climate sensitivity thoughts are interesting. As I understand it, traditionally Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ESC) only deals with CO2 and only contains fast feedbacks such as water vapour, clouds and any feedbacks that kick in within a decade or so, while Earth System Sensitivity contains all the slow feedbacks, such as ice sheet melt. I think the reason they use CO2 rather than CO2e is that the other gases, essentially methane, don’t last long enough in the atmosphere. If you doubled CO2e as we are doing, and left the planet to settle, after a decade or two the methane contribution would disappear so you’d end up with warning to the point of the CO2 only induced equilibrium. It’s part of the reason how they can claim we on track for 2.7ºC of warming following SSP2-4.5 because that model scenario has methane emissions dropping as well as CO2. 

Of course the reality is much worse, as you suggest. A fast feedback seems to be the constant and growing methane emissions from wetlands and permafrost melt making CO2e much more relevant on longer timescales. 4ºC will be very hard to avoid without SRM. Even with it, it may still be hard to stop warming overall, just slow it down temporarily while humanity gets its act in order. 

Time is indeed running out, I don’t think that a major economic crash is too far away. That will reduce emissions but also cost us the ability to invest in restoration work. I guess that’s why we’re here urging action. 

Cheers,

Tom

Dr Tom Harris
Ross-on-Wye UK
Born at 318 ppm CO2 - 26% less than today

HPAC Member

https://drtomharris.substack.com

Any views or opinions expressed in this email are entirely my own and do not represent the views of my previous clients including InnovateUK or any projects I was involved in professionally.

[Gene Fry]

On CO2 doubling and CO2e.

Concentrations of at least two other other greenhouse gases besides CO2 were not zero immediately pre-industrial.  Notably methane and nitrous oxide, perhaps also low-altitude ozone.

So Doubling of CO2e to 556 ppm is not quite the correct number about doubling from (immediately) pre-industrial.

Gene Fry

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[Gene Fry]

From what I can tell, losing cloud cover (especially over the oceans) provides the biggest warming effect.

What is left (systematic vegetation color change, great ice sheets melting) is a modest fraction of the fast feedbacks.  And negation color change seems to be cooling now.

That suggests to me that most ECS estimates are still too low.

Gene

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/1EA3AC1F-85CB-4A95-8DDA-244A53F24166%40tomharris.uk.

[Bru Pearce]

Hi Tom and all,

 

I think many of you will find this paper from 2014 by David Wasdale very interesting. At the time, his earth system sensitivity predictions were an outlier, but it looks like he's now being proved to be 99% right.

 

Kind regards,

 Bru Pearce

 

E-mail   b...@envisionation.org  

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From: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Dr Tom Harris

Sent: 05 May 2026 14:02
To: John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com>

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/1EA3AC1F-85CB-4A95-8DDA-244A53F24166%40tomharris.uk.

[Tom Goreau]

One minor comment is that he says ice cap melting will produce 120 metres of sea level rise, but I think now the general consensus is more like 60-80 metres, enough to drown all coastal areas and drive hundreds of millions of people inland.

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/LO0P123MB4218B060303BA6E71D9EF045B93F2%40LO0P123MB4218.GBRP123.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Bru Pearce]

You're right, Tom. I think he just got that upside down. As far as I'm aware, at the depth of an ice age, sea levels are 120 m lower than they are now. When all the ice is gone, somewhere around 70 m higher is what we'll get, which would be fine because I will then have a beachfront property. Assuming I live long enough to upload my consciousness into a digital cloud somewhere waited for the ice to melt and have become part of the quantum world, I'm wondering if by then I will be remotely interested in going to the beach.

[Dr Tom Harris]

Hi Gene et al.,

ECS does seem to be incredibly complex with CO2e making it even more so. I get the feeling that basic ECS is probably along the lines that models propose in the 2-4ºC range and that would be true if we weren’t taking other actions to force it higher. Some of the albedo loss is certainly warming related, as in clouds over the oceans and ice retreat, but being added to by natural aerosol reduction through land use change. Biotic cloud formation is dropping, but not just through baseline warming but deforestation. 

Those other human actions seem to be acting as ECS multipliers. For example emissions based ECS may be 3ºC but it is multiplied by 1.5 by land use change so driving the apparent 4.5ºC we observe today. Maybe in addition to ESS and ECS for long and short term feedbacks, we need an ACS - Anthropogenic Climate Sensitivity. This would include all the other warming effects we are pilling on in addition to the GHG emissions. It would also allow us to add cooling effects like sulphate emissions (perhaps a multiplier of 0.9) and quantify potential SRM inputs. 

Tom

Dr Tom Harris
Ross-on-Wye UK
Born at 318 ppm CO2 - 26% less than today

HPAC Member

https://drtomharris.substack.com

Any views or opinions expressed in this email are entirely my own and do not represent the views of my previous clients including InnovateUK or any projects I was involved in professionally.

[rob...@rtulip.net]

Hi Clive

 

Mark Mills mixes reasonable and false claims in the first talk you linked below.  It is useful to try to sort these out.

 

I note a frequent ad hominem tendency in these sort of debates for critics to imply that because he makes some wrong claims, his true claims can be ignored.  That is a dangerous tactic that only perpetuates polarised paralysis in partisan political polemics over energy and climate.

 

His primary argument in this talk is that “it is an intellectual fraud to claim that we are undergoing an energy transition away from hydrocarbons.”  This is highly provocative toward the decarbonisation lobby and their ridiculous claims that subsidised energy transition is the best way to cool the planet.  I agree that Mills makes sense that renewable energy is primarily additive rather than replacive, and in his questions about materials sourcing.

 

It is important to accept the impact of his observation that “the US and Europe … to avoid  using oil, gas, and coal … spent… maybe closer to 20 trillion,... And as a result of that, we use more oil now, not less, more coal globally, and more natural gas.”  This suggests Mills is correct to assert a basic error in the claim that subsidising renewable energy is an effective way to cool the planet, especially considering concerns about scalability. 

 

His argument would be even stronger if he explored the claim that geoengineering is likely to be 1000 times better value for money for cooling than decarbonisation.  But that would involve accepting basic climate science, which he is not willing to do.  Where Mills gets it wrong is near the end of the talk when he criticises climate science.  He says

 

“climate science and energy science are independent magisteria. The physics of energy is extremely well understood. We can make very very concrete predictions, very accurate, very narrow boundaries about what will happen to an economy based on using more oil, coal, gas, wind, solar because the engineering and physics are narrowly bounded and really well understood. And those domains are not impacted by what I think about climate.  They have nothing to do with whether I think it's a fraud or not a fraud and existential threat or not. The gravity and friction and thermodynamics are immune to those worries. Climate science is getting better. The later IPCC forecasts are ramping down the apocalyptic temperatures. They're talking about, you know, saturation and which is what Bill Gates is is basically saying.”

 

This is all serious bullshitting.  The cultural, political and psychological problem revealed here is that in order to justify ignoring global warming, people like Mills have to invent such nonsensical arguments as the long rebutted “CO2 saturation” claim and his astonishing false assertion that temperature forecasts are declining when the opposite is the case.  IPCC is only “talking about, you know, saturation” to rebut it as entirely false. To say energy physics is “narrowly bounded and well understood” simply denies the entirety of climate science. This totally destroys any credibility in his argument that energy and climate are “independent magisteria”, a line that came from Stephen Jay Gould’s false assertion that science and religion are ‘non overlapping magisteria’.  Millions of influential people take this delusional bullshit seriously, enabling a blithe complacency about the security peril of heat.  Delusion causes suffering.

 

The mythological nature of politics is well illustrated by the simple observation that IPCC predicted the world would cross 1.5C far later than is occurring, but Mills is thoroughly indifferent to and apparently ignorant of this serious widespread discussion, feeling confident to blatantly assert the reverse of the facts.  In SR15, published in 2018, IPCC stated “the multi-dataset average GMST used in this report gives an assessed likely range for the date at which warming reaches 1.5°C of 2030 to 2052.”   Whoops!  Only 28 years out!  But Mills believes their error was in the wrong direction!  As we all know here, the 1.5C annual threshold was breached in 2024, and claims to the contrary are fraudulent.

 

Mills says his critics just ignore him.  Well I don’t ignore him.  I accept his arguments that renewable energy faces immense constraints that are ignored by its proponents.  But I reject his tribal climate denial as expressed in the above quote.  What is needed is for people like Mills to get on board with sunlight reflection, in order to accept climate science and formulate a coherent plan for Earth System stability with a practical and realistic transition strategy that works in cooperation with the existing world economy.

 

I recently saw a paywalled comment section in a right wing newspaper where the most liked comment asserted that CO2 concentration is declining.  When large segments of society are wilfully degenerating into fantasy it is essential to critique their mistakes.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

 

 

 

From: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Clive Elsworth

Sent: Tuesday, 5 May 2026 5:34 PM
To: 'Dan Miller' <dann...@gmail.com>
Cc: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>

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