Same as they always have: temperature always precedes CO2, current "scientific paper" notwithstanding. However the next thing that happens is CO2 causes further warming. CO2 is a feedback just like dust (lower amounts of dust in the present climate compared to the ice age) and water vapor (more water vapor now compared to the ice age). None of these positive feedbacks are very strong, but together they move the climate to a warmer equilibrium. The climate doesn't continue to warm (runaway positive feedback) because 1. the positive feedbacks aren't very strong and 2. they start to get countered by negative feedback from weather.
The bottom line is that adding CO2 causes more warming although not a lot more warming because the other main feedback, water vapor, is mostly a cooling feedback in this climate. Likewise there won't be decreasing dust levels from present or future warming, so no positive feedback from that. The current rise in CO2 is not natural since the ocean is taking in CO2 not releasing it on a net basis. So there is no way that temperature is preceding CO2 at the moment. Had we not increased CO2 by 110 ppm (so far) the temperature rise from the Little Ice Age would have preceded a natural 5-10 ppm rise in CO2, so that much of the theory holds. But the rest of the rise is manmade.
Let me see if I grasp this in basic terms. Some slight warming (ie - a higher energetic state) causes additional releases of CO2 from the warmer oceans. The increase in green house effect from the additional CO2 cause more warming or an even higher energetic state. Now the runaway paradox is solved by the water vapor feedback cooling cycle. Okay. Got ya. So the main question now is why would the enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 not be made statistically insignificant by the cooling aspects of enhanced water vapor ?
thanks for the hogwash.