[greenbean36191]

Sam, the theory of anthropogenic warming was never based on which year was the hottest or when the worst drought occurred. They're nice for illustrating the idea to the public, but taken separately they have no statistical meaning. Again, it's about separating the signal from the noise. Especially hot or dry years are nothing but noise. The shortest period with any significance is 5 year. The climbing temperature is the signal whether it climbs steadily every year or not. Even with McIntyre's corrections the trend is still a statistically significant warming trend. Both of the last 5 year periods have been hotter than the early 30s.

The drought data is also a straw man. Some researchers predict increased rain at high latitudes and reduced rain towards the equator, while others think the frequency of strange weather will increase without an increase in severity. Simply looking at the global rankings of specific weather events can be misleading. Some areas like the Southwest periodically experience severe droughts and due to natural variation some of them are significantly worse than others and rank globally. Meanwhile the current drought in parts of the SE is more severe than anything the region has seen since observations started, but on a global scale it's not that special.