Earth System Dynamics
Earth System Dynamics
ESD
Articles | Volume 17, issue 3
Articles | Volume 17, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-877-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-877-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 17, issue 3
Research article
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29 Jun 2026
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 29 Jun 2026

Climate models with moderate climate sensitivity best simulate the magnitude of Earth's energy imbalance

Kyriaki Bimpiri, Thomas Hocking, and Thorsten Mauritsen

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Editorial statement
The authors identify a close relationship between the Earth's energy imbalance and equilibrium climate sensitivity, enabling to constrain the sensitivity based on the observed energy imbalance magnitude. Their results indicate that models with moderate equilibrium climate sensitivity agree best with the observed energy imbalance.
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Short summary

Observations show an increasing imbalance between how much energy the Earth absorbs from the Sun and emits back to space, leading to climate change. We evaluate how well climate models simulate both the magnitude and trend of the imbalance. We find that models capture the magnitude but underestimate the trend, which is not related to how models handle volcanic aerosols when switching to future scenarios. The models that best simulate the magnitude are the ones with moderate climate sensitivity.

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