Arctic Methane - This Does Not Sound Good...

[Bob Wallace]

76. You suggested we use 18 years...

I'm fine with that. And that means that the five and ten year records you highlight are not acceptable measurements.

Let's look at the part of the graphic which meets the 18 year minimum...

100 years = increasing temperature.
70 years = larger increase.
50 years = larger increase.
30 years = larger increase.
20 years = larger increase.

What does that graphic tell us, if we think about it for a moment? That even with a downturn in the last 20 years those 20 years have still been hotter than any global temperatures in the historical record. The 1990s ended hot with the third hottest year on record, 1998. The first decade of the 2000s was even higher with the 2005 and 2010 roughly tying for the record high temperature.

And you (or whomever created this "most creative" graphic) included the HadCRUT3, a database which does not fully measure global temperature. It under-measures polar temperatures where the largest amount of warming has occurred. You can see how it distorts the "10yr trend" bar. And it's from where denier "cherry pickers" fabricate their incorrect claim that the planet hasn't warmed since 1998. They pick a single data point from a incorrect database and spin a tale from it.

Why don't you put aside the pseudo-science and make yourself acquainted with the factual record? It would put you in a much better position to make intelligent decisions....