climate betting

Via JEB, a report of what is called a bet on global warming. However, in a fit of holier-than-thouness, both side have decided to give their winnings to charity, and have picked *the same* charity, so its all a bit of a waste of time. They might as well hand the money over now :-) On the CD: Back to Basics. So many classic lines: the milkman of human kindness was a bit obscure to a 10 year old, but he liked its wrong to wish on space hardware.
Gareth inquires if bets are still available for 2008. The answer is yes (although I reserve the right to remove them at a moments notice when things turn against me). At the moment, NH ice seems to be back to "normal", ie about 1Mkm2 down on the long-term mean; see Le blog de ICE for a current pic from CT. Based on that, I can't see any reason to expect a record in 2008. Disagree? Then out with your wallet :-). Interesting to note that Antarctica is still high. Perhaps I should add that I'm not ruling out the possibility of a record min in 2008, nor am I predicting lots of ice. I'm just…
Eli suggests I start hedging. Well no. Mostly because the sums people have been prepared to put up so far are trivial. But partly because getting over-exciting about one exceptional year would be really silly, and there does seem to be some danger of people getting carried away. Saying "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions." is either trivially true, because of the at-this-rate, or silly, if you assert that the rate is sure to continue. Anyway, I need to put up a summary of the bets at some point and will…
Just a post-of-record, following Brian Schmidt, that I have a $333 bet against Joe Romm, with me taking the "cold side" of: at no time between now and the end of the year 2020 will the minimum total Arctic Sea ice extent be less than 10% of the 1979-2000 average minimum annual Arctic Sea ice extent, as measured by NSIDC data or any other measurement mutually agreed-upon; provided, however, that if two or more volcanic eruptions with the energy level equal to or greater than the 1991 Mount Pinatubo shall occur between now and the end of 2020, then all bets are voided. I'm not up to my limit on…
Looking back over the past sea ice record, I see that a min year is very rarely followed by another record. But some people are getting so carried away by this years ice, they might not realise that. So does anyone want to put an interesting amount of money, at (say) even odds, on there being a record minimum in the arctic next year? I get the no-record side. And we use the record as presented by cryosphere today. Any (credible, non-anonymous) takers? [Only £20 on offer so far, plus an indeterminate amount of beer; roll up, roll up -W Plus another £10 from PH by email] [This was the first…