American Meteorological Society president Marshall Shepherd wants you to believe that climate change began in 1970.
In his Ted Talk, Marshall Shepherd says skeptics are cherry-picking the temperature data by only talking about the recent non-warming (17 years now), so he proceeds to show this image:
But, of course, climate change began before even 1970. The ongoing warming seems to have started around 1650, as shown in the graph below from the first IPCC report:
Here’s the clip:
That’s called chartsmanship. Set the range and the scales to show what you want. 1650 is a good place to start because it is th low point of the little Ice age. It would be embarrassing to look at the last millenium, because there is no warming.
The Hansens and Manns usually claim warming as starting much earlier than the chart above shows.
I’ve seen various dates for when the current warming trend began, usually focused around 1850 or 1880 rather than 1650. I thought 1650 was early in the Little Ice Age. Then again, defining the dates of the Little Ice Age is difficult also.
The 1.25 degrees of warming shown on the chart above is not my idea of alarming anyway. (I assume that’s C). Setting the ticks on the vertical axis far apart is an old dodge to make a chart more dramatic.
The AMS and the AGU have been two organizations at the very front of the American AGW alarmist parade. Their credibility is poor.