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?
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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.
It’s pretty trivial to set a cookie when user logs in and then check the cookie when the submit the form. I would say it is only anonymous if the user can log into the system without cookies enabled.
Heck, Google even does that. If you are logged in to gmail or youtube or google+, they know who you are when you hit a web site that uses google ads. That’s why you will see ads that relate to recent search queries or topics in your email or google+ conversations. Those activities are monitored in order to decide which ads to show you, that’s how Google makes their money, they are fundamentally an advertising company that scans your internet behavior in order to decide which ads to show you.
Who’s that clown that was talking about vaudeville the other day?
Everybody remember to copy diane.stanitski@noaa.gov with your remarks,.
REPLY: Only send remarks that have on-topic value and are courteous, please don’t create any flames – Anthony
Hmmm … a unique number to ‘track’ upcoming re-education ca.. –er– retraining program effectiveness.
Nothing untoward.
Luke just needs to get his ‘mind right’; clear up those “failures to communicate” from the head honcho(s) on down to the ‘line’ employees so to speak …
.
All things done in the name of ‘the cause ‘ are justified. Science has nothing to do with it .
Heard this on PBS radio today. They are very concerned.
Tapeworms love global warming.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00005&segmentID=5
Long may bureaucratic idiots continue to put their unedited thoughts in writing for posterity. They will provide a rich vein of humour for future generations.
Management fully support the suggestion box that we introduced 3 months ago and highly value the feedback we have been getting and further wish to issue a statement that there is no truth to the rumour that the latest round of redundancies have all been prolific suggestion box users.
Addendum to Bulletin 3463- A32:
Management would also like to point out that the security camera provided for the OHSW benefit of all our valued employees in the vicinity of the suggestion box was installed well before the suggestion box.
Dumbkoffs! They totally forgot about NOAA’s “Four Pillars Of Climate Science”!
yeah , i am agree with jpeden.. thats true.
Have Fun With Wallpaper,Funny Photos & videos
No doubt the survey was put in final form by a team of bright new graduates of a Graduate Degree Program in Science Communication! George Mason University has a flagship program of that sort, don’t they?
Don’t you wish that you could have studied Science Communications instead of Science? But just a decade or two ago there were no graduate programs in Science Communication, right? Now the government has a big need for Science Communicators but no need for Scientists. In the long run, government work is the best. /sarc
7. Indicate if the following statements are True, False, or you Don’t Know.
A. If the amount of energy put out by the Sun decreased, Earth would get cooler.
B. Global climate change will eventually eliminate the differences between summer and winter.
C. Climate scientists have a good understanding of the basic physical processes that control Earth’s climate system.
D. Today’s computer-based climate models have successfully projected the trend and magnitude of observed global temperature for the last century.
E. As the ocean warms, its waters expand, raising the elevation of the sea’s surface.
F. Melting of glaciers and ice sheets on land has little or no effect on global sea level.
G. Temperature measurements of Earth made from satellites are generally consistent with temperatures measured by ground based instruments.
With this one, the answers they are looking for are as important as the questions. I’d wager a lot that they aren’t close to the truth.
A. True.
B. Yes. Eventually, the universe will either succumb to entropy or cycle thru another Big Bang. The global climate will then be either absolutely cold, or infinitely hot, year round. 🙂
C. False. We have no closed heat budget for the earth. Approximations of that rely on using CO2 sensitivity and aerosol effect as fudge factors, and we have no clue about the magnitude of those. We dont even know what net effect clouds have. We have no closed carbon budget for the earth.
D. False. They demonstrate no predictive skill, and that is where that question is leading.
E. True. Assuming all else equal…
F. True. All sources of sea level rise together amount to about 2mm per year, which fits the description “little to no effect”, let alone the tiny part of that attributable to ice melt. 🙂
G. False. And “generally consistent” is one of those weasel terms used to gain agreement for a point that is then is then given a sharply narrowed definiton for other purposes – the fallacy of equivocation.
Ric Werme says:
February 5, 2012 at 10:24 am
Joel Levy – Carbon Observing systems
Is this someone paid to count the diamonds in Al Gore’s safe each morning?
FYI: “Each survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete…” is code. It tells the employees that they are NOT authorized to charge this time on their time sheets. Policies vary, but usually anything less than 15 minutes is considered incidental and nonchargeable. So the employees are expected to truly volunteer this involvement. Make of it what you will.
AGW extremists are truly creepy.
Most of this survey is argue over the definitions and preassume things.
Which of the following best describes the relationship between climate and weather?
Climate and weather are different words for the same thing
Normal high and low temperatures of climate control a region’s daily weather
Weather occurs on a local to regional scale; climate occurs at the global scale
Weather describes short-term conditions; climate describes long-term conditions
Weather that occurs across a region is not necessarily related to the region’s climate
Don’t know
Other:
I really have to disagree with R.A. Pielke Sr (here because he doesn’t allow comments).
There is no science saying what is climate is a climate system as he specifies- that’s a definition that you’ve made (I call it the Earth surface). Climate is simply general conditions over a some long period at a place on Earth. How long and big the place is a matter of practical use and personal judgement e.g. horticulturally climate is a year or a few years- if conditions change enough that your vegetable become marginally then its changed. This question is meaningless discussion of definitions.
BTW
7. Indicate if the following statements are True, False, or you Don’t Know.
A. If the amount of energy put out by the Sun decreased, Earth would get cooler.
Could be false- we know very little the centre of the centre of the Earth so a change in nuclear process could easily balance the reduction by the sun by accident. Geoscientist have just found (what petrogeologists knew and could have expected for decades in their minor penetrations) by actual penetration of the crust that it is much more hetrogenous than they originally thought.
The scary part is in the possibility that this organizational thinking permeates their HR hiring process as well. Sign zee papers comrade to be considered and hired while we scan and sanitize the existing workers.
Participation in these surveys and taking advantage of future opportunities is voluntary.
NO PRESSURE.
I worked as a contractor in a NOAA office for more than ten years (about ’99-’09). As climate gained purchase as the issue celeb, I would sometimes find myself sitting in a meeting questioning the assertions that were made about climate. I realized at the time that I was not following the designated drummer and was likely damaging my career at NOAA with each impertinent question. Using the fear of expected budget cuts as an excuse (silliness in the face of the sky rocketing federal spending), the office instructed the contractor to lose some weight. Several of us were laid off. It was immediately obvious, that the several (about 10% of the contractors at the site) had been (were still) the skeptics. These were highly technical IT types that understood data collection and management. We working with NODC and NCDDC data routinely. Unacceptable risks. That was in 2009.
Back then, the purifying of the workforce was pursued more subtly. It appears they’ve shifted gears. These surveys are not about assessing staff knowledge and professional development. From the ‘messaging’ point of view, the message has been sent. They never need to put the surveys up, again. Every NOAA employee, federal of contractor, who saw either of those surveys knew exactly what they meant, instantly: “follow the CAGW drummer.”
Message delivered!
10. Which country listed below currently emits the most carbon dioxide per person?
Note: This question is about per person emissions rather than total emissions.
United States
Germany
China
Japan
India
Don’t know
This is a fun one. The question has two odd components:
1) It refers to per capita CO2 per country, not total CO2 emissions per country. Why? Global warming theory doesn’t have anything to do with per capita CO2. The atmosphere doesn’t care how many people generate the CO2, radiative forcing depends only on the resulting total concentration. This question isn’t about science that NOAA employees need to know, this is political ideology. And what is that political ideology? Lets see…
2) The list of five countries from which the respondant is to choose the highest per capita CO2 emitter does not include any of the top ten per capita CO2 emitters! Why? Because the point of this question is not to find the nation with the greatest alleged effect on “global warming” via their total CO2 emissions (see #1). Nor is the purpose of this question even to find the nation whose citizens individually have the greatest alleged effect on “global warming” via their per capita CO2 emissions – though that is clearly the subtext being communicated by this question. No, the point of this push poll question is to make the US look bad, and to make the NOAA employees feel guilty for being US citizens.
This isn’t scientific knowledge, this is political ideology. This represents both:
1) a serious politicization of those “scientists” that created the survey, and
2) an attempt to induce that politicization in those taking the survey.
Why are public resources being used to promote the personal politics of some NOAA employees?
Once again…the best answers are “don’t know”. Hope folks are honest.