Respecting the journal editorial processRespecting the journal editorial processEach week we scan between 450 and 650 articles for relevance to Skeptical Science's remit: communication of the science of climate change itself the many affected branches of scientific inquiry by climate change.
The 100+ journals we cover encompass a galaxy of expertise we cannot hope to replicate, let alone exceed. Our appropriate role is to assess the raw filtrates from our feeds purely for what they may add to public understanding of our central topic. "Does this article connect to climate change?" That's the sole question we ask of each item appearing on the screen.
We also don't bring "an agenda" to this process. The single qualitative metric we employ is "did a team of journal editors and reviewers deem this work worth publishing?" Our raw feed filters are fed directly from journal publishing systems, so the answer to that question is always "yes."
For these reasons readers from time to time (and all too rarely) will spot articles identifying potential benefits of global warming. Some articles come from academic branches we didn't even know exist, and that have the whiff of scary unfamiliarity. Commonly we see articles identifying and trying to correct insufficient understanding of some particular aspect of global warming or its upshots. These latter are not warts or defects. Iterative progress and refinement is of course the norm in scientific research.
Skeptical Science was founded to combat denial of climate science and New Research is part of that effort. Exposing the torrent of scientific publication around climate science is helpful to grasping climate change as an unavoidable challenge. In doing this work we've learned that the final two stops on the railroad of climate science denial are "The System Isn't Fair" followed shortly down the track by the slightly less populated "They're All Lying In Concert." These destinations are actually figments of denier imagination. Even Brigadoon is more plausible.
In reality we see a process that is not error-free but sometimes does contort itself to be inclusive of outré thinking. A fine example of that is how the Taylor and Francis journal Temperature has squeezed in a paper by Valentina Zharkova claiming (yet again) upcoming global cooling, as an "editorial." Zharkova's work is a redo of a previous publication that was retracted due to a basic misunderstanding on the behavior of the barycenter of the solar system. In an abundance of generosity, here's a second attempt gifted to Zharkova by the only means possible. Unfair? Hardly.
We publish journal editorials in New Research from time to time, in the section "Informed opinion and nudges." Often these are synthesis of many results suggesting possible or obvious topics for concentrated scrutiny. Zharkova's "editorial" doesn't really fit that standard model. Normally we'd expect such a work to appear as a regular peer-reviewed research result. But we'd rather err on the side of fairness; the last thing we want is to appear to be suppressing research that doesn't "go with the flow." The editors of Temperature chose to publish Zharkova's latest work and we'll take that as enough, perhaps bending over a bit backward to be consistent with our general principles of operation. And after all, links to articles here are reports, not endorsements.
Look for "Editorial" in the "Other" section if you're interested in Zharkova's take on future climate. Open access and free to read.
Physical science of global warming & effects
Implications of different aerosol species to direct radiative forcing and atmospheric heating rate
Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects
Current and future global climate impacts resulting from COVID-19 (open access)
Intensification of Near?Surface Currents and Shear in the Eastern Arctic Ocean
Evidence of a continent-wide shift of episodic rainfall in Australia
Instrumentation of climate & global warming
Modeling & simulation of global warming & global warming effects
Sea-ice-free Arctic during the Last Interglacial supports fast future loss
Ocean heat storage rate unaffected by MOC weakening in an idealised climate model
AMOC recovery in a multi?centennial scenario using a coupled atmosphere?ocean?ice sheet model
Contrasting upper and deep ocean oxygen response to protracted global warming
Vegetation response to elevated CO2 slows down the eastward movement of the 100th meridian
Warm Arctic, cold Siberia pattern: role of full Arctic amplification versus sea ice loss alone
Budgets for Decadal Variability in Pacific Ocean Heat Content
Climate model advancement
New Critical Length for the Onset of Self?Aggregation of Moist Convection
A Simple Trajectory Model for Climatological Study of Tropical Cyclones (open access)
Cryosphere & climate change
Analysis of the Surface Mass Balance for Deglacial Climate Simulations (open access)
Marine Heatwaves in the Arctic Region: Variation in Different Ice Covers
Permafrost thermal conditions are sensitive to shifts in snow timing
Thawing permafrost: an overlooked source of seeds for Arctic cloud formation
Biology & global warming
Rapid deep ocean deoxygenation and acidification threaten life on Northeast Pacific seamounts
Decreasing snow cover alters functional composition and diversity of Arctic tundra (open access)
Modelling marsh?forest boundary transgression in response to storms and sea?level rise
Climate warming increases spring phenological differences among temperate trees
GHG sources & sinks, flux
Soil properties override climate controls on global soil organic carbon stocks (open access)
Understanding the uncertainty in global forest carbon turnover (open access)
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw (open access)
The CO2?equivalent balance of freshwater ecosystems is non?linearly related to productivity
CO2 removal science & engineering
Geoengineering climate
Climate change communications & cognition
How well do people understand the climate impact of individual actions?
Agronomy & climate change
Modelling global impacts of climate variability and trend on maize yield during 1980–2010
Net benefits to US soy and maize yields from intensifying hourly rainfall
Iran's Agriculture in the Anthropocene (open access)
Economics & finance of climate change, mitigation & adaptation
Revenue use and public support for a carbon tax
Global Socioeconomic Risk of Precipitation Extremes under Climate Change (open access)
Measuring the sustainable development implications of climate change mitigation
The Impact of Renewable Versus Non-renewable Natural Capital on Economic Growth
Climate change mitigation & adaptation public policy
Systemic assessment of urban climate policies worldwide: Decomposing effectiveness into 3 factors
Humans dealing with our global warming
Social Capital, carbon dependency, and public response to climate change in 22 European countries
Learning about climate change in, with and through art (open access)
Social determinants of adaptive and transformative responses to climate change
Enhancing Autonomy for Climate Change Adaptation Using Participatory Modeling (open access)
Other
Editorial: Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling (open access)
Informed opinion & nudges
NEED: The Northern European Enclosure Dam for if Climate Change Mitigation Fails (open access)
Opinion: To understand how migrations affect human securities, look to the past (open access)
The value of initial condition large ensembles to robust adaptation decision?making (open access)
Privatizing climate adaptation: How insurance weakens solidaristic and collective disaster recovery
Refining national greenhouse gas inventories (open access)
We know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of $US 9,3733, for most of us $US 42 is significant money to wager against a small marginal cost.
Economists of a scientific bent may someday help scientific publishers bring science to their business activities as reflected in rational à la carte article disclosure fees. Meanwhile there are several possible paths to equality of information access short of paying an objectively and crushingly large fee for the unveiling of a single article:
Please let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.
A list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.
The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.
Posted by Doug Bostrom on Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
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