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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."

32 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Never give a sucker by NEDHead · · Score: 3, Insightful

    an even bet

  2. Silliness by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is like betting on how long it is going to take the Titanic to sink, while you are ON the Titanic.

    1. Re:Silliness by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, some people on the sinking boat are still betting on wether or not the boat is sinking.

    2. Re: Silliness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A far more apt analogy would be that some people are betting that the ship will rise into the air, science be damned!

    3. Re: Silliness by Frankzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Gravity is just a theory anyway"

    4. Re:Silliness by Evtim · · Score: 3, Informative

      They weren't. The survival chance of a man first class was lower than a woman third class. Most of the crew behaved properly on that occasion [women and children first]. And I have the feeling that back then the rich and powerful men [while still being guilty of greed and malice] had bigger balls than those of today...

  3. I do this for football. by CajunArson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  4. A fool and his money... by babymac · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...are soon parted.

    --
    "War makes me sad." - Me
  5. That was pretty stupid. by BStroms · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:That was pretty stupid. by BStroms · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, I see from one the articles, that one mainstream scientist did lose 100 pounds in a bet on the pace of global warming. So at least someone had a little more sense with their terms.

    2. Re:That was pretty stupid. by KeensMustard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Except nobody would take that bet, because mathematically, it is always 50/50. A model will always predict higher or lower than the actual outcome. It will be one or the other, and actually it doesn't matter which, as long as the model correctly predicts within a useful percentile. Also the bet is meaningless: you could make a wager on something meaningful ("the average temperature between 2010 and 2020 will be within the error bands of model x") - in which case, for any GCM model (or later) the contrarians are on track to lose (again).

    3. Re:That was pretty stupid. by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem I think is that the climate change skeptics don't think that way. They have supreme confidence that it's all a hoax, that the data is falsified, that it's a plot to undermine the economy, etc. So they make the bet with bravado, expecting the mainstream scientists to back down or look foolish. Anyone starting with an attitude of "oh ya, put your money where your mouth is" won't be the sort of person who's going to be inspecting the data very closely, analyzing the odds, choosing the best measurement methods, etc.

    4. Re:That was pretty stupid. by quantaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      Probably rhetoric. The contrarians are building their reputation on the idea that the scientists are incompetent, corrupt, or in some other way completely wrong. If the contrarians are right then the current warm temps are just the high point of a cycle, so in a few years it should be cooler.

      By betting that temperatures will rise, just not quite as much as the scientists claim, they'd be essentially conceding that they think AGW is happening.

      Besides, they already benefited by cashing in on the PR of actually making bet, the fact the eventually lost isn't really something they'll be motivated to share with their followers.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    5. Re: That was pretty stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > And you don't think mainstream scientist have absolute FAITH and conviction in their science?

      No, they don't have absolute faith. That's why they have things called error bars that show the margins of error for any given results. That's why they often conclude with phrases like "further study is required". That's why there is an emphasis on reproducibility of results so that others can perform the same experiments to ensure that the study was done correctly.

      The people who are the most skeptical about climate change tend to be the ones who haven't even looked at the evidence before claiming that it is all a hoax. No wonder the least skeptical are the scientists because they have actually looked at the overwhelming number of studies from all different scientific disciplines.

      Remember, just because you simply "go with you gut feelings" on this subject doesn't mean that those whose job it is to study climate change unthinkingly believe that mankind is contributing to global warming. That is the mistake that the uneducated make; they assume that everyone else thinks along ideological lines like they do.

  6. Re:Let's bet on something more useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is forecasted that the Americans have a 100% chance of losing.

  7. Shirt by Translation+Error · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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."

    Well, at least losing the shirt will make it easier to withstand the higher temperatures.

    --
    When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
  8. What Brian fails to realize by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If David loses he won't need his shirt. So the downside is limited.

  9. Re:"Climate contrarians" by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What's going is we are trying really hard not to call you

    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
  10. Re:"Climate contrarians" by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:"Climate contrarians" by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  12. Re:"Climate contrarians" by GodelEscherBlecch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!

  13. Re:"Climate contrarians" by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Funny

    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?"

  14. Re:"Climate contrarians" by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  15. Re:Predicting the future.... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  16. Re:Completely fabricated nonsense by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 5, Informative

    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."
  17. Re:"Climate contrarians" by InsertCleverUsername · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!
  18. Re:Predicting the future.... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
  19. Re:"Climate contrarians" by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  20. Re:Sounds good, but devil is in details by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  21. Re:Dumbass Bets by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  22. Re:Sounds good, but devil is in details by Layzej · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I think the problem is that it is not true. Carl Mears who develops the RSS satellite record says "they are not thermometers in space. The satellite [temperature] data ... were obtained from so-called Microwave Sounding Units (MSUs), which measure the microwave emissions of oxygen molecules from broad atmospheric layers. Converting this information to estimates of temperature trends has substantial uncertainties."

    Here are the adjustments on satellite data: http://www.skepticalscience.co...

  23. Re:Contrived Correlation by Layzej · · Score: 3, Informative

    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...