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Mainstream Scientists Cashing In On Climate Wagers (reuters.com)
Layzej writes: Climate contrarians have long predicted imminent global cooling. A few have been willing to place wagers that mainstream scientists have been quick to accept. Often acceptance of the bet is followed by immediate retraction, as was the case when "Bastardi's Wager" was accepted by Joseph Romm or when Maurice Newman's $10,000 bet was accepted by physicist Brian Schmidt. In some cases, bets have been formalized and the terms of many of those wagers are coming to a close. It may not be surprising to learn that those who put their money on the side of mainstream science are the ones who are cashing in.
Reuters reports that British climate expert Chris Hope just won a 2,000 pound sterling ($2,830) wager made five years ago against two members of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who had bet Hope that the Earth would be cooling by now. They also highlight a $10,000 bet made in 2005 between British climate modeler James Annan and two Russian solar physicists. The solar physicists had counted on waning solar output to halt warming. Annan will win if average global temperatures from 2013-17 are warmer than 2003-07. "Things are looking good for my bet," Annan said.
Keith Pickering reports on a series of three bets between Brian Schmidt and climate contrarian David Evans, who also believed that diminishing solar output would dominate the temperatures of the last decade and beyond. The wagers pay out in 2019, 2024, and 2029. Pickering concludes, "What Evans apparently doesn't realize is that because of the thermal inertia of the oceans, within narrow bounds we can already predict what global temperatures will be in 2019, 2024, and 2029. And David Evans is going to lose his shirt."
Reuters reports that British climate expert Chris Hope just won a 2,000 pound sterling ($2,830) wager made five years ago against two members of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who had bet Hope that the Earth would be cooling by now. They also highlight a $10,000 bet made in 2005 between British climate modeler James Annan and two Russian solar physicists. The solar physicists had counted on waning solar output to halt warming. Annan will win if average global temperatures from 2013-17 are warmer than 2003-07. "Things are looking good for my bet," Annan said.
Keith Pickering reports on a series of three bets between Brian Schmidt and climate contrarian David Evans, who also believed that diminishing solar output would dominate the temperatures of the last decade and beyond. The wagers pay out in 2019, 2024, and 2029. Pickering concludes, "What Evans apparently doesn't realize is that because of the thermal inertia of the oceans, within narrow bounds we can already predict what global temperatures will be in 2019, 2024, and 2029. And David Evans is going to lose his shirt."
an even bet
That is like betting on how long it is going to take the Titanic to sink, while you are ON the Titanic.
Yeah, totally made a killing when I bet that the Chiefs would take out the Patriots last week.
All I had to do was apply a few post-game corrections to the score and the money just flowed right in.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
...are soon parted.
"War makes me sad." - Me
I don't know about the others, but I can see at least with Bastardi's Wager, they went with satellite data. That proved to be wise in retrospect. As regardless of which you use, lower troposphere satellite data has shown much less warning than the land/sea models used by the NOAA and the like. For them, 2015 was the third warmest year, and 2010 and champion 1998.
To actually make wagers expecting cooling seems extreme. Why not simply bet that warming would come in far short of the predictions mainstream scientists were putting out at the time? Maybe they couldn't get anyone to bite on those terms, maybe they were just that cocky, or most likely, they just wanted the media from putting money up predicting cooling.
Whatever the reason, if they'd wagered on more sane "you're models show too much warming" terms, they could have made some good money.
It is forecasted that the Americans have a 100% chance of losing.
Well, at least losing the shirt will make it easier to withstand the higher temperatures.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
If David loses he won't need his shirt. So the downside is limited.
I know that I should not feed the trolls, but why do you put up two mildly offensively obtuse straw men in your last two paras? The alternative names were to try to get past the petty carping of the "skeptics" though all remain valid just like there are multiple different words meaning 'pig-headed' or 'stupid' for example, and NO ONE in mainstream science is predicting *weather* or exact temperatures in "the following decades" and you well know it.
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Morons who don't understand basic math, record keeping, science, logic.
We tried climate skeptics, but you complained. So we moved to deniers and you complained again, like a little whiny Trump.
As for your references to what we call climate change, again, one of those terms is 50 year old reference, the rest are names YOU made up and insisted we use.
We can only bend over backwards to help you out so many times.
You asked about what the temperature is supposed to be. The answer to that is simple.
We are talking about a SMALL change - 2 degrees Celsius in the next century. That can have a huge impact. Because it is so small, most people don't notice it. It's not enough to be visible and you should not notice it. Note, the world has already experienced a 1 degree Celsius change over the past 100 years.
But 1 degree Celsius is real, easily measurable, and our best projections show it will be at LEAST 2 degrees in 100 more years, possibly as much as 5 degrees. Now, even 5 degrees won't be enough to stop snow from falling most places. But it will be enough to melt large portions of the ice on Greenland and Antarctica, rising sea level enough to flood most major costal cities, where most of the wealth in the world currently resides.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I guess trying to associate those who don't accept the concept (or claimed extent) of man made global warming with the holocaust with the term 'deniers' wasn't working.
Care to make a wager on that?
Your local temperature will be almost irrelevant. It could be warmer, it could even be colder. Even now, the atmosphere doesn't cool or warm the surface in a uniform fashion everywhere.
Adding 2 degrees to the entire system is adding energy to the whole world's climate. That could express itself by more energetic behavior which could generate locally colder temperatures in certain places and certainly much warmer temperatures in others.
In reality, you'll see low lying islands go underwater and also some coastal flooding due to rising sea levels because ice packs are big enough to have a global effect if they start melting even slightly faster. Bad news, but not the end of the world. Global warming doesn't mean we end up like Venus, it means we have a humanitarian crisis on our hands due to displaced persons and loss of coastal cities.
For that reason, I think we need to be less concerned about taking extreme measures for "stopping" AGW as much as we should be starting evacuation preparations for the point in the future where we need to get people out of there. In the meantime we'll be able to replace our carbon releasing power sources on a more attainable timeframe.
Oh look: moron alert!
going from global cooling
You've latched on to an old thing that was reported in the popular press decades ago and never widely accepted by mainstream science. This identifies you as an idiot who clearly has a strong opinion but has not lifted a finger to find out the actual truth behind it.
to global warming
Global warming means the earth is getting hotter.
anthropomorphic global warming,
This means people are causing the earth to get hotter.
to climate change,
The earth warming will cause the climate to change.
How is that so hard to understand?
climate weirding
I'm pretty sure you just made that up or got it off someone's tumblr pages.
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what the temperature is supposed to be.
No you're not.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Citation?
Oh my, so many confusing terms! Surely they all refer to the exact same thing and were made by the exact same people for the sole purpose of running a long con, and their mere existence debunks the science of the people who are neither of the above, right? Also, somebody call physics and tell them we are on to their game. Which is it nerds: standard model, supersymmetry, strings, multiverse? You're all full of shit!
I guarantee you though after the snowstorm this weekend there will be a lot of pig headed people claiming that this is proof that global warming is a hoax. That's why people don't say "global warming" anymore because it causes Bubba to say "dem smarty pants scientists sure is stupid, eh?"
Mr. Beck has bawled many times on his show for very unusual "reasons". The bunch of them would be comical if not for the number of followers who take them seriously. The Bozo Cult.
Table-ized A.I.
Well it's not like he's going to need a shirt the way the temperatures keep going.
...because betting is a tax on bullshit. If anything needs to be taxed in this country, it's bullshit.
That said, it doesn't look like anyone has changed their minds over these bets. Even the losers are ignoring the holes in their pockets. I guess we need more bets...
It's also interesting to know who is making the bets. I've always wondered who genuinely disbelieves global warming and who claims to be a skeptic for political (or other) reasons. I'm guessing those that make large bets are sincere.
Humanitarian crisis? Initially sure. But in the end....
This will end up in war, a really really nasty one as those nations with surplus population being displaced look to take land and resources from others. There have been very few situations in human history where a large population was displaced that didn't end up in war.
global warming *cough* "Climate Change"
The warming of the earth causes the climate to change. Why do the nutjobs think they've stumbled on a deep conspiracy when they discover two different terms for different aspects of the same thing?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ummm... what?? We are in an inter-glacial period. That is true. Which means temperatures are currently higher than they were during the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. On geological time scales, temperatures have been both higher and lower than they are now. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... If you scroll down to the "overall view" section, they give a nice graph showing how things have varied on many different time scales. In the last half billion years, they've been as much as 6 degrees colder and 14 degrees warmer than right now.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
No, they've actually done that 0 times. What they've often done, and continue to do, is try to find ways to remove sources of error from the data. That's called "calibration", and is an essential part of any measurement technology.
Ars Technica just published a very thorough article about this, describing all the different types of corrections and why they're needed. See http://arstechnica.com/science.... If you truly want to understand the subject, I highly recommend it. On the other hand, if you're just being a troll and don't care about the facts (I don't know whether you are or not--that's for you to decide), you obviously should ignore it.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
I guess trying to associate those who don't accept the concept (or claimed extent) of man made global warming with the holocaust with the term 'deniers' wasn't working... a new term has been coined.
Yes, "losers."
Ask me about my sig!
You sounds like one of those "gravity alarmists" to me. Perhaps you should follow the trail of funding for those scientists who research gravity. They are paid to find out more about it NOT prove it doesn't exist.
Follow the money...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What is really going to drive the reality of climate change home will be disaster insurance premiums. People and companies in danger of coastal flooding as sea levels rise will have to pay higher and higher premiums or just give up and move to higher ground. Property values will decline or coastal cities will have to build infastructure at great expense (turn the Golden Gate Bridge into the Golden Gate Dam anyone?). And that is not to mention other effects of climate change, such as prolonged droughts.
I guess trying to associate those who don't accept the concept (or claimed extent) of man made global warming with the holocaust with the term 'deniers' wasn't working... a new term has been coined.
I've been occasionally using the term "climate contrarian" off and on for 5 years or so. But the term "climate science denier" is still perfectly apt for them.
Granted, this is from the same group who has had a hard time naming the issue, going from global cooling, to global warming, anthropomorphic global warming, to climate change, to climate weirding and seemingly back to climate change.
The history of the term "climate change" in relation to warming induced by added CO2 goes back at least to the 1950s. "Global cooling" was never a mainstream idea even when it had some publicity in the 1970s.
To warm the atmosphere of an entire planet by even a fraction of a degree man's massive amounts of energy are being trapped. At the moment the oceans are acting as a massive heat sink, at some considerable effect to ocean ecosystems, but that capacity is going to decrease and sooner or later the lower atmosphere and surface temperatures will begin showing of qreater temperatures. We will have permafrost melting and releasing methanez exacerbating the situation.
The simple fact, known for over a century, is that CO2 traps solar radiation. It isn't the least bit controversial.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And what is your solution to changing rainbelts which are going to wipe out agriculture in areas like the US Midwest? Sea level rise is probably the least of the things we have to worry about.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Christ! It's not a difficult concept. We are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere beyond normal background natural processes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Satellite records are better quality, as they cover the entire Earth evenly with a single instrument, all measurements taken at the same time of day using the same method, and so on.
Over time the measurements have been made from multiple satellites, not a single instrument. From the Wikipedia entry on satellite temperature measurements:
Satellites do not measure temperature. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature. The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have produced differing temperature datasets. Among these are the UAH dataset prepared at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the RSS dataset prepared by Remote Sensing Systems.
The satellite time series is not homogeneous. It is constructed from a series of satellites with similar but not identical sensors. The sensors also deteriorate over time, and corrections are necessary for orbital drift and decay. Particularly large differences between reconstructed temperature series occur at the few times when there is little temporal overlap between successive satellites, making intercalibration difficult.
Christ! It's not a difficult concept. We are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere beyond normal background natural processes.
Which is why the new word for climate change deniers is "morons." Most of them are into other stupid crap, such as all sorts of conspiracy theories."Morons" covers the essential cause of why they do what they do.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
One thing that's very different about the current situation is that the CO2 level is over 400 ppm. In the past million years it's never risen above 300 ppm naturally.
I'm getting tired of the "Of course it's getting warmer, we're still coming out of an ice age." argument. It just shows how little you've really looked in to the situation. If you did you would know that temperatures during the current interglacial were highest 6,000-8,000 years ago during the Holocene climatic optimum and have been slowly cooling ever since as you would expect from the slow changes in Milankovitch cycles. It's only recently that temperatures took a sharp upward trajectory.
Here are the adjustments on satellite data: http://www.skepticalscience.co...
Granted, this is from the same group who has had a hard time naming the issue, going from global cooling, to global warming, anthropomorphic global warming
Anthropomorphic?
If you don't even know what it's called, why should we believe you when you say that the science is wrong?
You are right, there are people who are really skeptics. When I've used the term "climate contrarians" it's usually in reference to people like Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer who have the scientific training but as you say take a contrary position on the science.
Quite the opposite. The adjustments actually lowered the overall trend. Here you can see unadjusted and corrected reconstructions side by side. Notice that the two are virtually identical in recent history. https://climatecrock.files.wor...
Your patten also catches scientists who were being cautious and conservative to start with, so where there is uncertainty they adopt the option that gives the least radical results, the smallest anomaly, etc.
Then as the data and the methodologies improve and the uncertainties are resolved the results naturally become MORE surprising.
Looks like your mate who runs that blog has updated it since you read it, to the effect that he no longer claims that NOAA thinks that 1997 was warmer than 2015 - and grudgingly admits that he misread the material. Apparently, this is NOAA's fault for not making the material clear enough for a numpty to understand.
"Pickering concludes, 'What Evans apparently doesn't realize is that because of the thermal inertia of the oceans, within narrow bounds we can already predict what global temperatures will be in 2019, 2024, and 2029...' "
A major part of science is the ability to verify a theory by independently repeatable experiments and observations. Predicting the future is not "science". You can create a predictive model by retro-fitting current observations to past data, looking at trends and making certain assumptions, but it's still only a model. Such a model can be used, but it should never be "believed". That's the problem with the global warming *cough* "Climate Change" alarmists. They honestly think they KNOW what global temperatures are going to be over the next several decades based on their climate models. The same types of models from decades ago made all sorts of dire predictions that never came to fruition and the same is true of today's models.
look up "curve fitting" and "scientific model" and see if you can understand the difference.
then see if you can wrap your head around the fact that every scientific theory, hypothesis, etc. is a model. F=MA is a model of the kinetics of objects, based on past observations. If you don't feel it predicts future behavior of objects, that's your prerogative, but you can't say it's just curve fitting with no attempt to understand the underlying mechanism.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
global warming *cough* "Climate Change"
The warming of the earth causes the climate to change. Why do the nutjobs think they've stumbled on a deep conspiracy when they discover two different terms for different aspects of the same thing?
the fun part is hearing them rant about "gullible warmists" while they solemnly intone "when it stopped warming they changed the name to climate change from global warming" as they rant about the evil IPCC, and then asking them if they know what the CC in IPCC has stood for for the past 30 years.
denialists will believe anything fed to them by an Approved Authority, no questions asked.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Meanwhile, back in reality, NOAA provides the raw data right on their web site: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data...