[cogitator]

As they used to say in the Hertz commercials....not exactly. Chapter 1 of "A Distant Mirror", a history of 14th Century France authored by Barbara Tuchman, makes the exact opposite point regarding temperature decreases in the Late 13th and Early 14th Centuries that significantly altered the growing seasons and biotic potential of agriculture in Northern France.

I'm afraid I don't see the relevance. The original poster inquired as to what factors initiated and terminated the glacial cycles that we refer to as "Ice Ages". My response was that the initiation and termination is primarily due to Milankovitch forcing. The Milankovitch cycles operate on several-thousand-year time-frames. I.e., the decrease in insolation leading to a glacial epoch due to Milankovitch forcing will take place over a period of several thousand years. There are feedbacks; as the insolation decreases, there can be a slow increase in the snow/ice cover. This increases the Earth's albedo, reflecting more sunlight back into space, leaving less to warm the Earth. Etc. These processes can "accumulate" slowly, to a tipping point where there is a fairly rapid (over a period of several hundred years) change in climate regimes, from warm to cold or vice versa.

So while your point was interesting, I'm not sure how it related to my point.

[.cnI redruM]

It's directly related to your claim that temperature changes apparent since 1800 are occurring over a faster time scale than had ever before occurred.