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Bastardi's Wager
DesScorp writes "AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi has a challenge for climate scientists. He wants one or more of their rank to accept a bet about temperature trends in the coming decade. Bastardi is making specific predictions. 'The scientific approach is: you see the other argument, you put forward predictions about where things are going to go, and you test them,' he says. 'That is what I have done. I have said the earth will cool .1 to .2 Celsius in the next ten years, according to objective satellite data.' Bastardi's challenge to his critics — who are legion — is to make their own predictions. And then wait. Climate science, he adds, 'is just a big weather forecast.' Bastardi's challenge is reminiscent of the famous Simon-Ehrlich Wager, where the two men made specific predictions about resource scarcity in the '80s."
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.html
I like to go where the science is being done, rather than the claims from either side on what I should think based on a dare, er, I mean bet. Not a dare, a bet. That's so much more scientific. ;)
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
The only thing I've not really been able to figure out from the entire climate discussion is what is meant by "average temperature" in the first place.
The idea of taking some temperature measurements at various geographic locations and then averaging those values doesn't seem to make much physical sense to me, because there is no meaningful method by which to perform an average. Consider using an "area based average." This sounds reasonable: put your measurements in some regular grid, assume the temperature varies continuously between those points, and compute an average. I would argue that's a terrible method, because temperature is not a continuous quantity: if you put two temperature probes any distance apart, there is no meaningful way to estimate the temperature variation between those points. It could be linear between them, it could be nonlinear such that the temperature is higher between the two points, it could be nonlinear such that it is lower between the two points.
I am much more willing to look at other parameters which do have a better "average" information content. Sea level, snow cover (both max and min amounts, as well as time spent at those amounts) because those are inherently continuous phenomena that are not subject to interpolation errors.
Actually, a question and it may actually convince me to accept the concept of "average temperature": do thermal satellites have the capability to do a true area-continuous temperature measurement?
I have other questions as well, for instance, is average temperature really the critical parameter or is it median temperature? Actual max vs actual min? Is it something more related to the square of the deviation from the mean ("signal power")?
I have a hard time believing that an area-average temperature is an adequate parametrization of climate. Or, perhaps what I'm asking is, what climate effects are actually correlated so strongly with the mean temperature (how statistically significant is that correlation)? And how geographically dependent is that correlation?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
The fact is the debate would be too boring for anyone to care. If there is a warming trend or a cooling trend (and there's no clear evidence either way, face it...) we're talking about a temperature change so small no one not using this as an excuse to get more funding for something or get (re-)elected cares. That's why it's so insane. Those that want to embrace the whole "Climate change" insanity couldn't care less about the climate (Hello Al....) they just want power over others and money to do as they please.
THIS HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT SCIENCE OR CLIMATE (any more than traffic tickets are about public safety)!! WAKE THE HELL UP!
You really should be linking to NASA as well. They're the other major body that studies climate change. And it's likely one of the reasons why it's always being targeted for budget cuts by the GOP. A lot of what NASA does is keeping tabs on changes going on our planet from space.
"The global average temperature has been warming for 40-50 years."
It's been warming for much more than that. 20,000 years ago, there was 2,000 feet of ice above the spot where I'm sitting. If only cavemen hadn't used so much CO2 releasing fire.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And in another analogy he compares a 0.06% change in your weight form 175.0 lbs to 175.1 lbs over a decade to a 0.6% increase in global temperature from the mean of around 57.563 F to 57.923 F.
From 57.563 F to 57.923 F is an increase of 0.07%. You can't use 0 F as a zero point for percent increase, as Fahrenheit isn't a zero-based temperature scale. I converted to Kelvin. You could equally use Rankine, but that's unacceptably evil.
It's usually not particularly meaningful to talk about percentage increases in temperature.
To be fair, it's also not particularly meaningful to talk about percentage increases in body weight.
"The global average temperature has been warming for 40-50 years." It's been warming for much more than that. 20,000 years ago, there was 2,000 feet of ice above the spot where I'm sitting.
Yes, but not continuously. It cooled heading into the Little Ice Age, for example.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
I was looking at property on lake Huron, and the water levels are down over the last 10 years leading to some undesirable things (nice sandy beach with 200 feet of marsh and then water). Some blame global warming, some blame dredging, and the agent tells me "it will be great when the lake level returns to normal. All the while I'm thinking "It's been receding ever since the glacier melted, what makes you think it's coming back?". We haven't even measured temperature the same way for 40 years.
"he has a track record of accurately describing temperature in the future."
Not really, his winter forecasts for every year since 2005 have been wrong. His method is that of a fortune teller, ie: make lots of predictions and highlight the ones that are by chance correct or close to correct.
On a side note, climate scientists are not adverse to betting against global cooling.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Take a look at http://theclimatebet.com/ to see an earlier example. A similarly (un)qualified guy offered to bet that temperatures would be unchanged over ten years. He tried to get Al Gore to bet, of course without success. So he started this website to track who would have won. At first it looked good for him and he updated regularly, crowing about his success. But then things changed and started warming up. Now the website is abandoned. He didn't have the guts to document his failure. I imagine much the same will result from this new bet.
There's no reason to believe, even if we were right about CO2 emissions increasing the average global temperature by 6C, that we should reduce CO2 emissions at all. Even if you take, as a given, that temps are rising, and anthropogenic CO2 is causing it, there's not a shred of evidence that the particular distribution of increased average temperature will be detrimental to humanity.
In any case, every plan for CO2 mitigation, according to the very models which are hyped to encourage us to stop using petroleum, would be but a fraction of the temp increase over the next century. Cutting the global economy by 50% in order to save 1C out of 6C seems dubious at best.
That all being said, what is the "golden" moment of climate prediction? I keep hearing that we can make these long term predictions because we're looking at long term trends, but is there a point at which climate predictions become less accurate? That is to say, if we can't make a climate prediction out 10 years, but we can make one out 100 years, is it also true that we can't make one out 200 years? Is there a parabolic curve of accuracy here?