(April 29, 2013 at 1:32 pm)pocaracas Wrote:(April 29, 2013 at 12:22 pm)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: IF that is the interpretation, temp in 1900, why not pick some later year? Say I pick the blue one that looks like around 1917 or the red one around 1922 and make either of them zero. That shifts the chart immensely. There is NOTHING meaningful or sacred about years that end in 0 or 00. 1900 is both arbitrary and capricious.
Of course, if we just follow the link min posted.... we may just find out how they did it:
Quote:This graph uses the 1901 to 2000 average as a baseline for depicting change. Choosing a different baseline period would not change the shape of the data over time.
The shape will remain the same, only the amount of blue and red gets exchanged.
Picking years based upon centuries is letting that medieval guy who got the year of the birth of Jesus wrong set the rules. It is also interesting that anyone would consider US temps to be indicative of the world when it is such a small fraction of the world but that is a different discussion.
As you note the amount of red and blue changes but the impression given by this is that it matters in the least that deviations from a century long average exist. If in fact the zero is the average then the deviations from average are meaningless.
Remember the Romans grew Mediterranean grapes in Britain. While I expect the quality of the wine was commensurate with the food I have not heard of any such vineyards reopening. However I have read the temperatures in Britain declined from 1940 to 1975 and are now back where they were in 1940.
Again I have been following global climate change since it was the coming ice age. The heavy politicization of global melting which, embarrassingly, includes the scientists which is ordinarily an ethical violation.
