The linked blog lists the top ten tri-decades, ordered by temp rise. Here they are in chronological order:<p>1687 - 1716, 4.333 °C/century<p>1688 - 1717, 4.7 °C/century<p>1689 - 1718, 4.446 °C/century<p>1690 - 1719, 4.754 °C/century<p>1691 - 1720, 5.039 °C/century<p>1692 - 1721, 4.642 °C/century<p>1694 - 1723, 4.524 °C/century<p>1977 - 2006, 4.95 °C/century<p>1978 - 2007, 5.038 °C/century<p>1979 - 2008, 4.705 °C/century<p>Can you see a pattern there?<p>So the first 7 are consecutive apart from skipping one year/tri-decade (1693-1722) and the most recent three are 3 out of the last 4 years. And indeed the 2nd, 3rd and 5th highest rise.<p>And yet the point he chooses to highlight directly after this list, is that the most recent tri-decade (1980-2009) isn't in the (totally arbitrary cut off point) top ten at all. It is however the 13th biggest rise. In other words 4 of the last 4 tri-decades are in the top 13 and at least 7 of the remaining 9 all are from consecutive periods starting 1687-1694.<p>Does this really show what he's suggesting it does? I'm not seeing anything particularly useful drawn out by his analysis apart from records from around the turn of the 17th century show a large drop followed by a large rise then another massive, but short lived drop.