Simple Is Best!

[millennia]

I think I can do no more than post the link to this blog entry. Sometimes it really can be a good idea to step back and ask "are we over complicating this?"

http://www.masterres...te-models-cold/

[Methuselah]

I'll keep an open mind...

[Thundery wintry showers]

Looks like a standard "free market capitalism is God, it is the solution to everything" type of blog, and that kind of thing never ceases to arouse my suspicions.

Reading the stuff about the simple model, am I missing something or are there some gaping wide holes in their arguments? For example, a key point appears to be that using a very simple model results in smaller error estimates than using a complex model. Well, of course it does, because a simpler model incorporates less potential areas of uncertainty.

Another example- they state that their model assumes that global temperatures stay the same each year, and conclude from the model that temperatures are likely to stay within 0.5C of the 2008 value in each of the next 100 years. Isn't that circular reasoning?

It is scarily reminiscent of the myriad discussions I've had where I've challenged a conventional way of doing/thinking, and met with responses like "You are trying to make things a lot more complicated than they really are. You need to accept that things are the way they are because they're the way they are".

[Methuselah]

Thanks for that, Ian. All that free-market rubbish got me thinking snake-oil, tbh? But, I don't have enough detailed knowledge of proper models to comment directly.