Last Month, the world was warmer than any bettor expected. Now’s your chance to try to get it right! Bet on June’s UAH anomaly:
[sockulator(../musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/UAHBets5.php?Metric=UAH TTL?Units=C?cutOffMonth=6?cutOffDay=25?cutOffYear=2014?DateMetric=June, 2014?)sockulator]Cuttoff day June 24!
I can see this in the main blog (but not here):
If I was to play around with this URL and try different numbers, would that make me a hacker?
I wouldn’t mess with the sockulator if I were you Steve. It’s not hacking, but the sockulator will probably ban you from here to forever if you piss it off.
Well…heh.
To permit betting, I use a plugin to let me insert output of scripts wordpress posts. I wrote the plugin to let people enter data to create sock patterns based on their shoe size and knit stitch gauge. So…. that’s why the term [sockulator] appears.
:>
And here I was sure it was a security measure against sock puppets or robots or something. That’s awesome Lucia, thanks! I needed a good laugh at myself.
I’m being foiled by a sockulator?!
(proceeds to twirl adding-enabled virtual robotic mustache in frustration)
Lucia –
Typo in the sockulator – change “April, 2014” to June.
On the other hand, I can make a much better guess for April’s anomaly…
HaroldW,
Thanks. I’ll need to remember to go through by date of bet and correct the month for some bets in the database.
Gistemp came in at 76, but then they raised 2010 to 66, making a new record just that much harder.
Please replace my first bet with the second one, using my secret mutual entropy prediction method.
replacement should sort itself out automatically.
Erring on the side of alarmism in my bet.
Lucic, these days one can have an object laser scanned and reproduced in perfect detail using a 3D printer; you could make socks tailored to an individual foot.
The introduction of left/right boots and shoes is relatively recent, in the American Civil war the shoes poorly fitted either foot.
Socks are stretchy. Most people know their shoe size. For hand knitters using a sockulator, the fit problem is generally introduced by their not getting the correct gauge. (For knitters following published patterns, it being drafted for a different size foot is an issue too.)
Thanks for the tip on El Niño possibility suggesting higher temps. As it is now going backward <0.5 there is currently no El Niño in store.
Will cut off 0.01 of a degree and cross fingers.
angech,
Is it going backwards? On June 5, NOOA wrote,
Sounds like the auguries are difficult to read. But NOAA still anticipates El Nino solidifying.
NOAA’s latest weekly update (June 16) says, “During the last four weeks, the SST anomalies remained positive in the eastern Pacific, while weakening in the central and east-central Pacific.”
Their probabilistic estimate is only updated once per month. Their June 5 summary (other excerpts above in #130401): “Chance of El Niño is 70% during the Northern Hemisphere summer and reaches 80% during the fall and winter.”
Lucia,
Sockulator is a wonderful name for a sub-routine. I never had any formal training in writing code, so I don’t know if there is any tradition for name-choosing.
Something like boola(n) which I used isn’t much help a few years on, no matter how well the code is commented. There would be no doubt about sockulator. I wonder if anyone else has a sub-routine name of which he/she should be proud.
j ferguson,
I am pretty dang sure I am the originator of the word “sockulator”. I made the word up because I had not previously seen any “sockulators” in existence. This is not to say they did not exist. But I think they didn’t exist online. Possibly someone had a routine that ran on a pc. I don’t know.
If you google ‘sockulator’ you can see it has caught on– though mostly it just describes my sockulators.
HaroldW,
Thanks. I’d be careful over-interpreting a change over 1 week. But… still… that’s interesting. SkS has been drumming up drama about the possibility upcoming El Nino might be “the El Nino of the Baskervilles” (aka “super El Nino”). ( See Rob painting at http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-a-Powerful-El-Nino-Brewing-in-the-Pacific-Ocean.html)
Of course, it still may be. Or. Not. It does look like we’ll get an El Nino– but possibly not a “Baskervilles” type one.
I’ve been interested in seeing what does eventually transpire.
Lucia,
When you invent a word you get to choose the spelling. Well done!
j ferguson,
That spelling seems appropriate for a “sock pattern calculator”. When I wrote it, I thought that was too long. I also wanted something people could google and find the item. So…. ‘sockulator’. Unfortunately, there’s a possibility the knitters will now end up here. So… I better add a link to at least one sockulator.
http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/530
There are other ones.
from NOOA June 5th re El Nino.
the subsurface temperatures have tapered off a bit recently (Figure 1). While still substantially above normal, the average of the upper-ocean (300m to surface) temperatures in the tropical Pacific has decreased over the past two months. SSTs tend to lag this measurement, often by a few months and with lesser intensity.
dynamical models slightly favoring a moderate event and statistical models favoring a weaker event.
BOM AUSTRALIA Niño 3.4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Index – 5 Years shows 0.44 whereas was > 0.5 2 weeks ago.
My understanding is it must be at least 3 consecutive months greater than 0.5 for an El Nino. We were very close to 3 months but would need a new 3 month period and the auguries are going down at last.
My understanding may be wrong. A good definition is hard to find.
angech,
First: I think I’d just made a mistake. The latest (June 16) report says we are in ‘neutral’ still/ “ENSO-neutral conditions continue.*”> . I just thought we’d pierced El Nino conditions.
As for when we can use “El Nino” that depends on how you use it. From the weekly report
So: We are in El Nino conditions as soon as the +0.5C is met or exceeded. But we are only in a “full fledged” El Nino after the condition is met for 3 consecutive months.
But the fact that one might not be in a “full fledged” El Nino doesn’t mean one isn’t in El Nino at all. If we are going to use ‘fledged’ adjectives, possibly we one would be in a ‘fledgling’ El Nino.
El Ninyito? How cute!
That doesn’t look right. Would it be ‘El Ninito?’ How does one get a phonetic ‘y’ in there in Spanish.
I read today that some are starting to pull back on the super ninozilla projection.
Lucia –
The SkS article to which you linked, displayed the Australian Bureau of Meteorology SOI index, which was below -10 at the date of the article (April 2014), suggesting El Niño. Current index is around +10.
Mark Bofill
If you want a “ny” type n-y sound use the consonant “nyah”. This is an actual letter: ñ
it’s nenito (or sometimes used neñito)
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Overview
Warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean over the past several months has primed the climate system for an El Niño in 2014. However, in the absence of the necessary atmospheric response, warming has levelled off in recent weeks. Positive Southern Oscillation Index values and large areas of warm water in the western Pacific and off northwestern Australia are also counter to typical El Niño development.
Despite recent observations and some easing in the model outlooks, climate models surveyed by the Bureau still indicate El Niño is likely to develop by spring 2014. The Bureau’s ENSO Tracker remains at El Niño ALERT, indicating at least a 70% chance of El Niño developing in 2014.
The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) has risen over the past two weeks and has generally remained around +8 to +10. The latest approximate 30-day SOI value to 15 June is +10.3.
Sustained positive values of the SOI above +8 may indicate a La Niña event, while sustained negative values below −8 may indicate an El Niño event. Values of between about +8 and −8 generally indicate neutral conditions.
🙂 Thanks Lucia.
Edit:
Uhm.
As in El Nino. Right. Nyeeeen yo.
Obviously just another one of those days. Makes me wonder just how bad it’s going to be when I’m a senior.
Antarctic set to break all records in next 3 days!
There is an area to infill near South America that will easily add another 200 sq K to the current 1.69 excess.
fingers crossed.
So if there is a super El Nino, how much is that going to be?
If the average is 80, we will have warmed .2C in 16 years.
My favorite sub-routine a student named was
int warning_ackermann_function( int x, int y)
It actually was GCD(x,y) but was a cute taunt.
Off topic, but this was interesting:
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/2014/06/misrepresentation-of-bray-and-von.html?showComment=1403506008877#c3987302369502607948
“@ Mike R
I would be happy to send the raw data and the code book to anyone that makes a request. Simply send the request by email: dennis.bray@hzg.de. I don’t have time, however, to calculate crosstabs for the entire data set, not at this time, anyway.”
As I mentioned over there, I’m not competent to do it, but I would like to know if the same scientists who are skeptical on one point are skeptical on all, or if a much larger group of scientists are skeptical on at least one critical component of CAGW. Would anyone here like to look at the raw data?
MikeR –
Thanks for the link to that interesting Klimazwiebel post. I think Bray’s comment is wonderful: “Each release of the survey results has been akin to throwing toys into the middle of a kindergarten and watching the kids argue and fight over them.”
I don’t remember betting twice.
Ray – I have the opposite…. I’m certain I bet twice (once with a typo in my name) and neither seems to have made it through. Just for the record my bet was .307
Anteros/Ray,
Recall, I screwed up and didn’t change the month in the betting script. So… I’ll need to manually find the bets in the date range and edit. I’ve been working on a sewing related thing… so…. But anyway, that’s the likely reason.
Update on off topic:
Update from Dennis Bray over there:
“The full raw data set in Excel format with code book is now available at https://www.academia.edu/7454421/CliSci_2013_Data_Set_Excel_Format_with_code_book. The report of descriptive statistics can be found at
https://www.academia.edu/5211187/A_survey_of_the_perceptions_of_climate_scientists_2013
It would be appreciated if any user would share their findings on this blog.â€
Here is my analysis of the betting for June.
I have included Anteros’s bet of 0.307c but that doesn’t doesn’t mean that Lucia will consider it a valid bet.
A wide range of bets this month and while the mean is higher than last month’s mean prediction most people are predicting a figure above the mean but a fall (albeit small) compared with May, which I find slightly surprising.
I see that my own bet is the most popular. I will have to go for a more “unusual” number in future.
NO. OF BETS 31
MAX 0.555
MIN -0.130
MEAN 0.295
MEDIAN 0.309
STD DEV 0.105
MEAN 1-16 0.311
MEAN 15-31 0.282
MEAN PLUS 1 SD 0.400
MEAN MINUS 1 SD 0.191
WITHIN +/- 1 SD (%) 87.10
ABOVE MEAN (%) 64.52
BELOW MEAN (%) 35.48
ABOVE MAY (%) 25.81
BELOW MAY (%) 74.19
Thanks Ray.
I won’t bleat about it if Lucia can’t find my bet – it’s quite plausible I made an error myself..
75% of bets below May’s figure? I’m surprised too.
On Jun 17 I entered my bet and got this:
Thanks JohnNorris. I added your prediction of 0.388 C. You wagered 5 Quatloos.
While you’re looking, I bet also. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what I entered, but I did get an acknowledgement … 🙁