I thought I would rebut the assertion from Mr. Roger Clarle-Johnson that global temperatures have stopped rising dramatically during the first decade of the 21st century.

Picking a convenient year such as 1998 can give you a result that you feel satisfies your hypothesis that climate change is false. 1998 was a record hot year with a large spike in global temperatures. If you take a short time line, such as 17 years, to explain a pause in rising global surface temperatures and that happens to start on a record hot year, then I guess over this short period that you choose then it has not increased greatly from a baseline temperature in 1998.

Scientists rely on a larger time line to assess statistically significant changes to take into account short-term fluctuation in temperatures. We are talking about climate change and not a change in the weather.

Your slope of global temperature rise over this short period of time would be greatly different if you chose a colder year as your starting point rather than 1998 or a more significant period of time such as a 30 year time line.

Today it was a high of 73 degrees in Kirkland but yesterday it was in the mid 80s. I guess we are in a cycle of cooling. No problem here in my home town.

Mike Jeffers, Kirkland