Energy balance
Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis, Annex VII: Glossary, written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press in 2023, defines the energy balance as: ‘The difference between the total incoming and total outgoing energy. If this balance is positive, warming occurs; if it is negative, cooling occurs. Averaged over the globe and over long time periods, this balance must be zero. Because the climate system derives virtually all its energy from the Sun, zero balance implies that, globally, the absorbed solar radiation, that is, incoming solar radiation minus reflected solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere and outgoing longwave radiation emitted by the climate system are equal.’
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