Earth’s built-in thermostat that keeps the planet from overheating has been on the fritz since the mid-90s.
arXiv · March 16, 2026 · 2603.12515
Why it matters
The planet has a feedback mechanism that regulates how much heat it radiates back into space as it warms. Using AI to analyze 30 years of temperature data, researchers found this stability parameter is fading, suggesting the Earth is becoming less efficient at cooling itself down.
From the abstract
Earth's climate stability, characterized by the global radiative feedback parameter ($\lambda$), varies decadally due to changing surface temperature patterns. Recent variations in $\lambda$ are poorly understood as coordinated model simulations typically end in 2014. We apply a convolutional neural network trained on climate model simulations to observation-based surface temperature reconstructions to estimate variations in $\lambda$ up to 2025. We find that $\lambda$ reached a minimum (maximum