English: Radiative forcing, relative to 1750, due to carbon dioxide alone since 1979. The percent change from January 1, 1990 is shown on the right axis.
shows the results for carbon dioxide global monthly averages for the period 1979-2014. An index based on the total of these contributions to radiative forcing would be similar to the Consumer Price Index, for example. It would include all the important components but not all the components of climate forcing. In contrast to climate model calculations, the results reported here are based mainly on measurements and have small uncertainties.