MAking climate change almost look pretty, Global Warming Art presents the data as clearly as possible.

Note I found Global Warming Art whilst researching a reply to this post. As I had comments deleted the last time I questioned the veracity of that particular graph, here’s what I said-

Thanks for the links, but I couldn’t find the graph in your post or the figures used in it. You should know that a number of the theories championed by Easterbrook have been examined and shown to be lacking.

For example- Mid century cooling- http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/what-about-mid-century-cooling.php – CO2 isn’t the only thing controlling the planet’s temperature, during this period the global dimming effect of particulates overwhelmed it. Various other of his arguments, such as that it’s a natural cycle or all down to sun spot activity- and several other points- are addressed in articles linked to on this page- http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php

But back to the graph at the bottom of your post. I wanted to address it because it just looks wrong. Not the numbers are wrong or it’s wrong because I don’t agree with your position, but wrong as a graph. Look at the red trend line. Before 2005 it’s steady, the wild variations of individual data points don’t make it jump around. After 2005 it’s following the data points almost exactly. The red line is based upon average anomalies over a given period, but it looks like the averaging was done over a far shorter period post ’05 than pre. If the average reacts that drastically to a dip in the recorded anomalies then it should also have kicked sharply up for the El Nino year of 1998 and less sharply down for 1985 (La Nina) and 1993 (Pinatubo volcano).

Basically I think someone has fudged the post 2005 trendline. Or, more bluntly, I think that graph is a lie. I’d recommend checking its provenance before using it again. For graphs of temperature change created from publicly available figures you could try http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Temperature_Gallery

Technorati tag: Climate Change