My guess is, the pink band is current (er, 2011 versions) of what the global average temperature was. Which makes the 60's even cooler (heh). As with all things, it depends on how you measure.
So anyway, i'd agree the centering of zero sure could change things, but it sure seems like predictive power in the rates of change. Like, temperature isn't stable, it's not going down, it's going up and it looks like it's going up at about that rate.
edit
but that sort of goes back to the original point, all we really have is models. you held up physics as an example, but if we look at something like the gravitational constant, things are really screwy. As far as i can tell, 3 really first rate teams came up with 3 different answers - not even overlapping in the error bands. big G is obviously helpful, but it must be more complicated than we understand right now.
I dunno. I kind of like the european model for chemical handling. Super toxic chemicals in tiny quantities aren't that big of a deal, maybe 50 people die, so it's not heavily regulated. Mildly toxic chemicals in large quantities, same deal. Maybe 50 people die. Large quantities of toxins are regulated in proportion to the risk. The point is, balancing the risk against the best current understanding really seems like the best that can be done.
global mean global giss is here - http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
So anyway, i'd agree the centering of zero sure could change things, but it sure seems like predictive power in the rates of change. Like, temperature isn't stable, it's not going down, it's going up and it looks like it's going up at about that rate.
edit
but that sort of goes back to the original point, all we really have is models. you held up physics as an example, but if we look at something like the gravitational constant, things are really screwy. As far as i can tell, 3 really first rate teams came up with 3 different answers - not even overlapping in the error bands. big G is obviously helpful, but it must be more complicated than we understand right now.
I dunno. I kind of like the european model for chemical handling. Super toxic chemicals in tiny quantities aren't that big of a deal, maybe 50 people die, so it's not heavily regulated. Mildly toxic chemicals in large quantities, same deal. Maybe 50 people die. Large quantities of toxins are regulated in proportion to the risk. The point is, balancing the risk against the best current understanding really seems like the best that can be done.