Study Finds 91 Percent Who Read Headline 'California Coastal Water Levels Break Records' Now Oceanographers

PASADENA, CA—Following NOAA's November 4 publication of a story titled "California coastal water levels break records," filed under Ocean & Coasts, Climate-Ready Coasts and flooding, a survey released this week by the Center for Applied Skimming found that 91 percent of adults who encountered the title and nothing else now consider themselves oceanographers.

The Center surveyed 1,200 respondents, a figure researchers described as "the gold-standard sample size for a headline." According to the findings, 74 percent of respondents said they could "basically explain tides," and 38 percent had recorded a podcast episode titled "What The Water Is Trying To Tell Us." The median time respondents spent with the story was 1.4 seconds, "which included scrolling," said lead author Dr. Prentiss Holloway.

"I didn't need the article. The title had a verb in it," said Ventura-area accountant Rhonda Kessling, 52, who has since corrected three relatives during Thanksgiving planning calls and now signs every email "Climate-Ready." "Coastal. Water. Levels. I could have written the rest myself."

Asked which records the title referred to, where they occurred and by how much, Holloway said the Center "deliberately did not open the NOAA story, to avoid contaminating the sample." Readers seeking actual locations or measurements should consult NOAA's story directly. This reporter has not opened it either, for consistency, and because the survey's abstract was already very persuasive.

The Center has reportedly secured funding for a follow-up study measuring expertise gained from topic tags alone. Early results suggest that reading the word "flooding" is sufficient to qualify a person to testify before the newly formed Subcommittee on Things People Saw Scroll Past, which has already heard from 400 witnesses and zero tide gauges.

At press time, the Center had issued a press release summarizing its study, which Holloway called "more rigorous than the study itself, because it's shorter."