it's all in how you pick your window ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Cooling_Map.png
"This figure shows the difference in instrumentally determined surface temperatures between the period January 1965 through December 1975 and 'normal' temperatures at the same locations, defined to be the average over the interval January 1937 to December 1946. The average decrease on this graph is -0.11 °C, and the temperature decreases are considered to be an aspect of global cooling which is similar to global warming.
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Originally posted by zeeblebotThat's a three year cool, the five year average still rises, and the general trend is still upwards by what looks like an x² or x^e dependance. The previous graph compared one decade to another, whereas if you compare a single decade average to the century average, it indicates a rise.
it shows a peak in 98 or so, followed by a sharp drop. so we're cooling.
and an average temperature rise of only 0.8 degrees since 1860.
If the rise of 0.8°C is a power trend as opposed to a linear trend (which by the graph seems to be the case) then that 0.8 becomes 1.6° in the next century assuming the smaller x² dependance. a total of 2.4° over 200 years, which is significant.
some more links, a la spastigov:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Five_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev_png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/297/5585/1287
"Perspectives
CLIMATE:
An Exceptionally Long Interglacial Ahead?
A. Berger and M. F. Loutre
Today's comparatively warm climate has been the exception more than the rule during the last 500,000 years or more. If recent warm periods (or interglacials) are a guide, then we may soon slip into another glacial period. But Berger and Loutre argue in their Perspective that with or without human perturbations, the current warm climate may last another 50,000 years. The reason is a minimum in the eccentricity of Earth's orbit around the Sun.
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The authors are at the Université catholique de Louvain, Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaître, 2 Chemin du Cyclotron, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. E-mail: berger@astr.ucl.ac.be "
Originally posted by zeeblebotYear to year, there's drops all over the entire graph. My point is that the five year average continues to rise. (with occasional drops too, but the trend is definitely upwards) Also, I don't claim that warming is entirely man made, but we do play a large part of it.
if human activity is forcing global temperatures ever higher, how do you explain the recent drop?