UPDATE: It appears NOAA has realized the folly of this survey and has taken it offline. The satirical Question #16 (posted by a commenter) parodies the survey. The responses (which probably aren’t far from that) they got to it from employees might have had something to do with it:
How likely are you to keep your job if the public is informed that climate change will not affect them or their descendents in a negative manner?
=========================================
Dr. Roger Pielke Senior writes on his blog:
I was alerted by Marc Morano to a survey that NOAA is sending out to its employees. The first e-mail is to Marc apparently from a NOAA employee.
Here’s the letter via Morano:
Mr. Morano:
NOAA employees today were asked to participate in a Climate Knowledge Survey. I have included the inviting email below. In order to take the survey, however, you must have a valid NOAA email account, so I have cut and pasted the Survey itself and the key to the ‘correct’ answers below for your reading pleasure. As you can see, there are certainassumptions larded throughout this survey, such as what many climate scientists believe is ‘true.’ Thought you might be interested.
Regards,
Here’s the letter announcing the climate survey sent to NOAA employees:
All,
Climate has connections to many scientific and societal issues. To characterize NOAA’s level of climate literacy and assess interest in climate training materials and other resources, a NOAA climate capacity-building team has been established. The team’s overall goal is to enhance the ability of NOAA staff to effectively communicate about climate science.
As part of this process, I encourage you to consider completing the team’s Climate Knowledge and Needs Assessment Surveys by February 15. The first survey characterizes the current level of climate literacy among respondents, and the second assesses the need for climate-related professional development resources or opportunities. Each survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete, and your responses will be completely anonymous. You can access the surveys by clicking here:
The capacity-building team will use the survey results to identify and provide opportunities for NOAA staff to become more conversant about NOAA’s climate products, information, and services.
Your participation in these surveys will greatly assist with this NOAA-wide effort. Participation in these surveys and taking advantage of future opportunities is voluntary. If you have any questions or comments about the surveys or the goals of this climate team, please contact Diane Stanitski at 301-427-2465 or diane.stanitski@noaa.gov.
Dr. Pielke has the entire survey Q&A here on his blog and he comments on many of the questions. It is a real eye opener worth reading. He concludes with:
The survey is actually a policy advocacy document, as well as an evaluation of the loyalty of NOAA employees to the perspective of individuals such as Tom Karl and Tom Peterson.
Jean Parisot says:
February 5, 2012 at 11:10 am
I tried looking for references based on #6 figuring that not too many people would refer to a cetury’s worth of warming. However, I found nothing promising.
These are generic enough greenie questions that I suspect similar forms have been written many times before.
Jenn Oates says:
February 5, 2012 at 10:32 am
You too! Maybe if Jenn and Jean got together and compared browsing histories….
“Circular firing squad: Ready, Aim, FI–gggggghh.”
First rule for any employee.
Never underestimate the cunning of the HR department.
They DELIGHT in telling the cattle they won’t track them; that’s the first thing you do if you want to track somebody.
It is not rubbish. It is not very well thought out, but nevertheless effective, manipulation, a close cousin of propaganda.
Reading a history of the formation and development of the Luftwaffe prior to and during WW2.
Politcal ability to brown no.., er ,brownshirt , Hitler was more important than actual production
and ability. This caused as much problems for them as the Allied war effort.
Self defeating if you will.
This attempt by NOAA is similar..
Gator says:
February 5, 2012 at 9:03 am
“… the second assesses the need for climate-related professional development resources or opportunities.”
In other words, re-education.
####
… and farther more …
“The team’s overall goal is to enhance the ability of NOAA staff to effectively communicate about climate science.”
In other words, propaganda.
The Climate community seems incapable of understanding bias within opinion surveys. This follows from the survey that concluded “97% of climate scientists think humans contribute to global warming”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/21/gmu-on-climate-scientists-we-are-the-97/
In the first year of my economics degree I covered the problem of bias in opinion surveys. It was stated very clearly that questions have to be purposely framed (and tested) to ensure neutrality. This was a precursor to the more complex, and less evident, problems of data bias that were covered in the more advanced statistics and econometric courses later on. I would submit that this failure to understand the problems of bias in a discipline that is, arguably, more empirically-based than economics, provides strong circumstantial evidence that long-term predictions from complex statistically-based models are similarly biased and unreliable.
5. Over the last 10,000 years, during the time humans developed the ability to raise crops, global climate has been:
colder than any other time in Earth’s history
warmer than any other time in Earth’s history
more stable than previous periods
more variable than previous periods
Don’t know
Other:
LOL. Colder/warmer than any other time in Earth’s history? Really? The earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.
Note that of the four defined answers, the first two reference the magnitude of the temperature over a defined (if stupidly so) period. The second two reference the variability of climate (not specifically temperature, but left completely ambiguous) over undefined period(s). Such a poorly formed answer space indicates a question formed around a poorly defined “pat answer” by those who created the survey. And these are the “scientists” to whom the ad verecundiam fallacy is supposed to be applied?
Also of interest is the fact that whereas all of the questions have as one of their possible responses:
[I, the survey taker] Don’t know.
None of the questions have as a possible response:
You Don’t Know. or
Nobody Knows
This implicitly denies any position of scientific scepticism or even scientific agnosticism. This represents either:
1) a serious arrogance and misunderstanding of the epistimology of science on the part of those who created the survey, or
2) an attempt to induce in those taking the survey fawning compliance with the self selected objects of fallacious ad verecundiam warmist arguments , or
3) both.
This happens all the time in every industry. The health care industry did the exact same thing with their bureaucracy to protest Obama care. The tela communications industry does like wise. Wall Street Banks are the only group that refuses to coerce their employees to act in the banking industries best interest if doing so would put their employees future at risk.
If I lived in America ‘d be sending this to my elected government representative and asking them to find out:
1. Who or whom really wrote it in the first place;
2. Who or whom approved it for circulation (given was to the whole of NOAA – that approval should be quite high up, you just can’t email everybody as you like);
3. Who or whom independently verified it as a valid survey that was fit for purpose (i.e. ensured it was written to as accurately as possible capture the required information within the constraints of operating an operation wide survey in the NOAA context) – I’m sure this will come up against federal privacy issues.
To be honest, given the tone and intent of the survey I suspect it was:
– an ‘amateur hour’ effort. Obviously written by those looking for certain answers and not looking for the whole truth – asking open questions that lead to a truer representation of those being surveyed is quite an art!
– not fully approved by those high up in the NOAA organization; looks like it could have got a ‘nod’ to go ahead without a full comprehension of the details of the questions; i.e. approval to do it without a final ‘Go/No Go’ detailed review stage…
I think FOI request targeting the approval process could be quite interesting..
A similar survey:?
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=6LPoHsyGZBmcd6eGeqv7Gw_3d_3d
Was there any input from NOAA climate scientists in composing this questionaire? If so, then it is actually a survey of NOAA scientists’ ineptitudes and biases. Remember the old agency official boast about understanding everything about climate from the top of the atmosphere to the land, waters and ice and to the depths of the oceans. Some honorable person replaced this with a more modest statement concerning efforts to understand these things.
6. Which of the following processes has been identified as the most significant cause of increasing global temperatures over the last century?
Volcanic eruptions
The hole in the ozone layer
Clearing forested / vegetated land
Livestock and ranching operations
Exhaust from gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles
An increase in the amount of energy emitted by the Sun
Burning of coal, oil, and natural gas to produce electricity and heat buildings
Regular changes in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of energy it receives from the Sun
Don’t know
Other:
“…has been idenified as the most significant cause …” ????
Identified by whom? Leaving that bit out of the question implies that there is only one correct answer to that question. As if there was not merely a consensus, but a unanimous agreement. This is the kind of leading question used in “push polls”, the point of which is not to communicate the answer, but to cement the assumptions of the question.
An additional nefarious component to #6 is that, even if you accept the notion that the “consensus opinion” is unanimously agreed upon, there is no way to answer this question correctly!
Which of the following processes has been identified as the most significant cause of increasing global temperatures over the last century? Well, according ot the “consensus view”, there are two correct answers to that question:
1) Only the burning of fossil fuels (during the latter half of the last century), and
2) Everything except the burning of fossil fuels (during the early half of the last century).
And the magnitude and rate of warming from those two is approximately equal. The question does not allow for a different cause of temp increase over different periods of the last century. This represents either:
1) a serious misunderstanding of the “consensus view” on the part of those that created the survey, or
2) an attempt to induce that misunderstanding in those taking the survey (to imply a longer period of AGW and avoid the obvious inconvenient questions about two periods warming for different reasons), or
3) both.
The underlying message is, “Scientists and people with enquiring minds are not wanted at NOAA and had better leave”
tty says:
February 5, 2012 at 10:49 am
I’ve taken certification tests like that. Where they ignore the parameters or limitations of their own software (e.g. case sensitivity, programming language subset, etc)
Bravo to the whistleblower! Hope he doesn’t get “taken down” too.
Calamity Jane Lysenko litmus tests her gummit underlings. Much hilarity results.
redneek says: “They took the survey down. Must not have been going their way.”
We have temporarily removed the survey while we resolve some technical issues. Our red button has malfunctioned, resulting in several respondents being immediately splattered all over our carpet, instead of on the linoleum outside in the corridor. We will notify you when the red button’s delay relay is again operational. Note: New carpeting will be installed using money from deceased employees’ savings plans. This is only fair, since their faulty answers were responsible for the problem.
Nota bene: the above is sarcasm. It is NOT a quote from the NOAA website or survey. Not this year, anyway.
Must be some layoffs coming.
Good way to decide who to keep.
They have Climate Products ??
The climate-related “Needs Assessment Survey” for planners appears not to be new thing in one or more localities.
http://www.google.com/search?q=NOAA+climate+%22Needs+Assessment+Survey%22
Here’s a NOAA Coastal Training Program in Washington State “Needs Assessment Data Summary – Climate Training Topics”
http://nerrs.noaa.gov/Doc/pdf/training/needs_assessment_data_summary.pdf
Some organization “Sea Grant” at U of Washington has a report “From Covert to Overt: Adaptation Action to the Forefront in Washington Coastal Communities.” It comes up in the Google search.
In order to take the survey, however, you must have a valid NOAA email account.
To improve our ability to draw valid conclusions from the survey without identifying individuals, please enter a unique five digit number that you will remember and use again on related surveys.
No attempt will be made to identify you.
Pre-survey question 1.
Email addresses can be used to identify people. True or False
Pre-survey question 2.
IP source addresses can be used to identify people. True or False
Pre-survey question 3.
I understand the humor in the following Dilbert comic. True or False
http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/20000/8000/600/28638/28638.strip.print.gif
Pre-survey question 4.
I am smarter than a bag of hammers. True or False
If you have answered True to any of the above you should go see Mr. Hatchet in Human Resources (Room G-1271), and bring your coat.
“We have temporarily removed the survey while we resolve some technical issues.”
But there is still a SUBMIT button. When I clicked it, I got a message “Thank you. Your response has been recorded”
Have I broken something by clicking on it?
NOAA, the same people who run the NOAA Weather Radio system of which the 162.400 MHz station in Dallas which presently has ‘hammered’ audio (due to running the program source into a ‘clipping’ somewhere along the audio delivery circuit, maybe at the transmitter itself)? This began some weeks ago after some sort ‘maintenance’ of the transmitter or audio delivery circuit one afternoon and the sound has been crappy ever since.
I would say they should stick to assuring operations to the public are running (and sounding) smoothly before embarking on ANY silliness, internal or external …
NOAA ‘supers’ (literally: supervisors), are you reading this?
.
Ludwig, I can answer this question:
If governmental policies do not change, in the year 2050, what will be the increase in global average surface temperature relative to the year 2000?
Ans: Nobody alive on Earth today knows.
And anybody who is certain they do know is smoking something powerful.