This looks
like hysteresis in a multistable system to me.
Not exact matches
Hysteresis, where a material's performance relies upon its history —
like the weakening of the rubber in a car tyre due to repeated use — is also a sticking point for Eva Unger, a postdoc at Lund University, Sweden.
Perhaps the most important element to my being able to do things
like predict ENSO - induced melt in 2016, when the literature said there was no relationship between the two, is that I understand the science is attempting to describe a planet that has never existed before, a level of forcings that has never happened before and a lack of
hysteresis that has never happened before.
Chris Dudley @ 503: «the lagged temperature begins to decline while the instantaneous temperature is still above it» because the climate response function adds
hysteresis,
like an inductor.
More generically there is theoretical support for a system (
like climate) that exhibits
hysteresis to show persistent, quasistable behavior (even if not identifiable states).