Perhaps I'm just too psychologically invested in other people getting the point -- I didn't make any belief statements, just an observation that a bunch of people were grossly misinterpretting the article (and title of the discussion)...
I'm going insane here -- everyone is saying "how does this prove anything if it was warmer in 800AD?"
THAT'S NOT WHAT THE ARTICLE SAYS! "Warmest in 1200 years" does NOT implicitly mean it was warmer 1200 years ago, people -- read the article, we CAN ONLY TEST BACK 1200 years using ice cores, trees, etc.... it was COLDER 1200 years ago, that's what the article says... and as for the folks who mentioned the Little Ice Age, etc. -- yes, they mention that too (and the Medieval Warm Period from 890 to 1170), but both eras were not CONTINUOUSLY warm or cool, but were PUNCTUATED by hot and cold SPELLS...
The concern of global warming is that the CONTINUOUS temperature is changing. I will concede that without data before 800AD, the study is looking at a pretty small sample of time, and that there are so many factors in such a hugely complex weather system to take into consideration, so I have no problem at all with those arguments, just with the fact that the majority of people here seem to be good at quickly sorting through text looking for keywords (such as "since 800AD") without actually COMPREHENDING what they are reading..../rant.
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Perhaps I'm just too psychologically invested in other people getting the point -- I didn't make any belief statements, just an observation that a bunch of people were grossly misinterpretting the article (and title of the discussion)...
I'm going insane here -- everyone is saying "how does this prove anything if it was warmer in 800AD?" THAT'S NOT WHAT THE ARTICLE SAYS! "Warmest in 1200 years" does NOT implicitly mean it was warmer 1200 years ago, people -- read the article, we CAN ONLY TEST BACK 1200 years using ice cores, trees, etc.... it was COLDER 1200 years ago, that's what the article says... and as for the folks who mentioned the Little Ice Age, etc. -- yes, they mention that too (and the Medieval Warm Period from 890 to 1170), but both eras were not CONTINUOUSLY warm or cool, but were PUNCTUATED by hot and cold SPELLS... The concern of global warming is that the CONTINUOUS temperature is changing. I will concede that without data before 800AD, the study is looking at a pretty small sample of time, and that there are so many factors in such a hugely complex weather system to take into consideration, so I have no problem at all with those arguments, just with the fact that the majority of people here seem to be good at quickly sorting through text looking for keywords (such as "since 800AD") without actually COMPREHENDING what they are reading.... /rant.