I just found this and thought of Rog and Dean's bet. It makes $1000 seem rather trifling ;)

"A prediction market on climate futures, like other kinds of futures markets, could be used to establish the market consensus on climate change. There has been sporadic betting activity outside of a market framework. British climate scientist James Annan proposed bets with global warming skeptics concerning whether future temperatures will increase. Two Russian solar physicists, Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, accepted the wager of US$10,000 that the average global temperature during 2012-2017 would be lower than during 1998-2003. Annan first directly challenged Richard Lindzen. Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years. Annan claimed Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures. Lindzen, however, claims that he asked for 2-1 odds against a temperature rise of over 0.4 °C. The Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to a GB£5,000 bet of global warming versus global cooling. Annan and other proponents of the consensus state they have challenged other skeptics to bets over global warming that were not accepted, including Annan's attempt in 2005 to accept a bet that had been offered by Patrick Michaels in 1998 that temperatures would be cooler after ten years. A different, $6,000-to-$9,000 bet, where both sides expect warming but differ on the amount, with one break-even point at 0.15 °C/decade, was made between software engineer David Evans and Brian Schmidt. Evans explained his reasons as a combination of the following: skepticism in global dimming as an explanation for recent cooling, evidence against causation by CO2 of historical warming, and the existence of a sound alternative hypothesis (warming caused by variations in the solar magnetic field)."

Dean Said:
"What I had originally posted was something along the lines of:

"We both know that I'll post the data showing positively sloped regressions, but then you will post whacky conclusions or cherry-picked data and claim victory, anyway. So I never anticipate receiving my $1000.""

The reason you are unlikely to get $1000 out of this bet is because the global temperature is going down.

The terms are clear, we take the majority consensus of the 4 main agency's regressions from 2005 to 2020. Regarding endpoints, I suggest we use the June anomalies for both years so we don't drag it on too long and we get to meet somewhere sunny. :-)

Tony, you have never engaged with any of the points I've raised so I'm not going to rise to the bait of your appeal to the authority of groupthinking, mutually peer reviewing backslappers. Personally, after climategate and the IPCC blunders, I don't think the 'peer reviewed litchurcher' invocation has much credibility any more. That's why I undertook my own research. What an eye opener it has been.

Tony why is your centre so good? Where I live the UEA’s Climatic Research Unit which is rated as world leading had to admit it had thrown away data records and the claim that the world has warmed over the past 157 years seems to be challenged because of this. So my Q. is, what data do you use and your fellow scientists to prove Rog wrong? The reason I ask is the article I read said that a Roger Pielke a professor of environmental studies at Colorado University made a request for data and found out it was missing. If he needed the UEA data and they cant provide it what Data is every one else using to prove climate change and global warming? links appreciated.

Edited by rye1966 on 10/06/2010 16:40:49 MDT.

"I suggest we use the June anomalies for both years so we don't drag it on too long and we get to meet somewhere sunny. :-)"

I'm guessing you won't be meeting in New Zealand then, though while summer is usually sunnier than the other seasons (mainly due to longer daylight hours), most regions in New Zealand have a relatively high proportion of sunlight during the winter months. So, maybe we WILL see you both here in June 2020?

Funny Rog, how you go on about the process of science, and the onus of 'proof' etc..., yet you decline to participate in the process as you find it a form of group-think and backslapping. There is nothing 'scientific' about trolling the web for conspiracy theories and contradictory data and espewing them as 'proof'. You are entitled to your opinions, but as a member of the backslapping group-think community I don't accept them as any more than just that-opinions. Even opinions can get accepted for peer-reviewed publication if they are coherent and well presented. Why don't you give it a try?

"Even opinions can get accepted for peer-reviewed publication if they are coherent and well presented. Why don't you give it a try?"

Because then Rog'd be arguing with his peers instead of a bunch of laypersons and that would make it a fair fight. Nobody here knows enough about the subject to present a credible opposing argument, but I'm relatively certain that at least one of those IPCC scoundrels would be up to the challenge. How 'bout it Rog? For $1000?

Hi Rog,

>Tony, you have never engaged with any of the points I've raised so I'm not going to rise to the bait of your appeal to the authority of groupthinking, mutually peer reviewing backslappers. Personally, after climategate and the IPCC blunders, I don't think the 'peer reviewed litchurcher' invocation has much credibility any more. That's why I undertook my own research. What an eye opener it has been.

I cannot be bothered wasting my time debating with you as I am too busy helping scientist to do climate science.

With your comments about the Australian climate, it is obvious that you do not have the faintest idea of what is going on.

Tony

>Because then Rog'd be arguing with his peers instead of a bunch of laypersons and that would make it a fair fight. Nobody here knows enough about the subject to present a credible opposing argument, but I'm relatively certain that at least one of those IPCC scoundrels would be up to the challenge. How 'bout it Rog? For $1000?

I think most climate scientists are too busy doing science to worry about wasting time with a conspiracy theorist.

Tony

Oh dear, more climate 'scientists' behaving badly...

http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/10/observations-on-niwas-statement-of-defence/
"Three weeks ago NIWA released their Statement of Defence in response to the NZ Climate Science Coalition’s Statement of Claim regarding an Application for a Judicial Review. You have to be a lawyer (which I’m not) to see the ramifications and it’s taking a while to work through it,

NIWA formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR)...."

Clarence says:
October 6, 2010 at 8:55 pm

We already have an official temperature record. It consists of the average monthly temperatures at the seven long-standing stations, as originally measured by the NZ MetService and now recorded in the National Climate Database. This record shows no significant warming in New Zealand during the 20th century – the graph is a straight line.

But, in the 1970s, along came a bright young student out to make a name for himself. Jim Salinger opined that the early part of the record (pre-WW2) should be adjusted downwards, so that the graph would have a sloping line. 20-odd years later, while trying to convince the politicians about global warming, it suited NIWA just fine to adopt all of Jim’s bold adjustments. In fact, Jim even did the adopting, as he now worked for NIWA.

All went well for about 17 long years. The NZ politicians were convinced, and signed the Kyoto Protocol, and made stirring speeches and enacted an ETS. But then came Richard’s paper in 2009, and the facade started to crack. Now it has completely fallen apart.

Despite all the sworn evidence and the official advice and the IPCC chapters, New Zealand has not experienced any detectable warming over the last 150 years!


On another blog Cassandra King says:
Its a scandal to equal climategate, NIWA are disowning a record they created and defended and used to advise government, they are publicly funded and have pimped their construction as first rate when in fact they knew all along it was rubbish. The NZ government will be left swinging in the wind by this because their whole energy policy was based on the NIWA record.
Governments do not like to be made to look stupid by underlings on the payroll and they do not on the whole enjoy taking flak, a big ooops.

"I think most climate scientists are too busy doing science to worry about wasting time with a conspiracy theorist"

Even for an easy $1000? ;-)

Tony TooBusy says:
"I think most climate scientists are too busy doing science to worry about wasting time with a conspiracy theorist."

As a matter of fact, I've been invited to a conference in Lisbon at the end of January where I'll be discussing the substantive issues with the UK govt's chief scientific adviser on climate, amongst others.

So you can shove your condescending attitude where the sun don't shine.

Tom Says:
Even for an easy $1000? ;-)

Pish, I'm on the climate junket now, that's less than my three day expenses. ;-)

Edited by tallbloke on 10/06/2010 17:48:17 MDT.

"So you can shove your condescending attitude where the sun don't shine."

Woo hoo! That's the most significant contribution to global warming since Thread II started. Careful, Rog, you're going to lose your bet with Dean if you keep this up.

Listened to this on the radio today. Quite ironic in my opinion...

The Carbon Footprint Of Climate Change Delegates [4 min 56 sec]

October 6, 2010
After Copenhagen, there was Bonn. Now there's Tianjin, China. Next month, there will be Cancun, Mexico. It seems the United Nations is continually holding climate change meetings that require thousands of delegates to fly all over the world in an effort to reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions. But it's a big question whether any of these talks will produce a concrete result. If not, there's always next year's big meeting in South Africa. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, about the carbon footprint of this rolling series of international meetings, proposals to reduce it, and what is actually supposed to be taking place.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130384209

Am relieved to see both tigers are back in the game.

George, you'd think they'd make more use of that internet their chief fakir Al Gore claims to have invented.

Hi Lynn,

Actually there are a lot of bets on the table...

Betting on Climate Change: Corporations Stand to Make or Lose Billions

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/climate-desk-corporations-risk/

CCX, the Chicago Climate Exchange, flatlined some time ago. I wonder if Al has safely shifted some wealth off with Tipper BEFORE HIS LIABILITIES COME HOME TO ROOST.

"United Nations is continually holding climate change meetings that require thousands of delegates to fly all over the world in an effort to reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions"

This is just wrong in this day and age. I no longer go to distant conferences: if a conference organiser can't be bothered to use modern technology to bring professional's ideas together for exchange then it's just not worth 'attending' to IMHO. Most of them are just major drinking events and holidays to judge by many colleague's behaviour. And the number of posters and abstracts I've seen at these events that never gets published is mind-numbing...'preliminary data' most often doesn't pan out in the long run, or statements like "these results need to be replicated" but nobody can manage to replicate them . Rog, can't you just skype this top UK adviser or something?

As for NZ climate, I actually don't care, any more than I care about the other topics Rog is so keen on. To me the issue is not climate change, but planet change, and this is undeniably anthropogenic in nature. BTW, we had a very cold, wet winter and so far the spring in this town has been lovely and warm. I'm not a climatologist, so I only really focus on the recent past and near future forecasts when I'm planning a hike. Of course, the forecasts are mostly wrong, so it's no surprise that NIWA hasn't been altogether on the ball.

"George, you'd think they'd make more use of that internet their chief fakir Al Gore claims to have invented."

Being silly doesn't help your case. Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. Never.

I also don't see him as a fakir, whether or not I agree with him. He interprets the data one way, you interpret it another. I know you're rather besieged on this thread, Rog, but don't hurt your case by making such silly statements. I'd like to think they're beneath you.

"To me the issue is not climate change, but planet change, and this is undeniably anthropogenic in nature."

I've done no research on this topic, haven't even read this entire thread, and am anything but a scientist. Makes me a perfect candidate to throw my opinion into the ring, don't you think!

So here goes: I think it's pretty well established that the earth has been warming and cooling over its life, with sometimes rather dramatic shifts. If we are entering a warming phase, it's not necessarily caused by man, but rather one of the 'normal' shifts in the earth's temps. I do, however, think that humans are, perhaps, causing a significant change in the earth's habitability for humans. Call it global warming. Call it ignorance. Call it humans being humans. We are changing the planet.

Now, I don't think we're going to 'destroy' the planet, though I do think we are heading toward destroying the planet's ability to support human life. As George Carlin so wonderfully put, the earth isn't going anywhere, we are. If we continue on our present course, earth will adapt to its new construct, but we won't be around.

I'm okay with that, since I often think far too many of us aren't really worth saving anyway.

So there!

The question becomes, whose temperature records do you believe?

"In a press release coinciding with their trip to the High Court to file papers, the coalition claims “The NZ MetService record shows no warming during the last century.”

The joke is that in February 2002, I had some fun at the MetService’s expense, revealing that for $100,000 it would happily shift a weather station anywhere a mayor requested in order to improve his or her town’s temperature on the nightly television weather spot. And who did I find to criticise this sleight of hand but none other than the deniers’ bete noir, Jim Salinger, then a senior scientist at Niwa.

My investigations had been sparked by a reader noting that Wellington seemed to share Auckland’s temperature on the telly each night, which we all knew couldn’t be true.

It turned out that Mark Blumsky, the capital’s mayor from 1995 to 2001, became unhappy with the low temperatures reported from the traditional weather recording stations at Wellington airport, the Kelburn hills and Lower Hutt and demanded MetService find a warmer spot.

MetService said name your spot, and as long as it meets certain guidelines such as being over grass, and the mayor paid $100,000 in set-up costs, that would be it.

Which is how the sheltered lawn in front of the Michael Fowler Centre became a new MetService weather station, and Wellington’s daily temperature on the telly suddenly increased by about 1.5C."

Douglas:
" I do, however, think that humans are, perhaps, causing a significant change in the earth's habitability for humans. Call it global warming. Call it ignorance. Call it humans being humans. We are changing the planet."

Call it pollution, deforestation, over-fishing, oil spills and all sorts of things. There's no 'perhaps' about it. Humans have done this. The climate is, 'perhaps', just one small aspect of the damage we've done.