The relationship between climate models’ internal variability and their response to external forcings is investigated. Frequency-dependent regressions are performed between the outgoing top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy fluxes and the global-mean surface temperature in the preindustrial control simulations of the CMIP5 archive. Two distinct regimes are found. At subdecadal frequencies the surface temperature and the outgoing shortwave flux are in quadrature, while the outgoing longwave flux is linearly related to temperature and acts as a negative feedback on temperature perturbations. On longer time scales the outgoing shortwave and longwave fluxes are both linearly related to temperature, with the longwave continuing to act as a negative feedback and the shortwave acting as a positive feedback on temperature variability. In addition to the different phase relationships, the two regimes ...