Following the discussion on insurers, RMS and climate change,
someone pointed out that Lloyds of London also quotes a certain
reconstruction of past temperatures. It wasn’t on the front
page, but it wasn’t difficult to spot. From the document linked
as “Adapt or Bust” but included as part of a document on
“Catastrophe” as part of the “360 Report” series (page 14) comes
this: land and air The 1990s was the warmest decade for a
thousand years Facts & stats In addition to sea temperatures,
land and air temperatures provide an important measure of
climate variation, and have been reliably monitored for many
decades. It is generally agreed that the 1990s was the warmest
decade, and 2005 the warmest year, in a millennium. The below
well known graph illustrates that current temperature levels are
well out of line with the past. It doesn’t inspire confidence in
me that Lloyds still uses this to prove its case. Oh, and this
was published in 2006, so no excuses about not knowing about the
Hockey Stick’s true provenance