[PeterisP]

I would consider that "anomaly" would refer to something unusual or unexpected, an outlier, or a weird unexplained occurrence contrary to our expectations, or a one-off deviation followed by a return to the norm.

On the other hand, a continuously changing mean or a systematic pattern IMHO is not an "anomaly"; something can't be unusual for long - if something has become or is clearly going to become usual, then it's a "new normal", it's a "trend" or something like that, but not an anomaly anymore; if we're seeing what we expected to see, that can't be called an "anomaly" because that's the expected result.

With respect to climate change we see that the underlying factors have changed, we mostly know why, we observe the consequences now, see their trends and can predict how the mean is going to change - so all the factors are contrary to the definition of "anomaly".

[beowulfey]

Yes, this is a good point. It is only anomalous if we expect the mean temp to remain relatively constant—it is definitely dependent on the conceptual framework!