  Evidence of how temperature takes part in the magnetic irreversibility in the
intermediate state of a cylinder and various disks of pure type-I
superconducting lead is presented. Isothermal measurements of first
magnetization curves and magnetic hysteresis cycles are analyzed in a reduced
representation that defines an equilibrium state for flux penetration in all
the samples and reveals that flux expulsion depends on temperature in the disks
but not in the cylinder. The magnetic field at which irreversibility sets in
along the descending branch of the hysteresis cycle and the remnant
magnetization at zero field are found to decrease with temperature in the
disks. The contributions to irreversibility of the geometrical barrier and the
energy minima associated to stress defects that act as pinning centers on
normal-superconductor interfaces are discussed. The differences observed among
the disks are ascribed to the diverse nature of the stress defects in each
sample. The pinning barriers are suggested to decrease with the magnetic field
to account for these results.
