Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Planet Was Really Hot Last Month and Damn Do I Miss Intrade


November was record warm.
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for November 2013 was record highest for the 134-year period of record, at 0.78°C (1.40°F) above the 20th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F).
The November monthly GISS temperature anomaly was 0.77 above the 1951-1980 base period used by Intrade, where I was buying the monthly GISS temperature anomaly to be more than 0.75 C for 25 cents a share (binary market, pays off $10).

If I bet the same amount of money 39 months in a row and lost, then a win in the 40th would cover all my losses. I started betting at Intrade in Dec 2011. So, now it is 24 months and I would have had a win. At that rate, one is almost doubling one's money, with a guarantee of higher rates of return if one understands that temperatures are rising.

Considering the enthusiasm of the deniers over their (unskewed) "pause" and the amount of time it had been since an anomaly over .75, I could have been paying even less than 25 cents per share for the over 0.75 market.

Too bad the American Civics Exchange contest (which I won the $1000 second prize in last month) won't be doing climate markets... But if you want to join and make political and economic predictions, go play! Use my user name "supak" when you sign up; I think I still have a few thousand in bonus play money to collect for signing people up.