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- Sabin 33 #5 - Is solar energy worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels?
- How Plastics Fuel Climate Change
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48
- Translation #20 of The Debunking Handbook 2020 published!
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48 2024
- Recorded webinar about climate change misinformation and disinformation
- Sabin 33 #4 - Clearing trees for solar panels negates any climate change benefits
- Human-caused ocean warming intensified recent hurricanes, including all 11 Atlantic hurricanes in 2024
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
- Fact brief - Has human-caused climate change increased extreme weather?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
- Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
- Sabin 33 #3 - Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
- Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #46 2024
- 20 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!
- Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
- 2024 will be the first year above 1.5°C
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
- Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #45 2024
- The planet is ‘on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,’ scientists warn
- Sabin 33 #1 - Are electromagnetic fields from solar farms harmful to human health?
- Volunteer activity: Evaluate automated climate misinformation debunkings
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44
- Fact brief - Are most glaciers growing?
- Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles thanks to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44 2024
- The hidden health toll of hurricanes
Climate Science Glossary
Return to glossary listEfficacy
A measure of how effective a radiative forcing from a given anthropogenic or natural mechanism is at changing the equilibrium global surface temperature compared to an equivalent radiative forcing from carbon dioxide. A carbon dioxide increase by definition has an efficacy of 1.0.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.
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