A comparative study of residual thermal effects in aluminum following ns- and fs-laser ablation shows a surprisingly similar trend in their behavior, despite many differences between ns and fs laser-matter interactions. At laser fluences above the ablation threshold where plasmas are produced and at a sufficiently high ambient gas pressure, an enhanced coupling of pulsed laser energy to the sample occurs. This effect appears to be a universal phenomenon for both ns- and fs-laser ablation in gas media. Furthermore, in contrast to the common belief that residual thermal energy is negligible in fs-laser ablation, our study shows that up to 70% of the incident pulse energy can be retained in the sample following single-pulse fs-laserablation in 1-atm air. In both ns- and fs-laser ablation, the major factors governing thermal energy coupling to the sample are the laser fluence and ambient gas pressure. Residual thermal energy deposition decreases with reducing ambient gas pressure.