<p>Tropospheric ozone concentrations are sensitive to natural emissions of precursor compounds. In contrast to existing assumptions, recent evidence indicates that terrestrial vegetation emissions in the pre-industrial were larger than in the present-day. We use a chemical transport model and a radiative transfer model to show that revised inventories of pre-industrial fire and biogenic emissions lead to an increase in simulated pre-industrial ozone concentrations, decreasing the estimated pre-industrial to present-day tropospheric ozone radiative forcing of up to 34 % (0.38 W m<sup>-2</sup> to 0.25 W m<sup>-2</sup>). We find that this change is sensitive to employing biomass burning and biogenic emissions inventories based on matching vegetation patterns, as co-location of emission sources enhances the effect on ozone formation. Our forcing estimates are at the lower end of existing uncertainty range estimates (0.2–0.6 W m<sup>-2</sup>2), without accounting for other sources of uncertainty. Thus, future work should focus on reassessing the uncertainty range of tropospheric ozone radiative forcing.</p>