Well, in their desperate need to backpedal from the CRU Climategate, CRU is all of sudden become quite skeptical of global warming! Â First let me remind folks that the Little Ice Age ‘just ended’ (in geologic time)Â less than 200 years ago. It is no surprise the Earth has been warming since then.

The last major ice age was 10,000 years ago.Â As noted Australian scientist and skeptic Ian Pilmer notes, there were two 400+ year periods since the last major ice age where the temperature was much higher than today (the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods).

So with that in mind, check out this CRU response to Climategate:

The principal conclusion from these studies (summarized in IPCC AR4) is that the second half of the 20th century was very likely (90% probable) warmer than any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely (66% probable) the warmest in the past 1300 years.

Emphasis mine. Well, the raw CRU data shows that the first half of the last century (1900-1960) was as warm or warmer than it is today. But even if it was not warmer, it was within the uncertainty of the processed data. But let’s assume this claim still holds water, so what if this was the warmest half century since the beginning of the Little Ice Age! We have only had 3 half centuries since the LIA ended! We all know the Earth has been thankfully warming since this bleak time in humanity”s brief existence.

What struck me was the extremely low confidence CRU gave that today is significantly warmer than the previous warm periods prior to the Little Ice Age. A 66% ‘probability’ means nothing. It means they don’t know, it could just as easily be as warm or colder now. What CRU is admitting (to get their butts out of the legal sling they are now in) is the science is not settled, the conclusions are not firm, the data is not clear.

They are surrendering to reality, one lame admission at a time.