During last year's election campaign, I often turned to FiveThirtyEight.com and its lead blogger Nate Silver for the best analysis of the electoral numbers and polling trends. Since then, I've seen Nate repeatedly on various MSNBC shows and he continues to impress me with his ability to clarify the meaning of often-slippery statistics (and his cool glasses).

I saw a new post from Nate today in which he takes on the climate skeptics and suggests they put their money where their big mouths are. He says he is way tired of the denier rhetoric and wonders "when pointing out the fact that it might be cool or rainy in your hometown one afternoon became subject for worthwhile blog material," but notes that we have started to see such ridiculousness "on certain conservative blogs, probably led by the example of Matt Drudge."

"Therefore," he says, "because I'd like to see more accountability on all sides of this debate and because I'm tired of people who don't understand statistics and because I'd like to make some money, I issue the following challenge:"

1. For each day that the high temperature in your hometown is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit above average, as listed by Weather Underground, you owe me $25. For each day that it is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit below average, I owe you $25.
2. The challenge proceeds in monthly intervals, with the first month being August. At the end of each month, we'll tally up the winning and losing days and the loser writes the winner a check for the balance.
3. The challenge automatically rolls over to the next month until/unless: (i) one party informs the other by the 20th of the previous month that he would like to discontinue the challenge (that is, if you want to discontinue the challenge for September, you'd have to tell me this by August 20th), or (ii) the losing party has failed to pay the winning party in a timely fashion, in which case the challenge may be canceled at the sole discretion of the winning party.

Shockingly enough, Nate hasn't received any takers. The offer is open through the end of the day today, however, so perhaps a denier or two will be willing to put up ... or perhaps they will just shut up?