The orchestra of world weather is playing a tune we didn't expect. The first violin is not carbon dioxide but chlorofluorocarbons—gases that until recently hid in refrigerators and aerosol cans. They trap heat ten thousand times more effectively than CO₂, and for decades they have been quietly warming the planet.

Since the mid-1990s, the lower stratosphere has stopped cooling and has plateaued for 27 years. This coincided with countries beginning to cut emissions of ozone-depleting substances after signing the Montreal Protocol. The conductor's baton passed from industry to international agreements, and the orchestra finally played softer.

From 2000 to 2015, global warming took a pause, leaving scientists baffled. But if you track halogenated gases instead of CO₂, the pause is simply explained: their emissions leveled off. Now temperatures are creeping up again, especially in the Arctic, where melting sea ice accelerates warming of coastal regions.

A new model, built on quantum physics without adjustable parameters, reproduced observed temperatures with high accuracy after removing natural factors like El Niño and volcanoes. This doesn't mean carbon dioxide is unimportant, but its role may have been overestimated. If these findings hold up, climate models will need revision, and the Montreal Protocol will prove even more valuable than we thought.

The orchestra keeps playing, but now we can better hear who sets the tempo. The question is whether we can adjust the score in time.