Notice any trend? Upwards? Downwards? Part of a sine wave of longish period? Scribble an idea now, then compare with the full series.

The chart above (shown without axes on purpose) is a plot of the yearly mean temperature from 1800 to 2005 taken from the Central England Temperature series. The series extends from 1659, as reconstructed by Professor Gordon Manley. Some links…

• Datasets/UK Climate/Central England Temperature
• UK Met Office Hadley Centre page

Handy for those moving averages….