"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Bray and von Storch Survey

I've been invited to participate in a new Bray & von Storch survey of climate scientists.

The questions seem structured to de-authenticate climate models. These questions will have a different meaning within the field and outside the field.

When asked for instance "How well do you think atmospheric models can deal with influence of clouds?" on a scale of 1= "very inadequate", 7 = "very adequate", my honest answer for the modeling community is far more severe than my honest answer for the public, because the context in which they will perceive the answer is dramatically different. Many respondents will be unlikely to notice this bait and switch.

There's also this question:


What can I say to that? "No answer" is not my answer, nor are any of the choices.

The lack of a >100% option shows that the survey is being conducted by people who are not paying attention.

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of such surveys anyway. If you want the consensus of a field, you ask the research leaders of that field.

I'm afraid I don't qualify. I guess I don't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member.

I'm inclined not to complete the survey. Or I could just be ornery and fill out the most alarmist-friendly box on every question, because unreal answers opposite to the intended skew are appropriate for an unreal survey?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

They're certainly not paying attention if they write "51-75@" :-)

Greg Laden said...

This is not a scientific survey or a survey of scientific thought. It is a rhetorical game. So, play it as a rhetorical game.

BBD said...

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of such surveys anyway.

To generate contrarian ammunition.

Lars Karlsson said...

And what is this? "Since 1850, it is estimated that the world has warmed by 0.5 - 0.7 degrees C". More like 0.7 - 0.9.

MarkR said...

Your link talks about attributing warming since 1950, whereas this question is warming since 1850. Does this affect your answer?

It does seem strange there is no >100 % option, coming from someone as clued up as Hans von Storch. And 0.5-0.7 C is lower than you'd calculate using most methods, but you could get it from taking a larger averaging period which I'd argue is not an accurate representation of recent temperatures or total warming.

Bart Verheggen said...

Based on the 0.5-0.7 degrees I think 1850 may be a typo; perhaps they meant to write 1950. That's also the time period for which the IPCC has typically made the strongest attribution statement.

In our survey we also asked about attributing the post-1950 trend, but only to human GHG: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501998e And of course we included the option >100% (and <0% for the happy few who think greenhouse gases cause cooling).

Dennis Bray said...

" please err on the side of civility"

"Only In It For The Gold"

What gold?

@andthenthere was physics - never made a typo?
@Mark R "no >100 % option" pardon, do you mean there was only an option of 100%
@at Bart, no, we meant 1850
@BBD What are you sure of?
@Greg Laden ????????????????

Wonderful example of meaningful criticisms

Michael Tobis said...

Regarding "what gold", it can be taken two ways. One is as sarcasm - I for one never made much of a living in this field. The other is as homage to Robert Hunter and an obscure self-deprecating allusion.

Regarding 'Mark R "no >100 % option" pardon, do you mean there was only an option of 100%':

This was indeed the question that led to my decision that my discomfort with the survey design made it impossible for me to participate honestly, as you would note if you took the time to read my original posting. If you follow the link in the original article to my prior, in-depth posting, you will see that there is solid evidence that there is no sensible cap at "75% - 100%", and that there is a strong case that the most likely value is around 110%, superimposed on a background cooling.

Regarding the other points, I think they are all clear enough. Bart's is hardly insubstantive and deserves some response.

Tom said...

Bray and von Storch arguably did the best analysis of a climate science survey with their 2008 survey. That alone is reason to participate.

I think since Mr. Bray showed up here it is very legitimate to request an additional option be offered for attribution of human causes to recent warming. I hope he listens.

But even if he doesn't, the relevant question is 'Whose opinion will replace yours?'