Historically, radiative forcing displays the best predictive capacity for specific types of forcing such as greenhouse gases. It is less effective for other anthropogenic influences like soot. A new framework called ‘effective radiative forcing’ or ERF removes the effect of rapid adjustments within the atmosphere that are unrelated to longer term surface temperature responses. ERF means different factors driving climate change can be placed onto a level playing field to enable comparison of their effects and a more consistent view of how global surface temperature responds to various types of human forcing.