PH, even though I agree with your position on global warming, you make me flinch by quoting data collected over just a few short years to support that position.
I often reject arguments supporting AGW because I believe data collected over a decade or two is insufficient to determine long term trends. Weather patterns have cycles that run over periods equal or greater than our own lifespans. I feel that things have to be looked at in timeframes of at least a century when determining long term trends. If we look at the 1900's with regard to rainfall, we can see the first half was drier than the second half. Looking a bit closer we can see a cycle of roughly 60 years which puts us now on the point of returning to a generally wetter three decades or so, and thus generally cooler conditions. In the mid 1970's there were 3 consecutive wet years, to find the closest pattern you have to go back to about 1917, but that was only two wet years in a row. Old farmers who have a far greater knowledge and understanding of the weather and climate than the average person, and at times it seems the average weather forecaster, may often be heard commenting that the last time they experienced weather extremes similiar to whatever it happens to be at the time, was when they were a kid.
When the debate over the severity of the most recent drought was raging, a local regional paper went back through their archives to the time of the Federation drought and found an observation published then, which made the comment that as bad as the current drought was, referring to the Federation drought, it was nowhere near as bad as the drought was in the 1850's.
