[ckuehne]

Note that the chart in the linked comic begins in the middle of the last ice age. It ends one or two degree celsius above the mean temperature of the previous 500 years (or so). The big hockey stick at the end is a prediction! At the point in the chart at about 16000 BCE it states that the short warming or cooling spikes have probably been smoothed out (after all, those ancient temperatures are only available by proxy).