The Age in Melbourne published a letter from a “Maurie” declaring that the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets would “melt away in the next decade.” Monckton found it hard to believe The Age would print this drivel, and was amazed to find Maurie, apparently, is one of Australia’s foremost chemists”, — Maurice Trewhella, who seems to have won a green award at the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. (Not that I have heard of him).
So Monckton explains why the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets won’t be gone in 2024 then offers Maurie, and four others, the chance to win $100,000 each if this wild prediction comes even ten percent close. To show he is serious he offers to donate the first $10,000 to charity (so will other bet contenders). Will the “mean area of the combined Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets” in 2024 be less than 90 percent of what it was in 2014″?
Christopher Monckton:
Some 4,000 years ago, the temperature on the summit of the Greenland plateau was 2.5 Celsius degrees warmer than the present. Yet the ice did not melt. And it didn’t melt in the last interglacial period, 110,000 years ago, when again the temperature was 2.5 C degrees warmer than today’s.
The last time the Greenland ice sheet melted was 850,000 years ago. In modern conditions, nothing short of a massive natural cataclysm could make the Earth’s ice-caps melt. Even with nuclear weapons Man can’t do it. And our barely registering change in CO2 concentration certainly can’t do it. Still less can we affect the Antarctic ice sheet, which, the last time I checked, was 8,852 feet deep at the South Pole. That’s at least a mile and a half.
The bet
So to the bet I propose. Subject to contract, I’m offering to pay Maurie $100,000 if the mean area of the combined Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets averaged over the year 2024 shall be less than 90 percent of the mean area of the two ice sheets averaged over the year 2014, provided that Maurie agrees to pay me $100,000 if the mean area of ice on the two land masses in 2024 shall be 90 percent or more of the mean area in 2014.
That’s the bet, and it’s a very fair and generous bet, Maurie. After all, you say all the ice on the two ice sheets will be gone within a decade or so. I’m offering you the chance to claim a fat $100,000 if more than one-tenth of your predicted ice loss happens by 10 years from now.
But wait. There’s more! Again subject to contract, I’m willing to offer four more climate bed-wetters the same deal. Perhaps the editor of the Melbourne Aaarghwould like to take me on. Or some of the various climate-fascist billionaires. Steyer? Gates? Branson? Anyone?
Maurie:
“The Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are acting as giant dampers to contain temperature rise in the oceans. When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, the rise in both ocean and atmospheric temperatures will accelerate rapidly and demonstrate that the passing of … tipping points … has, indeed, occurred.
Read more at WND.com
It’s fairly hard work to hammer out these bets. Dr David Evans (my other half) organised a climate bet back in 2007. It’s one of the largest ones around and we offered one to Brian Schmidt too last year.
Alas, people who believe the climate science is 100% settled seem to like betting other people’s money, but not their own.