mhaze,

While it’s true that the resolution of past climate data isn't as fine as modern records, this limitation is controlled for using multiple proxies to smooth out the data. The proxies utilise diverse sources (e.g. tree rings, ice cores), cross-validation, overlap periods, statistical techniques, long-term trends, error bars and uncertainty ranges, and the combining records.

The periods in the Holocene were driven by natural factors, such as changes in solar radiation and volcanic activity. More to the point, they did not occur as rapidly as what we see now, and the extensive range of techniques applied to multiple sources of historical climate data enable us to know this despite the coarseness of it in its raw form.

As for whether the Earth should be cooling, Milankovitch cycles suggest that we should be heading towards a cooling phase over the long term. These cycles, which operate on timescales of tens of thousands of years, have historically been linked to the advance and retreat of ice ages. However, these natural cycles don't operate on the shorter timescales of centuries or decades.

The warming observed since the mid-20th century goes beyond natural recovery from the Little Ice Age (roughly 1300 to 1850). The current rate and magnitude of warming align with the increased greenhouse gas levels caused by human activities, which far exceed the natural variability seen in proxy records.

"More to the point, they did not occur as rapidly as what we see now, "

Well so you keep claiming. But when actual scientists like Marcott do the actual research on those various proxies they see that the resolution of the data isn't fine enough to make definitive claims on scales of one century. Specifically the data resolution, according to Marcott, is only good enough to make assertions of multiple century movements in temperatures. That is we can be reasonably certain about past temperature changes over, say, a 300 year scale but not how the changes occurred within that 300 years. So, for example, we know, or think we know, that there was a significant rise in temperatures in the centuries around 1700BC of up to two degrees. What we don't know and probably never will was whether that was a rapid rise over one century followed by a period of stability at higher temps over several centuries or a slow steady rise over several centuries. And since we can't know that, we can't say with any level of certainity that the current 1 degree/century rise is unprecedented.

" Milankovitch cycles suggest that we should be heading towards a cooling phase over the long term."

Rubbish. Milanovitch looks at climate over periods of multiple 1000s of years. I has nowt to say about cycles within one or two centuries. We know that the recovery leading to the Medieval Warm Period occurred over centuries. There's no reason to think the recover from the Little Ice Age wouldn't also occur of multiple centuries and that we are therefore in a warming phase of a multi-millennial cooling phase

mhaze,

Marcott et al. acknowledged limitations in their data resolution for short-term changes, this does not undermine the broader conclusion that can be drawn from other papers cumulatively. Here's a sample:

Kaufman et al. (2009)
Title: "Recent Warming Reverses Long-Term Arctic Cooling"
Findings: This study focused on the Arctic, using various proxies (lake sediments, tree rings, ice cores) to show a cooling trend over the past 2,000 years that was abruptly reversed in the 20th century due to rapid warming.
http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo479

Mann et al. (1999)
Title: "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations"
Findings: This seminal paper, often referred to as the "hockey stick" graph, reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past 1,000 years using multiple proxy records (tree rings, ice cores, sediment cores). It showed a relatively stable climate with a sharp uptick in temperatures in the 20th century, suggesting unprecedented recent warming.
http://www.nature.com/articles/33859

PAGES 2k Consortium (2013)Title: "Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia"
Findings: This study compiled temperature reconstructions from seven continental-scale regions using a wide range of proxy records. It concluded that the late 20th-century warming is unprecedented in more than a millennium for most regions.
http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1797

Neukom et al. (2019)
Title: "No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era"
Findings: By using a large dataset of temperature proxies from around the world, this study found that previous warm and cold periods (like the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age) were not globally synchronous. In contrast, the recent warming is globally coherent and unprecedented in the last 2,000 years.
http://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2

Abram et al. (2016)
Title: "Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents"
Findings: This study used coral records, ice cores, and other proxies to show that industrial-era warming began in the mid-19th century and is unprecedented in the context of the past 500 years.
http://www.nature.com/articles/nature19082

(Cont'd)

Schmidt et al. (2012)
Title: "Climate forcing reconstructions for use in PMIP simulations of the Last Millennium (v1.1)"
Findings: This paper provided reconstructions of climate forcings (solar, volcanic, greenhouse gases) over the last millennium, showing that recent forcings from greenhouse gases are unprecedented in both magnitude and rate.
http://cp.copernicus.org/articles/8/1855/2012

Ljungqvist et al. (2012)
Title: "Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries"
Findings: This study used a variety of proxies to reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures, highlighting that the warming of the late 20th century is unprecedented over the last 1,200 years.
http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011GL050168

Regarding Milankovitch, you’re right in that they operate over long timescales. According to these cycles, the Earth would be in a long-term cooling phase, gradually heading towards the next ice age. But this natural cooling trend has been overridden by the rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, which have significantly altered the Earth's energy balance and caused recent warming.

The recovery from the Little Ice Age involved a gradual warming trend. However, the rate and magnitude of warming since the mid-20th century far exceed what would be expected from a natural recovery alone. The rapid warming observed over the last century aligns with the sharp increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, which is well-documented and understood as the primary driver of recent climate change. This anthropogenic influence is distinct from the slower, more gradual natural variations seen in earlier periods.

I hope this clarifies things.

John Daysh,

The first link in your post goes to a study that hasn't anything to do with this issue. But I am familiar with the paper you refer to. It doesn't help you case since it is regional only, and talks of a declining trend over 2000 years rather than one century long data resolution.

Mann 2009. Also known as MBH99. Its been so thoroughly debunked as to not be worth discussing. Even the IPCC stopped treating it as valid science.

The third link has nothing to say about single century temperature changes.

Fourth link titled - "No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era". But there is also no evidence for coherent warming now.

Fifth link is for oceans only AND only for post 1500AD period.

Sixth link doesn't work. But the paper isn't relevant. Showing that forcings are unprecedented says nothing about temperature.

Seventh link goes to a different but irrelevant paper. But the Lindquist paper again only covers the past 500 years.

Again, Milanovitch is about millennial long time scales and has nothing to say about the short periods you refer to. It doesn't preclude warming periods in cooling phases.

" However, the rate and magnitude of warming since the mid-20th century far exceed what would be expected from a natural recovery alone."

These are things that just get said without evidence. For a start mid-20th century showed a cooling even while CO2 levels rose. Equally, the first decade of this century showed no warming even though CO2 levels exploded.

I didn't say the LIA recovery was only natural. I've always agreed that CO2 has played some part. But it ought to be noted that the recovery started long before we started adding CO2 to the atmosphere. You said the current warming is unprecedented in human history. I agree its unprecedented in the last 5 centuries but that's not what you claimed.

The current warming is unprecedented as compared to the past 5 centuries but that doesn't that means anything of significance in terms of proof of the AGW theory.

So why is the Marxist's and Woke and their academic friends pushing the world to address AGW 'anthropogenic global warming' but is not willing to talk to populous nations (in China, India, Africa) about the number of human anthropoids they have and create a policy to reduce them. Maybe they can tell the old that they can't have heating and electricity in temperate countries and see where that gets them. They know who to blame when their houses get cold and their electricity bills triple.

I see this as just another deception to attack the west.