[Updated May8] This post seems to have caused some controversy and even derision in some quarters (especially Lucia’s blackboard). Some of that was even justified. That’s what I get for posting overly quickly (a mistake I won’t make again).
The essential point, though, is that short-term trend analysis is of dubious value when comparing global temperature observations to IPCC projections, because such trends fluctuate so much. Comparisons of the analysis period to the baseline, whether using average anomaly, linear trend or smoothed trend, is likely to be more indicative of the true situation.
Deep Climate 