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>>"We shouldn’t dismiss this as irrelevant, because many things that close only a small part of the gap may, when added together, close a large part of the gap. But this doesn’t do much on its own."

I'm not saying is not true, but I find this idea highly suspicious when there is a clear trend that start at some point.

I mean, what are the chances that many independent things move the trend, in the same direction at the same time, every year?.

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The author addresses this in the conclusion, and is also suspicious, but presents some possibilities that explain it.

"This surprises me, because the dramatic shift in 1973 made me expect to see a single cause (and multifactorial trends should be rare in general, maybe, I think). It looks like there are two reasons why 1973 seems more important than it is...."

He discusses this point in his conclusion. He was also expecting to find a single, clear factor but didn't. Even if multiple factors causing a single large change is relatively rare, we'd still expect to see it sometimes, and he's arguing that this is one of those times. I found the argument relatively convincing.

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