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I got an e-mail from an NTZ reader who brought a recent post at Skeptical Science to my attention. Normally I don’t read reality-denial, end-of-world theorist sites. But in this case I had to make an exception. In general, for once, it’s even worth reading.

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Climate Bet for Charity, 2013 Update Posted on 27 November 2013 by Rob Honeycutt A couple of years ago I happened upon a German “climate contrarian” website called NoTricksZone run by Pierre Gosselin. While reading through one particular post I made an off-hand comment that I’d never found a skeptic who would put their money where their mouth is related to climate. Well, Pierre took that as a challenge and we got together to create a gentleman’s climate bet with proceeds going to a charity of the winner’s choice . (Correction: As Tom points out in the commens the terms state, “…the charity organisation is yet to be chosen, but will (1) be one that both sides agree on, (2) help children in dire need (3) have low overhead and (4) be international.”) That was back in early 2011. It became the Climate Bet for Charity, subtext: “Will the next 2011-2020 decade be warmer than the previous 2001 – 2010 decade?”

Continue reading here.

Couple of notes. Rob Honeycutt writes:

I pulled up the UAH and RSS lower tropospheric anomalies through WoodForTrees.org and did the calculations myself. Sure enough, the average of UAH and RSS for the 2001-2010 decade comes out at 0.226C. The current 2011-present decade is running at 0.173C. That’s 0.053C below the last decade, based on, yes, three years of data. So, they actually do have this much correct.”

And even if the current decade ended up being slightly warmer, it would still mean CO2 sensitivity is seriously exaggerated.

Next Rob blames the start-point (which he agreed with from the beginning) for being one of the reasons they are behind in the bet. He also writes:

In fact, since we’re averaging so few data points in the early phase of the of the chart, it’s going to be mostly just noise. It doesn’t tell us anything meaningful at all.

I suppose if the data for the current decade were running warmer, you would not be hearing any “just noise” talk from Rob.

Rob then tries a few other statistical games before ultimately concluding that, under the bottom line, temperatures haven’t been rising like they were expected to.

Next Rob gives his opinion on who he feels is doing the better job measuring global temperature:

I’m now of the personal opinion that GISS is likely the most accurate data set being that it has the greatest coverage for the Arctic, where we’re seeing the greatest warming.”

Arctic measurement has serious issues, as ED Caryl has just written at NTZ. I get the feeling he wishes he regrets agreeing to using RSS and UAH data to settle the bet. In the end, he does maintain a positive attitude, doing his best to exude confidence:

My own best guess is, barring a major low latitude volcanic event before 2020, there is a >95% chance that this decade will end up being warmer than the last. Physics is on our side. You just can’t add 2.3Watts/m2 of man-made radiative forcing (source) to the climate system and believe the planet is not going to warm.

Strangely those theoretical 2.3 W/sqm and his brand of physics mysteriously have not produced any warming in 15 years….except, that is, “somewhere” in the depths of the oceans.

Finally, to support his theories of global warming physics, Rob writes:

Note that the decade of 1991-2000 was 0.139C warmer than 1981-1990, and the decade of 2001-2010 was 0.204C warmer than 1991-2000.”

Suddenly Rob completely forgets about the oceans. 🙂