Have there been similar, multi-century warm periods since the Ice Age, the causes of which aren't understood

Question

Just, yes or no, do you concede this?

Answer 1

yes there have been

Answer 2

I concede that the existence of past warm periods is not well understood (the data implying their possible existence is sparse, and their global nature is highly questionable), and their similarity to our situation today is even more questionable.  Do you have any data that can back up your implicit claim that any such events occurred globally?

The tenuousness of the "past similar events" claim won't stop geologists from doing whatever they can to use sparse and inconclusive data in an attempt to defend their employers (e.g. the oil and gas exploration industry, coal industry, etc.).  Even the geologists who don't work directly in those industries are educated by severly biased professors with backgrounds in those affected industries.

There's far more compelling evidence that elevated carbon levels have corresponded with global mass extinctions in our geologic past.  

Even if we agree that something on the order of an ocean current shift warmed Europe a degree or two for a couple of centuries, does that mean we should ignore what we do know about greenhouse gasses such as methane and CO2 and their potential role in past global extinction events?  Of course not.

In that context, who cares about a little warm period of a degree or so, which was probably regional in scope anyway (MWP, etc)?

In the big picture the earth is a closed system.  Either the incoming energy changes (sun's radiation), the outgoing energy changes (greenhouse gas blanket), or there's a temporary and largely regional change in the transfer of heat (ocean current changes).  I haven't seen any evidence that any of the other variables, the ones that are poorly understood, have the same magnitutde of importance or effect.  The minor factors sure get a lot of attention from the folks paid to delay our response to greenhouse gasses though!

Answer 3

Yes, all of them.  They can be explained in terms of Milankovitch, solar, volcanoes, etc, but there is always much we don't fully understand, since some things are so complex, such as the precipitation, evaporation, and that whole cycle that dwarfs CO2.    We are in an ice age by the way and I assume you meant the last glacial period.  We are in an interglacial period.

Answer 4

Yes.  

The Middle Ages were as warm if not warmer than now.  Of course there were very few people around and they didn't have any SUV's to pollute.