Archived comment thread for global warming bet post of 4.24.07

(Old comment thread may disappear, so I'm archiving it here while recommending that new comments be left at the original post. -Brian)

Remind me - who has bet #2? William M. Connolley | Homepage | 04.25.07 - 5:21 am | #

I just came across your blog about Global Warming and wanted to drop you a note telling you how impressed I was with the information you have posted here. I also have a blog about Global Warming so I know I'm talking about when I say your site is top-notch!Global Warming Keep up the great work, you are providing a great resource on the Internet here! copyworld | Homepage | 04.25.07 - 6:50 am | #

William - I'll have to dig it out, but it was at a British newsgroup called something like Stormworld, and one of the guys with the climateprediction.net made a bet for 1,000 pounds on temps going up (like James' bet). Sorry, the details are hazy. I should put a better reference in my blog somewhere handy. James wrote about it too. Brian S. | Homepage | 04.25.07 - 10:17 am | #

James called my bet 'number 2' but it was only for 500 pounds and so it could be disregarded as 'chump change' or below William £1000 threshold to be considered serious. It was on the UKweatherworld site. crandles | 04.25.07 - 5:57 pm | #

"From here on in this blog, references to denialist, septics, etc. involve only skeptics who won't put their money where their mouths are." I hope you are equally condescending and disparaging to your believer colleagues who also do not "put their money where their mouth is". mugwump | 04.25.07 - 6:35 pm | #

Well done and well explained. Since this bet appears to be carefully considered, I'll assume that you and Mr. Evans have an agreed upon criteria for what constitutes a a volcanic eruption large enough to affect temperature. Jeff S. | 04.28.07 - 1:22 pm | #

Chris - 500 pounds doesn't seem like chump change to me! Mugwump - if there were a shortage of people who accepted the consensus position but weren't willing to accept bets offered to them by denialists, then you'd have a point. Jeff - it's volcanoes that equal or exceed the energy of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. It's a rough approximation of what we intended to do - smaller eruptions might also affect climate depending on a variety of factors - but we thought it was good enough. Brian S. | Homepage | 04.30.07 - 12:58 pm | #

You could nail down the volcano thing by defining it in terms of SO2 injected into the upper trop as defined by the TOMs volcano group Volcanos that blow out sideways like Mt. St. Helens don't affect global T much. Just being pedantic Eli Rabett | Homepage | 04.30.07 - 1:40 pm | #

Brian, Since the key underlying issue here is the importance of immediate investment in AGW abatement strategies, I trust you will honor these bets as the underlying "facts" continue to change -- including the temperature history. Here is just one of many emerging examples showing the heat-bias in temperature measurements. I'd LOL but it ain't funny with trillions on the line. MrPete | 05.28.07 - 6:30 am | #

Pete- I'd have no problem adjusting the temperature record to correct for known errors, although that wasn't expressly in the bet. I assume David wouldn't either, but no one should be confident that the errors, if any, are only in one direction. Brian S. | Homepage | 05.30.07 - 12:59 pm | #

I'm puzzled by the odds. The climate change lobby is urging governments around the world to bet the world economy on the economy-destroying climate change. If that is going to happen, it's worth the bet. But what are the odds? If this bet is anything to go by, your personal appraisal of the risk of continually rising CO2-driven temperatures is, overall, 3:2. That doesn't jell with the public or political perception. That perception is that destructive climate change is, for all practical purposes, certain. So, which is your judgment of the actual odds of climate catastrophe? 3:2, practical certainty, or somewhere in between? Peter B. West | Homepage | 11.07.07 - 4:11 am | #

I don't how you define climate catastrophe, Peter, but I think the odds are near certain that the costs of controlling greenhouse gas emissions will be less than the costs of not controlling GHGs. Even if doubling GHGs only made the globe 1 degree C warmer, we'd still have to control emissions, because without controls we'd just go on and triple and quadruple GHG levels. There's also the chance of things going really badly, and that chance, so long as it's more than negligible, is an additional but not necessary reason for controlling GHG emissions. As for betting, the way I try to make an offer is I start with what I actually expect temps to do based on what the IPCC says, try to figure out what my skeptic/denialist proponent is saying, and try and make a bet offer that's halfway between our two positions. It isn't too complicated. Brian Schmidt | Homepage | 11.08.07 - 12:18 am | #

"I'm puzzled by the odds. The climate change lobby is urging governments around the world to bet the world economy on the economy-destroying climate change." I'm puzzled by the numbers. At 0.15C per 10 years, we could have 100 years of such warming and it would have zero meaningful negative effects on sea level, ice caps, etc. It's really a very temperate trend. When AGW proponents are not even willing to bet on more than 0.15C in the next decade, it is a clear indication that they know the trends are not as serious as the hype is made out to be. PJ | Homepage | 05.20.08 - 4:54 pm | #

"Even if doubling GHGs only made the globe 1 degree C warmer, we'd still have to control emissions, because without controls we'd just go on and triple and quadruple GHG levels." Not true at all. As fossil fuels get harder to find, their costs go up. In 50 years this problem will solve itself via nuclear, solar and wind. In the last 3 decades USA oil use has stop growing and projections are flattening out. Peak oil will stop AGW if we dont. The main impediment to an economical and sensible solution to AGW has been opposition to nuclear power. PJ | Homepage | 05.20.08 - 5:00 pm | #

There's a lot of coal out there - we could easily get 1000 ppm, so quadrupling is possible. Brian Schmidt | Homepage | 07.18.08 - 7:07 pm | #

PJ: "At 0.15C per 10 years, we could have 100 years of such warming and it would have zero meaningful negative effects on sea level, ice caps, etc." No - we're already getting impacts that would get worse. More important, most scenarios show accelerating warmth- the ones that don't assume we do something about emissions. Brian Schmidt | Homepage | 07.18.08 - 7:10 pm | #

"No - we're already getting impacts that would get worse. More important, most scenarios show accelerating warmth- the ones that don't assume we do something about emissions." That's a lie. It's now becoming evident that temperatures have fallen over the past decade. Get your facts straight. Ron Foster | 07.19.08 - 11:47 pm | #

Ron - try to hold back a little on the accusations. If you read what I said a little more closely, or if you knew much about the IPCC, you'd see I was talking about scenarios for future temperature changes. Also, 10-year and 5-year averages haven't dropped over the past decade, so get your facts straight, yourself. There was one anomaly in 1998 that shows that year as the warmest in one dataset but doesn't make longer averages decline. Brian Schmidt | Homepage | 07.23.08 - 12:49 am | #

Our present energy course is not sustainable.Responding to this demand while minimizing further climate change will need all the determination and ingenuity we can muster.The problem is not yet insoluble but becomes more difficult with each passing day.G8 countries bear a special responsibility for the current high level of energy consumption and the associated climate change. Newly industrialized countries will share this responsibility in the future. -------------------- ironflex Sport betting guide ironflex | Homepage | 11.29.08 - 1:26 pm | #