You should, on that last. I know a fair amount about thermometry and Thermodynamics, and the fundamental reality is that we have only had satellite temperature measurement to the point where we have anything like a decent world average temperature for a few handfuls of years. I still don’t trust the adjusted earth stations, and going back further, the tree ring nonsense is complete flights of fancy, when it comes to helping get global average temps to a tenth of a degree F.
I always thought the tree ring stuff was pure hogwash. I have cut a few trees in my life, having grown up on the farm and pulled my end of a five and a half foot long saw from the time I was about ten or so. I have a collection of four chain saws now. I have examined some tree rings while resting from all that exertion and I can understand that they give an indication of rainfall amounts in different years but I never understood how anyone could claim that they gave an accurate indication of temperature other than a connection between drought and high temperatures in summer. It hardly seems to be a basis for the precision they claim. They would be more credible if they just claimed psychic abilities rather than claiming to decipher all that from tree rings.