Scientific American writes:
As a profile of Judith Curry in the November 2010 issue of Scientific American makes clear, the University of Georgia climate scientist has become an increasingly polarizing figure IN the past year or so.
…
Yet Curry herself is convinced that some of those facts are seriously exaggerated, and that the IPCC has failed to acknowledge the real uncertainty in the science.
…
She’s been denounced, sometimes vehemently, for her efforts.
So here’s the central question: Is Curry a heroic whistle-blower, speaking the truth when others can’t or won’t?
…
Let us know what you think.
Here’s the link to the poll:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=taking-the-temperature-climate-chan-2010-10-25
h/t to Joe Romm
NOTE: I should add that this poll is rather poorly designed. On that, Mr. Romm and I agree. Bear in mind that many of the questions are multiple choice, and more than one answer can be selected. You can also skip questions that you feel don’t offer a representation of your view. – Anthony
UPDATE: If readers would like to offer some alternative suggestions for question sets in comments, I’ll be happy to setup and run a comparison poll here. – Anthony
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In addition,
The question where Should climate scientists discuss scientific uncertainty in mainstream forums?– Is biased because the three mainstream forums listed are biased toward “warming.”
In the question What is causing climate change? Climate change is an ambiguous term. To the writer of the survey it may mean “warming” to someone who thinks logically the phrase “climate change” just means change as in “the climate always changes.” So it would not be logically correct to respond “there is no climate change.” Leaving no other options but “warming ones.” So you must either answer as a warmest or be logically wrong.
What is “climate sensitivity”? This is another ambiguous phrase.
Furthermore,
Which policy options do you support?
The answer keeping science out of the political decisions should read:
Keep politics out of scientific decisions. Then I could answer it.
I believe Dr. Curry is associated with Georgia Tech, not that other school to the north.
The crucial question for the pro-AGW-AGCD propagandists is twofold:
First, who are the scientists who belong to this consensus? Groups cannot be substituted for individuals in this answer. The usual suspects from Real Climate do not qualify for this list; rather, this list contains only names of scientists that have not come forth at this time. The scientists who have come forth in favor of AGW-AGCD are far too few to count as a consensus.
Second, what specific scientific claims are endorsed by the so-called consensus of scientists in favor of manmade CO2 as the primary cause of climate change that is likely to have catastrophic consequences? Do they endorse:
1. Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick? If so, have they read “The Hockey Stick Illusion?” What specific criticisms found in the HSI do they reject and what are their reasons?
2. The Warmist claim that rising concentrations of CO2 cause changes in cloud behavior that, in turn, cause additional increases in atmospheric temperatures? If so, have they read Roy Spencer’s “The Great Global Warming Blunder?” Spencer explains that there are no reasonably confirmed hypotheses which explain the cloud behavior in question. Do they disagree with Spencer’s claim? If so, what are the hypotheses?
3. The Warmist claim that results from model runs can be treated as reliable indicators of coming changes in climate? If so, how have they managed to transform what is by its very nature an analytical tool into a set of scientific hypotheses that can explain and predict climate change?
Those are my big three. The list is endless of course. I must say that I cannot believe that a scientist worth his salt would argue that there are errors in the HSI and that Mann’s Hockey Stick is deserving of support. Presented with that evidence, I would be able, finally, to persuade my wife and children that it is time to purchase farmland with a water source that is located far from civilization as we know it.
Well, yeah, the poll was crappy, biased and loaded … but … one could still answer and thwart the SA’s intent.
Crosspatch, because the enviro-mentalists are opposed. And, apparently these unelected prigs rule the World.
There was no answer that reflected my view in Q2: Judith Curry is?….
As far as I am concerned Judith Curry is a Scientist… It’s all she should be considering the circumstances….. The answer I was forced to select was “Peacemaker”.
There was no answer that reflected my view in Q7: Which policy options do you support?…..
My view is that Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant and therefore no policy should be implemented to “combat” it…… The answer I was forced to select was ” Increase government funding of energy related technology research and development”… Which also is a bit of an anathema for me, we should be keeping Government funding of science as low as possible.
@ur momisugly Ray
Yes, something stinks in their results, when I looked just now, every single questions had 19 as the number of responders who did not answer the question. I answered all except one, so I expect that at least that question would have a different number for the non-responders.
However it is very, very clear that the audience this has reached is not only “sceptical” it is strongly against the entire AGW concept!
OT but Envirogate is breaking news in Canada
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/2010/10/the-11-million-dollar-question.html
Huge sums of money are being laundered into environmental campaigns.
That “poll” is so poorly designed that is has completely demoralized me and absolutely ruined my day! It feels sort of like when you realize that you’ve been walking around all morning with a booger hanging out of your nose at a very important event.
Tried to take the poll, but the questions were terrible. Multiple choice, but it never had none of the above, which I would have used for all but one question. My submission was rejected because I didn’t answer all of the questions. There was no way I could. I really don’t think that they are interested in my input. Honestly, most of the choices were deeply offensive to me.
I took the poll last night, with about 500+ responses it was somewhat balanced in results, skewed a little I’d say to the skeptic side. Now with double the responses the results are a lot more skeptical, I’m going to guess it’s the WUWT effect.
This was clearly not intended to be a scientific poll, but just a little bit of fun mischief by the editors.
It is interesting Scientific America does not include any articles discussing the scientific controversy concerning the extreme AGW hypothesis. (A doubling of CO2 will result in a 3C rise in planetary temperature and – a separate set of hypotheses – the hypothesised 3C rise will cause the ice sheets to melt, rapid rise in sea level, increased desertification, and so on.)
If the planet’s feedback response to a change in forcing (any change in forcing positive or negative, include AGW) is “negative” (planetary systems resist the change, i.e. cloud cover increases or decrease to resist the change (70% of the planet’s surface is covered by water) as opposed to “positive” (positive planetary systems amplify the change) a doubling of CO2 will result in significantly less warming than 1.2C (1.2 C is the amount of warming if CO2 doubles and there the feedback is neutral.)
The amount of warming due to the increase in CO2 is less than half of what the IPCC models predicts even if 100% of the late 20th century warming is due to AGW.
Planetary cloud during the later part of the 20th century was reduced, by solar wind bursts that create a space charge differential in the ionosphere, which in turn creates a potential difference, which removes cloud forming ions. The process is called electroscavenging. (There are published papers and observations to support these assertions.)
Solar cycle 24 appears to be an anomalous cycle. The mechanism that creates sunspots appears have been interrupted. During a low solar magnetic cycle the solar heliosphere weakens which results in increased GCR striking the earth’s atmosphere which results in more cloud forming ions. The increase in clouds causes the planet to cool. There is a cycle of cooling and warming in paleoclimatic record that correlates with cosmogenic isotope changes.
I am curious if the planet cools will Scientific America issue an apology for having called those who questioned multiple facets of the AGW hypothesis as “deniers’.
Public policy must be based on science.
A question option asks if we should keep science out of politics.
We should ask – Should we keep politics out of Science?
I think Scientific American will do a follow-up article on the poll.
Explaining how they are putting you on.
They got you and the AGW faithful saying the same things.
A little common ground is good for the debate.
We all agree it was a stupid a poll. What would you expect from someone who doesn’t know the difference between UGA and GT?
S.A. has always been such a “beacon of truth and light”, e.g.
Scientific American
Vol. XCIV
No. 2
January 13, 1905
Page 40
[Article verbatim and in full]
The Wright Aeroplane and its Fabled Performance
A Parisian automobile paper recently published a letter from the Wright brothers to Capt. Ferber of the French army, in which statements are made that certainly need some public substantiation from the Wright brothers. In the letter in question it is alleged that on September 26, the Wright motor-driven aeroplane covered a distance of 17.961 kilometers in 18 minutes and 9 seconds, and that its further progress was stopped by lack of gasoline. On September 29 a distance of 19.57 kilometers was covered in 19 minutes and 55 seconds, the gasoline supply again having been exhausted. On September 30 the machine traveled 16 kilometers in 17 minutes and 15 seconds; this time a hot bearing prevented further remarkable progress. Then came some eye-opening records. Here they are:
October 3: 24.535 kilometers in 25 minutes and 5 seconds. (Cause of Stoppage, hot bearing.)
October 4: 33.456 kilometers in 33 minutes and 17 seconds. (Cause of stoppage, hot bearing.)
October 5: 38.956 kilometers in 33 minutes and 3 seconds. (Cause of stoppage, exhaustion of gasoline supply.)
It seems that these alleged experiments were made at Dayton, Ohio, a fairly large town, and that the newspapers of the United States, alert as they are, allowed these sensational performances to escape their notice. When it is considered that Langley never even successfully launched his man-carrying machine, that Langley’s experimental model never flew more than a mile, and that Wright’s mysterious aeroplane covered a reputed distance of 38 kilometers at the rate of one kilometer a minute, we have the right to exact further information before we place reliance on these French reports. Unfortunately, the Wright brothers are hardly disposed to publish any substantiation or to make public experiments, for reasons best known to themselves.
If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face–even if he has to scale a fifteen-story sky-scraper to do so– would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago? Why particularly, as it is further alleged, should the Wrights desire to sell their invention to the French government for a “million” francs. Surely their own is the first to which they would be likely to apply.
We certainly want more light on the subject.
—————————————————————————–
Of course, everything the Wrights claimed was true!
Compare this SNITTY, “well the authorities have told us this can’t be done”, to this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=august-1908-wright-plane
3 years later, two SIMULTANEOUS demonstrations were performed in the US and FRANCE, with about 600 witnesses each.
Maybe when S.A. is being delivered by DOGSLED in April (in NYC and Washington), Judith Curry will curry more favor than now?
Although most of us don’t think “nothing” is a valid answer to the last question, it appears we selected it because there was no better option. The poll was designed to get an AGW supportive response. Boy are they going to be surprised.
I like to think of the SA survey as a ‘marketing survey’.
I think that question 7: Which policy options do you support?
Should have included an option for “Keeping politics out of the scientific process”. A form of politics definitely got into the process.
The poll seems really really poorly made, and biased. There were questions that were hard to answer because all choices were bad. with those types of surveys you need an other, or none of the above. It also seemed biased to the warming side, not neutral as a poll should be.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=ONSUsVTBSpkC_2f2cTnptR6w_2fehN0orSbxLH1gIA03DqU_3d
Consensus shows that it’s us not them!
This Nature article is mostly uninteresting Warmists trying to engage and educate hunters babble;
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101026/full/news.2010.562.html
but I thought this quote about another study’s results was both interesting and amusing:
“Leiserowitz and his colleagues divided the US population into six groups, ranging from people who are dismissive about climate change to those who are alarmed. Results from the national online survey suggest that people who support action on global warming tend to confound the facts more than the climate-change sceptics. For example, of those classified as “alarmed”, 81% believe that the ozone hole — a separate and only tangentially related problem — is contributing to global warming, compared with just 24% of those who are dismissive of the science. ”
So most skeptics have a better understanding of the facts, whereas most alarmists confound the facts. No surprises there…
Yep, the results now are somewhat against AGW. How long before the survey does a vanishing trick? 24 hours I say – any advance?
Thank you for reminding me why I quit reading the SA rag. What next – no Santa? You know how to spoil a guy’s day, Anthony!
An absurd poll like this one will be but a memory as more and more scientists cull themselves from the herd of consensus as Dr. Curry has. If ever she needed proof of her position on the state of the science, this pathetic poll page should be more than sufficient. We need more heretics like this.
And I hate to think what they’d say if she were to actually come out against global climate change.
Question number 7 is a bad question.
All the answers should have been null, but the site requires and answer to all questions.
I think it should have had the opposite of the one I was forced to use as the least of all evils. Keep science out of politics. What really needs to happen is keep the politics out of science. Politics should use every bit of evidence to create limited but effective policies, and all that evidence should be of the non political variety.