Looking at the ice age charts, there's a rapid (in geological terms)
spike to a peak temperature, followed by a long, much slower cooling
(we were some ten thousand years into that cooling before fossil fuel
use kicked us out of it).
Terms: climate sensitivity, the temperature change to achieve
equilibrium (over shorter and longer time spans) following doubling of
CO2; and gamma, the temperature-induced carbon dioxide feedback to the
climate system, that's part of the process of reaching that
equilibrium.
What are the words for the change on the other side of the peak
temperature, as CO2 is reduced by biogeochemical cycling, removed from
the ocean and the atmosphere, heat rearranges again and the planet
makes its long slow temperature drop toward the other, longer, colder
equilibrium time we call an ice age?
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