Finally, one journalist has the message right: Duane Freese in his article — “Hockey Stick Shortened?” — at TechCentralStation reports on the National Academy of Sciences report “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years“. Repetition of the consensus view of strong evidence of recent global warming is not newsworthy. Increase in the uncertainty of the Millennial temperature record is. He says:

The most gratifying thing about the National Academy of Science panel report last week into the science behind Michael Mann’s past temperature reconstructions - the iconic “hockey stick” isn’t what the mainstream media have been reporting — the panel’s declaration that the last 25 years of the 20th Century were the warmest in 400 years.

The hockey stick, in short, is 600 years shorter than it was before and the uncertainties for previous centuries are larger than Mann gave credence. And when the uncertainty of the paleoclimatogical record increases with time, the uncertainty about human contribution is likewise increased. Why? For a reason noted on page 103 of the report: climate model simulations for future climates are tuned to the paleoclimatogical proxy evidence of past climate change.