Choosing 1998 as a starting year (the year of the strongest El Nino in recorded history) is a pretty clear cherry-pick. Also, focusing on yearly changes accentuates outliers and conceals trends. If you take even a small step back, to the
decade level, a warming trend becomes more apparent --
Graphs of other datasets (
NASA) show a greater warming trend, even during the period since 1998 --
I know that none of the data is faultless and every method of analysis requires compromises, inviting the potential for fraud, but when the vast majority of methods show long-term warming, I'll be unconvinced by one or two overwrought reworkings.
FDXLAG, you're right that the graph shows variation from the 100-year mean, but the the vertical axis is still considered the X-axis
(the Y-axis depicts years).