Thursday
May122011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A climate bet
May 12, 2011 Climate: Surface Toward the end of the Cambridge conference, delegates were offered the chance to put some hard cash behind their opinions on AGW in the shape of a bet on temperature trends. The wager was put forward by Dr Chris Hope of the Judge Business School in Cambridge. This is what is on offer:
If the global mean temperature in 2015 is more than 0.1 deg C below the global mean temperature in 2008, I will pay £1000. If not, the other party will pay me £1000. The global mean temperaure to be determined by the NASA GISS data set.
If anyone is interested in taking part, drop Chris an email at chris dot hope and the domain is jbs dot cam dot ac dot uk.
Reader Comments (91)
If it wasn't the cro$ks at GISS it wouldn't be a bad bet.
Ridiculous bet. Why not wager on what will be the weather in September 4, 2011, in, say, London instead?
That could go wrong for any party, for obvious reasons. It's just not worth it.
This would be a foolish bet. The 0.1 margin he builds in is almost one standard deviation of the 4 year differences (0.13). No way is this an evens bet even assuming no warming.
I'd be interested in betting the temperature is lower in 2015 at these odds, but not by at least 0.1 deg C
That is completely nuts. No-one in their right mind would make the bet either way: there is far too much year to year variability, for all sorts of reasons, to bet on something like that. That's not throwing down the gauntlet, it is a foolish and worthless gesture that only fools with money to burn would bet on, whether 0.1 deg above or below.
What sort of an idiot is going to bet a trend that's been going on since around 1700AD?
I didn't know GISS was a dataset. A dataset implies data. GISS is not data.
And the point of the bet is...?
And the amount is irrelevant... window dressing... he is giving even odds... that says more.
Interesting that Dr Hope chose 2008 as the base year, given that Jan/Feb 2008 was anomalously (!) low, and even without those two months dragging the average down, 2008 in general is the coldest of recent years. See this. Here's the GISS annual global anomaly for recent years, in cK (hundredths of Kelvin):
2005: 63
2006: 55
2007: 58
2008: 44
2009: 58
2010: 63
So the index is already up 0.19K since 2008, and the bet is whether global temperatures will decline by about 0.1K over the next 5 years.
I wonder if Dr Hope would change the interval by a year either way.
It seems to me that it's a reasonably safe bet that, whatever Jim Hansen predicts will be the case, will be the case. Hansen, who makes makes climate prophecies, has control over the results of NASA GISS. If anyone can make his own prediction come true, you can bet that the morally corrupt Hansen can.
Not quite sure what this is intended to prove...
This is the way to do it...
http://notrickszone.com/join-the-climate-bet-for-charity/
So the cut-off point is 0.1 degrees C in the Warmists' favour?
It could cool by 0.09C in 7 years (a trend of -1.29C per century) and still the Warmists win the bet?
Even The Joker never got that silly....
If he was betting the satellite record, then maybe. But the GISS temperature record shows warming where there is no temperature record, so it's wholly untrustworthy.
Hopefully somebody pointed this out at the meeting.
Not a good bet, even if you chose a satellite record instead of GISS. 2008 was a La Nina year. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1990/to:2011 tells the story in pictures.
Barring miracles, if 2015 is an El Nino or neutral year, it will be warmer than 2008, and even if it is a La Nina year, it'd have to be a very deep one and/or we'd have to have really rapid cooling to get 0.1 below 2008.
Someone should ask Dr Hope if he'd make the same bet against 2010, using UAH.
Now I would take that bet if the break even point was 0.1 C ABOVE the temperature 7 years previously.- that would imply a 1.27C increase by 2100 which is well below what the alarmists have been predicting.
So Dr Hope "recognised for over 15 years of ground-breaking work on climate change. He began work in the field in 1991 over a decade before it became a high profile issue" isn't willing to bet on anything but cooling! I wonder if any other alarmists will take my money..
In 2005 two Russian solar physicists bet climate modeler James Annan $10,000 that global temperatures in 2012-2017 would be cooler than in 1998-2003, by NCDC data.
That is a more rational bet, using multi-year periods as end points to spread the effects of volcanoes, ENSO cycles, etc., and more rational using NCDC than the outlier GISS.
I have a thermometer which pretends it can tell me the temperature to an accuracy of .1 degree. I don't believe it myself and I certainly don't believe that globally it is possible to make that sort of precise measurement, much as the warmists might like us to believe it is.
This is not a bet; this is one more opportunity for the warmists to say "see, they have no confidence in their scepticism; they refuse to put their money where their mouths are."
Like the argument about God being able to make a four-sided triangle; it's a no-thing; it's a nonsense; it has no meaning in reality.
Place whatever bet you like, and get Hansen to adjust the data accordingly
Dr Hope picks a cool year as his start point and expects to win the bet even if it ends up cooler still in the next 5 years.
He doesn't sound very confident about a warming trend!
It's a "sucker's bet..."
... much like betting against Wall Street ( or the City ) or Las Vegas. That's never a good idea— the game is rigged.
How about their tenure and pension being conditional on their own long-range forcasts? It goes without saying that State-funded catastrophism would, as a result, vanish from the hallowed halls of academia.
Even Hansen'd come over all objective and, one assumes, Real Climate would live up to its name in at least some small measure.
Sigh. Everybody knows the difference between weather and climate, right? You know, all that stuff about weather being what is going on outside your window right now, and climate being the long term trend averaged over many years, right? Measured over 30 year periods, in fact, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 2015 only 4 years away, and isn't this considerably less than 30 years? So isn't what will be going on in 4 years time "weather" rather than "Climate"?
Don't global temperatures zig and zag from year to year? Suppose they were to zig cooler for the next 4 years - or zag warmer for that matter. What would that tell us about long term climate trends over the next 4 years - other than sod all, that is?
So just what exactly is the point of this bet?
Thanks to Andrew for publicising the bet and thanks for your responses. I chose the year 2008 as the starting point because that is the year that Akasofu's analysis (which was cited at the conference) predicts to be the peak year, with a predicted median decline of 0.1 degC by 2015 and about 0.2 degC by 2020. So it seemed to offer the basis for a reasonable wager. Of course there is a lot of variability over such a short timescale, but it cuts both ways - an ill-timed volcanic eruption and I could lose the bet even if the underlying trend is upwards. My interest in putting this forward is to see if there is some way of moving towards a market where 'free people making free decisions' (to quote President Klaus) can mutually benefit from different opinions about the climate - much in the way that the stock market allows them to benefit from different opinions about the value of a company.
On a BBC radio 4 program in 2007 David Whitehouse bet James Annan £100 that there would not be a new record by 2011 according to Hadcrut.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-on-4-year-bet.html
Given that 2011 will be cooler than 2010 I reckon that Whitehouse will win.
That starts with setting the bar at zero, not slanted from the get-go in your direction.
Dear Rick,
I'm not trying to force anyone to take the bet (as if I could). I'm putting it up as an opportunity for anyone who is broadly convinced by the Akasofu analysis to make some money, if they wish to do so.
"So it seemed to offer the basis for a reasonable wager." Seemed to you, Chris Hope, seemed to you. I do hope such fallacious reasoning and understanding isn't symptomatic of the whole of your field, but I shan't hold my breath.
Dr. Hope,
thank you for commenting here.
We are already a little way into the 21st century. If we are to see "dangerous" warming of 3 Celsius or more before the end of the century, we are going to have to see warming like we've never (in a few thousand tears, anyhow) seen before for a very long period of time, and that warming is going to have to happen very,very soon given the flat trend in the first 10+ years of the century.
Mt question, then, is why, if you subscribe to this view of dangerous man-made climate change,do you offer a bet in which you win if there is cooling after 7 years and furthermore your start point is one of the coldest years we have recently had?
In my respectful opinion, it shows a complete lack of cojones. You appear to wish to have your cake and eat it. To both maintain a position that we are causing dangerous climate change that we must do something about, and a position that you still "win" if that doesn't, in fact, occur. To have your cake, and eat it.
A bet more in keeping with a "dangerous warming" stance might be, for example, a bet that the prediction in:
"Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model"
Doug M. Smith, Stephen Cusack, Andrew W. Colman, Chris K. Folland, Glen R. Harris and James M. Murphy
will fail. You may recall that this was the paper that purported to, ex post facto, explain away the recent lack of warming, and predicted that at least half the years after 2009 (to 2015) will be warmer than 1998. Coz that's not looking too hot, is it?
Kind regards, and apologies in advance if I have misunderstoof your position on anything.
AP
I think it would be fairer of someone who believes that global temperature is likely to rise in the next 4 years to offer an evens bet that the temperature has risen by less than the increase that they expect.
....to have your cake and eat it once more than was entirely necessary; my bad!
Dear Angus,
Thanks for your comment. I tried to explain the reasoning a few posts above. Ideally we would have a proper market where people who believe the Akasofu analysis (or something like it) would sell options that pay off if the temperature rises, but not if it doesn't. As we don't have such a market, the kind of bet I propose is a much smaller scale attempt to give people who believe in Akasofu a chance to make some money from their belief. It is phrased in the way it is because it was put forward at a conference where the majority of people seemed to believe that the temperature was going to fall.
Well actually since the bet presupposes that the 0.1 C decline is correct then the bet is no better than even for those who believe it. Somebody might do it just for the thrill but for it to be an "opportunity for anyone who is broadly convinced by the Akasofu analysis to make some money" the break even risk would have to be above -0.1C.
The strange thing is that Chris, whose career has been built on the thesis that society should spend trillions against the risk of a truly catastrophic level of warming is not willing to take the "opportunity to make some money" by betting against a rise of 0,1 C (equivalent to a mere 1.27 C by 2100).
Apologies. I hadn't spotted that we were talking about 2008 (did I dream that the comparison was with 2011?), so my remarks are way off.
Phillip makes the key point - GISS is not a dataset - just look at how Hansen's gridding method contradicts recent RSS data for Greenland and the north Atlantic:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/giss-vs-rss/
How long NASA are going to let their name be tarnished by Hansen antics and pseudo science is beyond me.
Sory that should have read "by accepting bets against a rise of only 0.1 C".
To be fair to him Ladbrokes require the odds stacked very heavily in their favour too, which is why I don't use their services.
2008 was a 'colder' year than any of the years around it .... so 2015 would have to be a lot colder again ... by another 0.1 degrees C. Unlikely especially given the fact that GISS (which is run by James Hansen) is unlikely to actually publish such a low temperature as that - even if it happened. Ridiculous bet. I reckon its a publicity stunt so that when no one take him up on it, he can say - "see, these climate deniers won't put their money where their mouth is".
A better bet would be to ask .... will sea level rise have started to accelerate by then ?
Most betting shops these days offer a range of exciting bets -- not a single line bet.
How about:
* temp trend in the next 5 years below IPCC predictions
* average temp 2015-2017 lower than 2008-2010
* sea-level rises less than Clive Hamilton's estimate or more than Axel-Morners .....
You get the picture....
I'd take a bet that if by 2015 he could prove unequivocally that CO2 is the driver of the warming trend; something a bit more sophis. than just trend matching of two unrelated quantities.
I would even propose that we up the stake 10 fold.
But then he's obviously a clever chap and probably knows better.
In truth I've been looking for an opportunity to bet against global warming, but for various reasons cited above this does not seem a good way
In the past Betfair has had a market on the maximum annual UK temperature (and as I recall at one time you could get 100-1 for the temperature exceeding 100 deg F), but there doesn't seem to be one at the moment, and the punters there seem rather more contrarian than the AGW proponents.
Thanks for all your comments. It's getting harder to respond to them individually, but I'll try to respond to a couple of points that have come up several times. Why the NASA GISS data? I proposed this because it is easily and quickly available online. I didn't realise it had such a bad reputation amongst you guys. Although other people have been critical of 2008 as the start point because the temperature for 2008 in the GISS data set is so low. If someone wants to propose a different data set, such as the NCDC data, then I would be happy to consider that.
I'm not a climate scientist; what I do is try to build models that will help people see the consequences of climate change policies given their assumptions about climate sensitivity, marginal abatement costs and so on. The models have mainly been used so far by people who broadly subscribe to the IPCC view of things. But there is nothing to stop people who have different views using the models and seeing what their views imply.
Dear Nicholas,
That's all I am trying to offer. If you think my proposal 'does not seem a good way', what would make it a good way for you?
Will someone help me out. If the accuracy that temperature can be measured is +/- 0.5 deg is not any average of a collection of temperatures x deg +/- 0.5deg?
Absolute Global Mean Temps (GISS)
2001 - 14.46C
2002 - 14.56C
2003 - 14.55C
2004 - 14.48C
2005 - 14.63C
2006 - 14.55C
2007 - 14.58C
2008 - 14.44C
2009 - 14.58C
2010 - 14.63C
To win the bet 2015 would have to be 14.33C or less.
There is an outside chance due to inherent short-term variability that could happen.
But if you look at the long-term underlying cyclic nature of the surface temperature record we are at the point where global temps are likely start to dip and we could see in comaprision to 2008 a consistent 0.1C+ drop in global temps from around 2025.
Dr Hope,
thank you for the response. I would be surprised if most people at the conference believed that temperatures were going to fall. But you were at the conference, not I, so naturally I defer to you on that point. Nevertheless, speaking for myself as a convert to CAGW (for want of a better tern) scepticism, I have no idea what temperatures are going to do in the future but, if pressed, my guess would be that the slow rise that we've seen over the last 150+ years will broadly continue, plus perhaps a dash of CO2 warming Which is nothing more than extrapolating a trendline, of course. I do believe that the catastrophic temperature rises that we have been warned about have been grossly exaggerated and, barring some other exrtaneous cause, will not occur.
Just for fun, do you have a view on the "bet" in the Smith, Cusack et al paper that I mentioned? Do you think they will be correct or incorrect with their prediction that more than half of the years after 2009 (to 2015) will be warmer than 1998?
Kind regards,
AP
re Nicholas Hallam
Dear Mac,
Akasofu predicts 0.1 degC lower than 2008 by 2015, and 0.2 degC lower by 2020. There must surely be people who think the temperature will drop even more, since a 0.1 degC drop compared to 2008 still leaves the mean temperature 0.34 degC higher than the 1951 - 1980 average. This bet is trying to give those people a chance to make some money from their views, rather than having to suffer the feeling that people are conspiring to ignore them.
Dear Angus,
I haven't seen the paper or the bet, but thanks for drawing it to my attention.
Dear Chris
I really want to bet that the temperature doesn't increase as much as the mainstream climate models predict, not that the temperature will reduce according to somebody else's models.
Also I don't like the reference to 2008 which is a local minimum.
If there is an AGW consensus view of where temperature is expected to be by 2015 (or any other year for that matter), I would happily bet you £1000 that it would not be reached.
Angus,
Now looked at the paper, thanks. Their statement seems to imply that at least 4 of the seven years 2009 to 2015 inclusive will be warmer than 1998. So far, both 2009 (anomaly of 0.58 degC according to the GISS data) and 2010 (0.63 degC) have been warmer than 1998 (0.56 degC), so I would guess they are feeling OK so far. The NCDC data set has 2010 warmer but 2009 cooler than 1998, so they may not be feeling so comfortable if that is the data set they are using.
Dr. Hope,
I think you'll find that they were using HadCrut, not GISS, so I call cheating!. No year has so far exceeded 1998, and with the current year bound not to, it's looking crocked.....