Stats Guru Nate Silver Issues Financial Challenge To Climate Skeptics

fivethirtyeight.com:

John Hinderaker at the popular conservative blog PowerLine reports that it's been cold, cold, cold in his home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota, going to far as to compare it with "The Year Without a Summer", 1816, when global temperatures were abnormally low as a result of the eruption of Mount Tambora.

Selective memory is a powerful thing. I'm not particularly when the fact that it's cool or rainy in your hometown one afternoon became subject for worthwhile blog material, but you have started to see this all the time on certain conservative blogs, probably led by the example of Matt Drudge.

Therefore, because I'd like to see more accountability on all sides of this debate and because I'm tired of people who don't understand statistics and because I'd like to make some money, I issue the following challenge.

Read the whole story: fivethirtyeight.com

Comments

[slithers]

http://www.whnt.com/news/sns-ap-tn--recordcool,0,4032125.story

[lbrty 2112]

Nate, perhaps you could tell us the probablility of large-scale social / economic collapse attributed 'global warming' occuring BEFORE large-scale social / economic collapse attributed to 'global cooling'.

For the sake of argument, let's define social / economic collapse atributed to 'climate change' as mass migration (>20% of the population of North America) due either to rising sea levels, or advancing glaciers, covering areas presently inhabited by humans.

[BlackbirdHighway]

That question is easy. There is zero chance of global cooling happening before global warming.

Global warming is already happening now, and expected to continue through the next several centuries due to rising levels of CO2 caused by burning fossil fuels.

Global cooling is forecast to happen in about 20,000 years, (200 centuries), due to instabilities in Earths orbit.

[lbrty 2112]

Ummmmm ..... Yeah.. by definition 'global warming' is what happens after, and up until the next ice age.

Good guess though Blackbird

[slithers]

Drink the koolaid.

[Telemachus]

This is, indeed, "Politics Done Right." Congratulations, Nate! And no, I'm not taking that bet!

[ThirdSection]

Whether global warming is fact or fiction, the only gambling I ever want to do with Nate Silver will involve him sitting next to me at the casino, telling me which bets to make.

[williamina]

guy is a loser, 15 above 13 below. yeah global warming rages on.

[ssgman]

If he is such a loser go make some money off him! Put you money where your mouth is.

[Jaywalkker]

I call FOUL

Nate Silver's bet is that you pay $25 for every day over the average temperature and he pays you for every day the temperature is a degree under average. What he doesn't say is that he's hedging his bets.

This is an el Nino season.

All of anecdotal evidence was about the midwest. From Wikipedia source, Climate Prediction Center, "In North Amercia, typically, winters are warmer than normal in the upper Midwest states, the Northeast, and Canada." The southwest tends to be wetter and Gulf of Mexico states tend to be cooler. Circumstantial evidence would lead me to believe that he knows how the winter months will play out and is gaming the system.
Whether he won or lost in the short run is immaterial, he's betting you don't know el nino and back out early. But the greater travesty is that his bet, while having an open date, does not have a close date, so his bet is that the earth gains a degree a day, for a month, ad nauseum until the surface is like Mercury.

[Tim303]

I wonder how many people will take up the challenge.

[PWM]

Repubs won't.

[fumes]

cut open any big tree anywhere on earth and read the rings:

if the growing season is truly longer or more vigorous due to increases in temperature or CO2 respectively..

you will see that season's ring as larger by comparison. so far i've not seen or heard of evidence that tree rings anywhere are getting on average bigger or smaller.. just as naturally varied as ever.

[Photofarm]

First off, 1 degree above or below average per day doesn't mean anything. Now on the other hand, in eastern Nebraska records lows were set over the last 3 days in the Omaha, Lincoln, Norfolk areas. The previous records were set over 90 years ago. We still have not had a 90 degree day for a high in July, which is abnormal. We usually have several by this time of the month.

Like another reader pointed out, the weatherunderground is a good site, I use it, and have my personal weather station upload data there. Which points out a problem, comparing records over time periods you need an official station that has been in the same location for a long time. 50 foot elevation drops in a local area can change temps by several degrees.

[VikingQuest]

Weather Underground in this case has temps above 100 degrees, something we in Minnesota have not had yet this year so I have to believe their temperatures are way off since those would be record numbers and every other source of info has 6-7 degrees cooler.

[Photofarm]

I just went to the weather underground site and looked at Minneapolis weather stations. They have 4 airports listed and quite a few Personal Weather Stations. The one I had selected a while back is the one from the University of Minnesota. It shows a high for the month of July of 87.8.

It shows highs for June 22 and 23 of 101 and 100.

I tried to get weather history for one of the Airports, but couldn't do it.

Going to the NWS website, I get a maximum temp of 95 for the month of June

[VikingQuest]

I'll certainly challenge his numbers and the graph he has on the article which would not be hard to do if you actually live in Minnesota . . .

He has the temps for June 22nd-23rd above 100 degrees?

Considering the high temps for those days were 94 & 95 degrees . . . I fail to see how he is getting 100+ temps for his graph.

Also, the record highs on the books for June 22nd-23rd were 98 degrees (in 1911) and 99 degrees (in 1927) . . . so I don't think his graph is accurate otherwise those days would have been records right?

I wouldn't use "weather underground" for my official temperature data either, I used http://www.crh.noaa.gov and somehow this weather underground had temps 6-7 degrees higher than everyone else?

[emstrem]

Do you people NOT realize that the earth has been going in cycles since the beginning of time? Hell, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was higher levels of oxygen in the air, the planet was a lot hotter, and the ocean:land ratio was a lot greater. It is a cycle, some more violent than others, and the sad thing is is that for every "expert" scientist saying there is global warming, there is another "expert" scientist refuting it.
Another reason I really don't care about it if it does happen, is the simple fact that my great-gran­dchildrens­' great-grandchildren will be dead and gone by the time Boston is under water, so stop bothering me with this. In the mean time you have Russia, India, and China (who is at the beginning of a industrial revolution to make ours look like child's play), polluting the world. And yet I have to pay for it? 1st a hole in the ozone, then y2k bug, bird flu, west nile, swine flu...Wake up and see it's just a money maker for those getting in on it (see Al Gore). Check out how much he made on this fiasco...millions!!

[blindjester]

The "cycles" argument is only a rationalization. Natural change alone can be devastating, but artificially increasing the rate or amount of natural change can be a VERY BAD thing.

Global warming and cooling have happened naturally over time, but that doesn't make augmenting it desirable. The *natural* causes of global warming (increases in methane, CO2, etc.) are the same things we're *artificially* doing as humans to heat up the globe, but at a much greater pace than nature operates. We're not observing a change; we're causing it, and we're making it move fast.

Making this into a liberal/co­nservative issue (blaming Al Gore?) is a distraction and a red herring. There's science, which has a near unanimous view on the issue, regardless of political leaning, and on the other side there's only wishful thinking at best, and corporate propaganda at worst.

[guinganbresil]

Unfortunately there are ideologues that will use AGW as a vehicle for transfer of wealth out of the developed world in some kind of effort to make the world 'fair'.

There are also large corporations and 'insiders' that will see AGW legislation as an opportunity to squirm their snouts up to the federal trough.

There are those in Congress that want to divert 'Green' dollars to their constituencies and buddies - the money coming out of the hard work of the taxpayer, or by indebting our children and grandchildren.

This is unfortunately a political as well as scientific issue. I just hope that policy decisions are based on SOUND science - not hysteria based on dodgy computer models.

[RomeoMD25]

1. "ECO Friendly" Corporations like Exxon ,JP Morgan, Monsanto funded and wrote this bill(that's why you cant read it..))

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-05-20-climate-change-lobbying/

2.NO one read this bill no one knows whats in this bill..probably for a good reason
(to benefit the corporations)..

if you still believe this bill will benefit you .. you must be naive or just plain dumb
(and i"m not Republican)

[JulieSA]

This is what the National Weather Service says this summer so far in the Twin Cities:

"Cooler than normal temperatures have prevailed with summer averages at area sites ranging from 1.5� to 5� below normal."

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=mpx&storyid=29753&source=0

Silver used data starting on June 21. The NWS starts there summer data on June 1.

Cherrypick your data and you can "prove" almost anything. Many parts of the northern US have in fact had a cooler than average spring and summer. In NYC, the temp failed to break 85 degrees in June for the first time since 1916. Where I live, in TX, the last few weeks have been significantly hotter than average.

Either way, data from one summer in one part of one nation isn't enough data to show anything about climate change, so Silver is wasting his time here trying to prove anything about the climate.

[rfshunt]

Then you should easily be able to take Silver's money by taking him up on his wager.

Let us know how it turns out.

[JulieSA]

Did you read the terms of the bet? Apparently not. You have to be a blogger, which I am not. More importantly, you pay him $25 for everyday your hometown temps are above average.

As I said in my comment, my hometown's temps are running above average. I would have to be pretty stupid to take that bet, since there's no foreseeable break in this heatwave.

Consider reading the comment and the article before commenting.

[JulieSA]

Plus you miss the whole larger point. Silver is doing what he accuses the right of doing: using short-term, regional data to make a point about long-term, global climate. Even if he nets some money, he hasn't proved anything about AGW either way.

[JulieSA]

Here's what one of the commenters over there has to say:
"rej4sl said...
Well here goes for the saddest 20 minutes of my life totaling up the figures so far for the Twin Cities -

And the results are 79 days above average, 112 days below average, and 9 days tied.

January, June and July have been a lot colder, February, March and April about normal, and May above normal.

Out of all of them so far July stands out for the coldest on average and May for the warmest on average.

In only May would Nate have won his bet and in February would have come out even."

So it really has been cooler than average in Minneapolis this year, and even this summer if you start summer on June 1, as the NWS does.

Which proves nothing in regards to long-term climate change. But Hinderaker is correct that it really has been a cooler year there.

[jwalter]

problem-re­action-sol­ution: cap and trade to the benefit of wall street bankers.

[RomeoMD25]

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13
times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.

Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report,
dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history.

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures
have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02.

[FROG1]

and 2004 was the coldest year over the past 50 years

[rfshunt]

"...from 1850 to 2008. The year 2008 was tenth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2001, 2007 and 1997."

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

When are you taking Nate Silver up on his bet?

[BlackbirdHighway]

2004 was the 5th warmest year ever recorded.

Unlike you I have evidence to back my claim.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html

Please stop posting your lies on the internet.

[RomeoMD25]

Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures — they’re going down, not up.

The US National Academy of Sciences has since issued a statement that the "hockey-stick" graph was defective.
Significantly, however, the UN has issued no statement of
apology or correction. It continues to use the "hockey-stick" in its publications

[BlackbirdHighway]

You are so completely wrong.

2005 was the warmest year on record, after 2001 the world got hotter.

Eight of the ten hottest years on record have occurred since 2000. The coolest year of the 2000's was still warmer than all but one of the 90's.

The 2000's were the hottest decade ever, even warmer than the 90's, which were warmer than the 80's, which were warmer than the 70's.

Please stop posting your nonsense on the internet.

[RomeoMD25]

NASA has corrected its US temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934.
Five of the ten hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 " and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades.

[FROG1]

the NASA numbers have been debunked - even by NASA

stop posting your nonsense on the internet

[RomeoMD25]

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold
temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January ‘was -0.3 F cooler
than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average

[rfshunt]

link?

[leftcoastindy]

Far from swelling, 99% agree the earth is warming. Who cares about the ones who don't thinks its man-made problem. We still need the insurance. We still have to TRY to remedy. Its what humans do.

[RomeoMD25]

* over 2/3rds of the signatories had advanced degrees,
* 2,660 were physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists
* 5,017 were scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences

Hardly a bunch of "flat earth" types as the global warming mass hysteria crowd likes to call anyone that dares to challenge their scientifically weak viewpoint that man is destroying the planet by causing global warming.

So the next time you hear the media throw out the terms "consensus view" or "scientific consensus" regarding man-made global warming (or CO2 causing global warming) you'll know they either haven't done their homework or they've drank the Al Gore Kool-Aid and don't want to report the truth.

The average person has been misled and is confused about what the current Global Warming debate is about, greenhouse gases. None of which has anything to do
with air pollution. People are confusing Smog, Carbon Monoxide (CO) and the pollutants in
car exhaust with the life supporting, essential trace gas in our atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide (CO2).

until last year 2008 i believed GB is real but after you learn the facts,,

you know for a fact its a fraud

[RomeoMD25]

Industries and individual companies with a stake in the landmark House climate and energy bill poured money into lobbying early this year

Exxon Mobil Corp. spent the most within that group, paying $9.3 million on lobbying the first quarter of this year.
Last year the company spent $29 million, its highest level ever.

Carbon and CO2 (carbon dioxide) are fundamental for all life on Earth. CO2 is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas.