By carrying out a series of laser heating simulations of different heat distributions within the zeolite (described in the ESI, Section 16), the bi-exponential nature of the sample cooling was found to be phenomenologically due to redistribution of the inhomogeneous thermal energy profile within the heated region of the zeolite. Newton's single exponential law of cooling assumes that heat redistribution within the heated region is much faster than the overall cooling, either due to the volume of the heated region being insignificant or the thermal conductivity (κ) of the heated region being higher than the surroundings into which it cools. The laser-pumped sample volume is large enough for an inhomogeneous heat distribution to be present immediately post-pumping. Cooling occurs primarily through conduction into the surrounding, cooler zeolite, whose κ value differs minimally from that in the heated region. Redistribution of the thermal profile in the heated region and cooling into the unheated zeolite therefore occur on similar timescales resulting in bi-exponential cooling. Increasing the degree of inhomogeneity in the sample heating has the effect of increasing the relative contribution of the 'slow' τ2 term to the overall cooling curve. In the experimental data, the inhomogeneous temperature distribution arises from the Gaussian, divergent nature of the pump beam, which does not vary with starting temperature, and the ratio of κ between the pumped and unpumped regions, which varies only minimally. The relative contribution of the τ2 term is essentially constant for all TInit values (A2 = 0.33 ± 0.02). This implies that in the biexponential cooling, the 'fast' term represents the overall cooling while the 'slow' term represents the thermal energy redistribution.