The balance between the energy of the sun coming into the earth and the earth’s own outgoing heat. The state of the earth’s climate is regulated by this global energy balance. Man-made climate forcing modifies this balance and results in global warming. The absorption of infrared radiation trying to escape from the Earth back to space is particularly important to the global energy balance. This energy absorption by greenhouse gases heats the atmosphere, and so the earth stores more energy near its surface than it normally would.