I believe in global warming as well as short term climate change, however, I am not convinced of the man made assumption for the change. This consensus conclusion appears to be a data magic trick, which I can demonstrate, with an example that can done at home.
To set the stage for this data magic trick, I will recruit a class of science students from the local high school to help me collect data. We will go to the largest local park, with all the students bringing their cell phone cameras. We will break up in pairs to cover the park, and over a weekend, we will photograph every bird we can see, with each picture having a time and GPS stamp to make it official.
When all the data is collected and compiled, I will make the claim that were more birds recorded in that park, during that weekend, than ever in the history of the park! This statement is all about data semantics.
This does not mean that in the entire history of the park there were never more birds in the park. What I am saying there has never been more bird recorded in an official way. The main reason there were never more birds recorded, is nobody bothered to do this with so many helpers. At the same time, eye witness testimony, from the past, of there being more birds, would be considered anecdotal evidence since it lacks the same level of photographic data vigor we displayed. That weekend we recorded the most birds ever on record. I could get a consensus of scientists, who are by the book, to support me in my data claim.
With my record breaking data claim in place, the local university decided to reproduce my results since the study was intriguing. Since the biology department has birds experts, as well as state of the art data collection equipment and skilled technicians, they work for a weekend and record even more birds.
The new record is mostly due to better funding and better expertise, but not necessarily more birds. However, the conclusion we all reach is they have now recorded the most birds on record, and based on our two data sets, there is a trend of more and more birds flocking to this park, placing extra stress on the park's eco-system. That would follow logically, too.
When climate scientists say the hottesy year on record, this only covers 100 or so years out of billions of years. Before we started to officially record data, early claims would be considered antidotal or inference evidence and would cary less weight than direct data. On record does not mean for all time, but it only means since we though it important enough to record the data in an official way. The hype created by the doom and gloom, has made more and more resources available for climate science. The money has also made more tools available, such as new satellite equipment. This allows details, never recorded before, to become recorded, and part of the new record of birds seen.
How about for one year we only look at climate using the same techniques that look at the distant past. For example, we can do ice cores samples and read tree rings. Both of these techniques average data, and would make the data so it looks less busy and not as fast paced as the detailed data. It was a good trick that fooled the consensus into a semantics chorus.