G'day Samwik and ImranCan,
Thanks for the clarifications. Makes more sense.
Actually to a lot of people, even with fluctuations, a substantial amount of warming occuring in a very compressed period (50% within a century, the other 50% over the previous 400 years) might still sound alarming. I'd like to see any data that suggests that there has been any overall warming over the period 1500 to 1900. That really doesn't match ANY data that I've seen, including all those that support global warming strongly. There was a bit of a warming in 1500 itself and certainly from 1870 or 1880 to 1900, and a fluctuation again in the late 1700's if I'm not mistaken but overall this period was a very cold period. I don't particularly like the term Little Ice Age because it is actually made up of three periods of cooling and all three might not have been world wide although two of the three appear to have been.
It may well be, just as 1880 seems always to be picked to show global warming, that picking 1500 or therabouts as a starting point does show a warming trend because you are cutting out one of the LIA components and some of the second, but overall I don't think anyone that has studied the various evidence that is available would say that the period wasn't basically colder than has been the norm this interglacial period. There is a great deal of argument about whether it was just a bit colder or very much colder but either way, where does this first 50% come from?
Another study that just looking at it briefly seems to demonstrate a failure to accord with basic evidence. I find the fact that these types of studies are published, peer reviewed, and not criticised extremely disheartening.
Regards
Richard
