Quote:Actually, nature picked it. It's the sun spot cycle. Or, more accurately, half of the cycle, but the two halves are almost identical, so the 11 year cycle is often used.If this is true, and that this is the reason we are measuring in 11-year chunks, then my critcism is wrong. I don't really think it is, and climate "critics" have been measuring from 1998 since before 2009. They just keep using that year as the baseline because it's so anomalously warm, and therefore perpetually makes their arguments look good. If you go back to the previous solar-equivalent year, 1987, there is substantial and obvious warming. This is true of almost every 11-year pair or set, with one major exception: the current one, from 1998 to 2009, driven by the 1998 maximum and the 2009 minimum.
Generally true, but not in this particular case. Any discussion of weather needs to take the solar cycles into consideration. Failure to do so is an indicator of either ignorance or of "lying with statistics".
If we're going to go with this argument, then things not only will become clearer, as next year the window moves past the 1998 startpoint, (we'll see if it stops showing up in denialist arguments; I'd put my bottom dollar on not...) but that it already is clear enough: nearly any construction that doesn't start at 1998 shows clear warming, even taking the last 10 years into account.
-Jester