Earth's energy imbalance (NASA CERES)
Based on the imbalance over the last 12 months, about terawatts. Hiroshima bomb ≈ 63 TJ (15 kilotons of TNT). Humanity's total energy use: 600 EJ in 2025 (Energy Institute, Statistical Review of World Energy 2026). Global electricity demand: 31,779 TWh in 2025 (Ember, Global Electricity Review 2026). Olympic pool: 2,500 m³ of water heated from 20 °C to 100 °C. World population 8.2 billion; microwave oven 1,200 W. Hansen quote: TED talk “Why I must speak out about climate change”, 2012.
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Interpretation
Where does the heat go? Satellites compared with the ocean
The satellites measure how much energy Earth gains in total. Most of it should turn up in the ocean, which floats measure from the surface down to 2000 m. Both over the same 10 years, :
Emissions: CEDS (Community Emissions Data System), , Hoesly et al. An emissions inventory: calculated from fuel use, the sulfur in it and pollution controls, and checked against national reports; not measured in the air. "EU and UK" is the 27 EU countries plus the United Kingdom. International shipping is ships on international voyages; ships within one country's waters count for that country. Sources for the estimates: IPCC AR6 WG1, Summary for Policymakers (A.1.3); Hodnebrog et al. (2024), Communications Earth & Environment; Carbon Brief (2023) on the shipping rule; WHO on outdoor air pollution.
Energy imbalance = absorbed solar radiation (incoming minus reflected sunlight) minus outgoing longwave (heat) radiation, at the top of the atmosphere, averaged over the whole Earth (510 million km²). Positive means Earth is gaining heat. Running means end at the month shown. CERES EBAF anchors the absolute level of the imbalance to ocean heat content measurements; changes over time come from the satellite observations themselves. Monthly values are published with a lag of a few months and may be revised. Data: NASA CERES EBAF-TOA Edition 4.2.1 (ceres.larc.nasa.gov), NASA Langley Research Center, distributed by the NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center.
Further reading: Hansen et al. (2023), “Global warming in the pipeline”, Oxford Open Climate Change, with Leon Simons among the co-authors. They argue that the cut in aerosol pollution, especially the sulfur rules for shipping, is a large part of why the imbalance has grown so fast, and that warming is speeding up as a result. Other scientists think they overestimate the aerosol effect; the debate is about how large it is, not whether it exists.