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The end of the last ice age had much faster warming, see: http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-climate-change-during-the-last-ice-24288097 h

• acqq 10y ago
  It wasn't "much faster" then at all. First, the work you've sent doesn't have the temperature graph, it's the "oxygen isotope record" on the y axis. Second, it's true that the last glacial period had much colder climate, but the changes were across a thousand of years for a few degrees, now we can have that amount of changes over a hundred years if nothing is done -- some ten times faster! And at that time there were no 7 billion people and no world economy that would be affected. Also, the temperatures that we can reach are going in the direction that can be higher than those recorded in the last 5 million years! If we "do something" we can stay at one or two degrees, not crossing that target. If we "don't do anything" it can be 4 (or even 6) degrees warming, 2 (or 4) degrees more than the maximum(!) in the last 5 million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record#/media/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record#/media/File... That's why there's so much worry.