Climate fit for humans
Hi abear4562,
In the study, they lay out four reasons for choosing the period 1951-1980. 1. It was a period of stable temperatures, in contrast to the warming of recent decades. 2. It is recent enough for older generations, such as baby boomers, to remember. 3. The climate then was in the Holocene range, meaning that it is the climate that the natural world and civilization are adapted to. 4. They have used this period for scores of other publications, so it is the best period to use for comparisons with prior work.
As for your claim that a 30-year window is too short compared to a millennia long cycle, I suspect they also chose it because their records for this time period are much more reliable than records that would stretch farther back.
Laura
