And the data from the last century, where we can see the difference in speed, is also smoothed, so that doesn't change much to the scenario we are in, does it?
Today's data is measured using thermometers, and averaged across the globe. The reconstructed data are composed of many different proxies, across many different studies, which are averaged out. I'm not trying to deny climate change here, I'm just saying that the reconstructed data will not capture the kind of rapid changes we're seeing now, for some time, and anyone reconstructing the 21st century from a vantage point 2000 years in the future using tree rings etc won't see the short term rapid changes we see now. The actually reconstruction methods are fascinating, and many of them contain a lot greater variance than we see in this graphic, and many of them disagree with each other too so you have to smooth things out a bit and have a best guess. That's not a restriction we have now with modern thermometers.
adammarples|2 years ago