«The record of the Earth's climate since the invention of the
thermometer is much better understood now,» says physicist Tim Killeen, AGU president and director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
in Boulder, Colo. «This
detailed understanding of the climate of the 20th century gives confidence
in the ability to project into the future.
By fixating on a minor
detail, you have glossed right over all the real difficulties and challenges
in working out the probable error range for early temperature records, which include uncertainty about the properties of the
thermometers used and gaps
in the records.