The climate effects of atmospheric aerosol particles serving as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) depend on chemical composition and hygroscopicity, which are highly variable on spatial and temporal scales. Here we present global CCN measurements, covering diverse environments from pristine to highly polluted conditions. We show that the effective aerosol hygroscopicity, κ, can be derived accurately from the fine aerosol mass fractions of organic particulate matter (ϵ_org) and inorganic ions (ϵ_inorg) through a linear combination, κ = ϵ_org ⋅ κ_org + ϵ_inorg ⋅ κ_inorg. In spite of the chemical complexity of organic matter, its hygroscopicity is well captured and represented by a global average value of κ_org = 0.12 ± 0.02 with κ_inorg = 0.63 ± 0.01 as the corresponding value for inorganic ions. By showing that the sensitivity of global climate forcing to changes in κ_org and κ_inorg is small, we constrain a critically important aspect of global climate modelling.