Climate Regulators  Concepts

When factors that regulate climate are altered, Earth's energy budget shifts away from equilibrium. A measurement of these shifts is radiative forcing. The word radiative arises because these factors change the balance between incoming solar (visible/shortwave) radiation and outgoing terrestrial (infrared/longwave) radiation within the Earth's atmosphere. The term forcing is used to indicate that Earth's radiative balance is being pushed away from its normal state.