I read it that they were taking those studies with the lower range because the temperature as measured is about to fall out of the lowest range predicted by the IPCC models. I suspect, but can't prove, that if temperature were about to fall out of the upper range of predicted temperatures they would have selected a few models that the IPCC had rejected that showed that as an outcome.

I agree with the statement "Every model is going to be inaccurate to some degree." the problem here is that when the actual temperatures start landing outside the range of even the uncertainty bars for a model it ceases to be "inaccurate" and is simply "wrong."

The political sensitivity of that possibility can not to be under estimated.

I think that if the uncertainty of the models were under threat, then this would be a bigger issue. We'd be reading about this in Nature, not The Economist.

This premise, I think, has flaws:

I didn't see any citation for the "past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat" number, but I do notice that the NASA number quoted is a five year running average (over only 10 years), which would naturally flatten any trends over that time frame.

It seems like this notion that "warming is over" is pretty cyclical. Check out: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-...

This image in particular is interesting: http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500....