Contrary to the position taken by Kelly and Ó Gráda, a rich body of regional- to large-scale temperature reconstructions that span from the last millennium to almost the entire Holocene confirms the existence of several temperature depressions that occurred at different intensities and spatial ranges between c. 1350 and 1900, thus supporting the conception of a Little Ice Age. Nonetheless, the genuine uncertainties that continue to surround paleoclimatic study suggest that methodologies and findings are subject to further refinement.

The Little Ice Age is not a dogma. It is an increasingly firm consensus backed by considerable evidence across a variety of sources. To disprove it, or even to call it into question, would mean finding systematic errors in several types of proxy data. Kelly and Ó Gráda have not cleared any of these hurdles, or even come close. The refutation of their arguments demonstrates just how strong the evidence for the Little Ice Age has become and just how important it is for historians to take it seriously.