Phoenix wrote on Sep 24^th, 2013 at 6:53pm:

OK. I don't expect anyone to read the technical stuff in this article ...   (You need to Login or Register

Thanks for trying to raise the level of discussion in this thread, Phoenix!

I did read the technical stuff, and while the authors provide an interesting scenario, I think they overstate the reliability of their forecasts. (blah blah blah ... predict the current situation with an accuracy over 89% (P<0.0001) ... blah blah blah).

In all computer modeling (been there done that) you start with a big computer model of the area you're dealing with. This model includes hundreds, maybe thousands of adjustable constants (fudge factors). The first thing you do is to adjust these fudge factors so that the model generates data consistent with the current facts (today's data and usually a few years of recent history). This is called "history matching" - with hundreds of fudge factors to fiddle with, it's usually fairly straightforward to get your model to agree with what you already know. This is *not* the same as predicting anything (and fwiw is a serious problem with global warming models). Just because the authors have an okay history match, it doesn't mean their model is correct, it just means their model *could be* close to correct, and there could be other combinations of fudge factors or other basic (but different) computer models that could also give a good match. Just sayin' !

But yeah, Lyme disease is not something to be taken lightly, and checking for ticks should be an important part of everyone's bedtime ritual in canoe country.