Climate Inertia and Feedbacks

Oceans have large heat capacity and can absorb large amounts of energy. Ice sheets and deep oceans also respond slowly. This means the climate may continue adjusting even after a forcing changes.

Amplifies an initial change. Example: **warming → ice loss → lower albedo → more absorption → further warming**

Opposes an initial change. For example, a warmer Earth emits more infrared radiation to space, which tends to oppose additional warming.

A simple energy-response model can be written conceptually as: **C(dT/dt) = forcing − radiative response** where `C` represents effective heat capacity.