In Chapter 4, we showed that the temperature of a planet is a function of the solar constant, the albedo of the planet, and the composition of the atmosphere (Equation 4.5). If that were all there was to climate change, this would be a pretty short book. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), there is a lot more interesting physics that we have to consider to fully understand the problem of modern climate change.

Time lags in the climate system

In Chapter 3, we talked about how an oven cooks food, and how it takes several hours for a turkey put into an oven to heat up. One can think of the time lag between putting the turkey in the oven and its being cooked as a manifestation of the turkey's thermal inertia – just like the inertia that keeps your car from instantaneously stopping when you hit the brakes.