This page asks a simple question: why is Earth's energy budget changing? It overlays satellite radiation measurements against known forcing factors — emissions, volcanic events, ocean cycles — and scores how well each one explains what the satellite sees.
Four charts, one per aerosol species (SO₂, BC, OC, NOₓ). Each chart draws three lines:
Blue — CERES net energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere (W/m²). This is what the satellite measures: how much more energy Earth absorbs than it emits.
Orange — global anthropogenic emissions of that species (Tg/yr), from the CEDS inventory. This is what humans put into the atmosphere.
Dashed — trailing 12-month Kendall τ, a discrete correlation score (no continuous math — pure pair counting). Shows how strongly the two series move together right now. Ranges from −1 (perfect inverse) to +1 (perfect co-movement).
Background shading marks ENSO phase: warm tint for El Niño, cool tint for La Niña. Tick marks flag known events (volcanic eruptions, emissions milestones).
The small colored tag next to each chart label (e.g. lag 0 or lag −2 mo) shows the time delay where correlation is strongest.
A lag of 0 means the forcing and CERES response are simultaneous. A lag of −2 means the emissions change shows up in the satellite data two months later. Color indicates confidence: green for immediate, amber for short delay, red for long delay.
Forcing Context — current month, ENSO phase and ONI index (the ocean temperature anomaly that drives El Niño / La Niña cycles).
Emissions — global totals for each species with a trend arrow (↑↓→) from recent history. Uncertainty warnings flag species with less reliable inventories.
Correlation — which forcing factor best explains CERES movement right now. Shows the dominant predictor, its τ value, optimal lag, and a bar chart breaking down how much each factor explains. The "unexplained" bar is the fraction no predictor accounts for.
Attribution Note — a one-sentence summary. Data-driven when enough history exists; rule-based fallback in the first few months.
Playback — play/pause (space bar), step forward/backward (arrow keys or j/l), stop (Esc/s). Scrub by clicking the timeline bar. FPS adjustable.
Species buttons — click to highlight one chart (dims the others). Click again to clear.
z-score / raw — toggle between normalised (σ-units, comparable across species) and raw (physical units: W/m² and Tg/yr).
Deep link — add ?t=120
to the URL to start at month 120.
CERES EBAF — NASA's Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System, Edition 4.2.1. Monthly 1° gridded top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes. March 2000 – November 2025 (309 months).
CEDS — Community Emissions Data System, CMIP7 release (2025-04-18). Monthly 0.5° gridded anthropogenic emissions. Coverage ends December 2023.
ONI — NOAA's Oceanic Niño Index. 3-month running mean of Niño 3.4 SST anomalies.
All correlation uses Kendall's τ — a rank-based measure computed entirely by counting concordant and discordant pairs. No square roots. No continuous functions. Every operation is a comparison or a count.