The Earth’s climate system is out of energy balance due to human-induced climate change. Heat has been accumulating steadily in recent decades, warming the ocean, land, cryosphere and atmosphere. A new study, “Heat Stored in the Earth System 1960–2020: Where Does the Energy Go?”, shows that the Earth’s energy imbalance continues to grow, increasing by almost 14 % over the past 50 years compared to the amount accumulated over the past half-decade. The Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI), the difference between the amount of energy from the Sun reaching Earth and the amount returning to space, serves as a fundamental metric that allows the WMO-sponsored Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) to assess how well the world is responding to the challenge of bringing climate change under control. The recently published GCOS Implementation Plan for 2022 highlights the importance of regularly assessing the gaps in the observing system underlying the EEI estimates and proposes actions to address them. The international multidisciplinary study is published in Earth Systems Science Data, the leading open access journal in the Copernicus Publications programme. It is led by Karina von Schuckmann of Mercator Ocean International, which contributes to WMO’s State of the Global Climate reports. The researchers (nearly 70 from dozens of institutes in 15 countries) have access to carefully calibrated, cross-checked, well-documented data from ocean, land, ice and atmosphere to conclude: Over the past 50 years (since 1971), almost 0.5 watts (0.48 + 0.1) have accumulated on each square metre of the Earth’s surface;