It is all or more than an enough a dangerous globalist grift and hustle. American can get on well without it. And the βitβ can include either the UN as a while or the IPCC in particular. Let the EU run it..they are the best at immiseration and performative moralizing.
Dr. Pielke ==> "The IPCC says that it will consider tools of artificial intelligence and formal systematic reviews."
That approach will lead to WORSE results. AI LLM will only report the consensus of their training materials and that inaccurately. AI cannot, at least not yet, determine the truth value of any material, it only predicts "the next most likely word" -- and often "hallucinates" -- returning made up and patently false information (for reasons not fully understood).
Formal systematic reviews are dependent on the studies included in the review -- which is the same problem the IPCC already has -- they exclude studies they don't "like" -- such as some of yours -- and mostly consider only those that already agree with their viewpoints.
In my view, they really have to start from scratch. Like many fields, Climate Science always wants to start from their current consensus view and move "forward" in the same direction -- which they then call progress.
Any navigator knows that one must not just "keep heading in the same direction" -- you have to re-evaluate your position anew, verify that position each time with multiple ground truths using as many different methods as possible. Back in the 1970s, we used depth soundings, radio triangulation, radar, star shots,and the old dependable eyeball. Many times,we would check with other ships within sight.
The IPCC has veered markedly from the correct course and needs to re-evaluate right back to its re-checking its most basic assumptions.
Another comment on this βexponentialβ increase in papers is that bureaucracy is a self reinforcing self replicating monster.
I have published 4 papers in the IEEE proceedings for the PCIC in my niche areas over the years and I get bombarded with requests to submit papers to hundreds of conferences and publications around the globe, endless spam.
And this is just electrical engineering.
This is an industry blob and no blob ever advocates its own end.
This is about money and decision based evidence making and needs to contract by 90%, but then what will all the eaters do?
Not an academic, but I understand that the founding principle of the IPCC was to investigate human influence on the climate. How is this not a huge bias, given the numerous other climate influences available? Also, the acceptance that any human influence must be harmful?
Should Trump now accept the offer of Steve Koonin, Richard Lindzen and others to form a "Red team - Blue team" approach to argue the case presented by the biased IPCC?
re: IPCC bias. Another important IPCC issue is who is selected to manage key roles within the various IPCC committees. Doesn't the bias start with the people who decide what science is included (or ignored)?
Donna LeFramboise's book (the Delinquent Teenager..., 2011) was very insightful and identified significant problems within the IPCC (although it is now a bit dated). Shouldn't the selection process be investigated and reformed.
In my experience within my own industry field, the committees end up controlled by advocates who then gatekeep what papers get through, then at conferences they can be brutal with presenters with a contrary view.
Turf protection.
And it becomes part of their social life and how they identify themselves.
Thank you sir. Well written, and needing to be said. The explosion of publications is not surprising, given the explosion of media outlets, ease of publication, increasingly irrational market for confirmation.
It is interesting that blog posts are not considered as acceptable sources of information. Are all bloggers liars? I don't believe that for a second! Blogs such as yours are our primary sources of information, and we must trust that they are presented with honesty and integrity. If a blog posting can be independently verified, or provides information that is indisputable, are exceptions made? Does the IPCC have so little faith in its readers that it thinks we are incapable of forming a reasoned opinion and thus an independent conclusion as to the validity or audacity of their data?
Would love your perspective - Iβm fascinated (or maybe appalled) by the exponential increase in climate-related publications. Whatβs a reasonable guess at the cost (in required grant funds) to produce such papers? (Of course itβs a wide range, but whatβs your guesstimate). That then tell us the overall amount of annual spending on climate βscienceβ and how itβs grown. So now we can play βfollow the moneyβ and ask questions where all this increased funding is coming from. In particular, do research grants always come from (relatively unbiased) government sources? Or have we seen the entrance of dark money from NGOs and the Tom Steyers of the world that are now funding a large and growing portion of this research output? And does that allow us to draw other conclusions about the portion of research that could be conflictedοΌIβm not an academic, so forgive me if this is a naive line of thinkingβ¦
Thanks Roger - you are one if the few experts on climate matters with a megaphone who I trust to be unbiased . This is very helpful for an interested layman such as myself who does not have either the time or the expertise to judge the entirety of the IPCC βs efforts, but has become increasingly skeptical with each of both their reports and motivation. In many cases the members seem to be. Captives of cognitive dissonance . I would be very encouraged if. we could replace the prevalent climate hysteria with a more nuanced view of the problem and the trade offs of potential mitigating actions. And I would broaden the discussion to make the much more comprehensive and topic of sustainability of all types the central point goal,on which to focus.
Actually, Roger has his biases as well. We all do. His overriding virtues are a) he is honest about them, and b) he tries to present all of the facts without cherry-picking [and for me c) I mostly share his biases!).
In a sense, he is a journalist of Climate - he both curates and presents information. The former is probably the most difficult and he does it well.
Regarding the exponential number of "climate change" papers being written, it is a circular, chicken-or-egg problem with scientific publishing. When I was just a lad (back in the days when my hair was still black, and mastodons still roamed the earth) regardless of whatever you were researching, you had to have the words "atomic" in your paper title to get considered for publication. Then that went out of fashion with the funding agencies and the journal editors, and you had to have the word "environmental" in your paper title to get published, even if you were studying the effect of lima beans on flatulence. Now just citing "environmental" in the paper title won't get you published. You have to have both "environmental" and "climate change" in the paper title or the piece will disappear under the editor's "delete" button on his (or her) computer. I suspect that there are exponentially more papers about "climate change" these days because that is what will get published. And scientists still need to get published to prosper.
A difference should be made between research that have the purpose to better understand the climate system, and those studies that extrapolate already established knowledge (and the models that include it) to play scenario games. The first kind can be called science and is probably most challenging and interesting but the least frequent. The second kind is similar to an engineering process, applying knowledge to various cases, including the vagaries of prediction, to provide same sort of a design or to tell a specific story. Publications of this second kind are each a sort of mini or micro IPCC report chapters and get more and more abundant. They are particularly exposed to the risk of being advocacy at the service of a [political] agenda, with a high rate of redundancy. IPCC's WG II and III are dedicated to such second kind of climate studies with little, if any, scientific contribution.
I've no certainty on the validity of this hypothesis.
Nevertheless, if confirmed, it should shape the future organisation of IPCC: on one hand, to assess the state of scientific knowledge (as scientific societies do regularly) and on the other hand, to open true debates on the methodologies and the validity of assessments of the second kind.
Roger is never wrong, but he is also not always right π
One time when I was presenting at a conference someone got up to pose a question and point out where they thought I was wrong, I replied that I disagreed with him but that didnβt mean I thought he was wrong.
The underlying question that is rarely asked is: how long is it possible for a scientific organization located within a political organization, like the United Nations to remain scientific if the science doesn't coincide with the political agenda? I think that question is beginning to answer itself.
As Trump 2.0 seeks out and eliminates sources of government sponsored propaganda and censorship, the billions in research grants devoted to supporting the narrative of catastrophic climate change is ripe for picking. No doubt the explosion in research documented in this post was a direct result of massive U.S. Government funding. It would be fascinating to hear from those familiar with how this all takes place on how one would go about fixing it.
Whenever I see an exponentially increasing number of scientific papers being published on the same subject, such as shown in your Fig. 1, it occurs to me that the real phenomenon being displayed here is not climate change, or whatever the subject matter might be, but the necessity of employing a surplus of post-doctoral fellows with the object of adding yet another publication to the name of the supervising professor. Of course, this outcome is predicated on getting published in the first place, so it is more or less a given that such papers will adhere to the current paradigm: βclimate change is upon us and massive efforts must be undertaken to save humanityβ.
A similar phenomenon can be seen with regard to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. A comprehensive paper published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2006 by an international team (βEstimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accidentβ) concluded that βresults of analyses of time trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe do not, at present, indicate any increase in cancer rates β other than of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions β that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl incidentβ. However, this does not seem to have upset the usual deluge of scientific papers saying much the same thing but hinting broadly that things might get much worse.
It is all or more than an enough a dangerous globalist grift and hustle. American can get on well without it. And the βitβ can include either the UN as a while or the IPCC in particular. Let the EU run it..they are the best at immiseration and performative moralizing.
Dr. Pielke ==> "The IPCC says that it will consider tools of artificial intelligence and formal systematic reviews."
That approach will lead to WORSE results. AI LLM will only report the consensus of their training materials and that inaccurately. AI cannot, at least not yet, determine the truth value of any material, it only predicts "the next most likely word" -- and often "hallucinates" -- returning made up and patently false information (for reasons not fully understood).
Formal systematic reviews are dependent on the studies included in the review -- which is the same problem the IPCC already has -- they exclude studies they don't "like" -- such as some of yours -- and mostly consider only those that already agree with their viewpoints.
In my view, they really have to start from scratch. Like many fields, Climate Science always wants to start from their current consensus view and move "forward" in the same direction -- which they then call progress.
Any navigator knows that one must not just "keep heading in the same direction" -- you have to re-evaluate your position anew, verify that position each time with multiple ground truths using as many different methods as possible. Back in the 1970s, we used depth soundings, radio triangulation, radar, star shots,and the old dependable eyeball. Many times,we would check with other ships within sight.
The IPCC has veered markedly from the correct course and needs to re-evaluate right back to its re-checking its most basic assumptions.
National Academies meeting in California to help stateβs pursuit of βIt our faultβ strategy.
https://mailchi.mp/nationalacademies/call-for-input-save-the-date-extreme-event-attribution?e=cde92c611e
Thanks!
Another comment on this βexponentialβ increase in papers is that bureaucracy is a self reinforcing self replicating monster.
I have published 4 papers in the IEEE proceedings for the PCIC in my niche areas over the years and I get bombarded with requests to submit papers to hundreds of conferences and publications around the globe, endless spam.
And this is just electrical engineering.
This is an industry blob and no blob ever advocates its own end.
This is about money and decision based evidence making and needs to contract by 90%, but then what will all the eaters do?
Not to be snotty but:
βA major challenge facing the IPCC is the exponential growth of scientific literature on climate change.β
Why is there any growth when the science is settled?
Not an academic, but I understand that the founding principle of the IPCC was to investigate human influence on the climate. How is this not a huge bias, given the numerous other climate influences available? Also, the acceptance that any human influence must be harmful?
Should Trump now accept the offer of Steve Koonin, Richard Lindzen and others to form a "Red team - Blue team" approach to argue the case presented by the biased IPCC?
Now that Chris Wright is confirmed as energy secretary it is time to organize this very public debate on the data and science.
re: IPCC bias. Another important IPCC issue is who is selected to manage key roles within the various IPCC committees. Doesn't the bias start with the people who decide what science is included (or ignored)?
Donna LeFramboise's book (the Delinquent Teenager..., 2011) was very insightful and identified significant problems within the IPCC (although it is now a bit dated). Shouldn't the selection process be investigated and reformed.
In my experience within my own industry field, the committees end up controlled by advocates who then gatekeep what papers get through, then at conferences they can be brutal with presenters with a contrary view.
Turf protection.
And it becomes part of their social life and how they identify themselves.
Thank you sir. Well written, and needing to be said. The explosion of publications is not surprising, given the explosion of media outlets, ease of publication, increasingly irrational market for confirmation.
It is interesting that blog posts are not considered as acceptable sources of information. Are all bloggers liars? I don't believe that for a second! Blogs such as yours are our primary sources of information, and we must trust that they are presented with honesty and integrity. If a blog posting can be independently verified, or provides information that is indisputable, are exceptions made? Does the IPCC have so little faith in its readers that it thinks we are incapable of forming a reasoned opinion and thus an independent conclusion as to the validity or audacity of their data?
Would love your perspective - Iβm fascinated (or maybe appalled) by the exponential increase in climate-related publications. Whatβs a reasonable guess at the cost (in required grant funds) to produce such papers? (Of course itβs a wide range, but whatβs your guesstimate). That then tell us the overall amount of annual spending on climate βscienceβ and how itβs grown. So now we can play βfollow the moneyβ and ask questions where all this increased funding is coming from. In particular, do research grants always come from (relatively unbiased) government sources? Or have we seen the entrance of dark money from NGOs and the Tom Steyers of the world that are now funding a large and growing portion of this research output? And does that allow us to draw other conclusions about the portion of research that could be conflictedοΌIβm not an academic, so forgive me if this is a naive line of thinkingβ¦
Thanks Roger - you are one if the few experts on climate matters with a megaphone who I trust to be unbiased . This is very helpful for an interested layman such as myself who does not have either the time or the expertise to judge the entirety of the IPCC βs efforts, but has become increasingly skeptical with each of both their reports and motivation. In many cases the members seem to be. Captives of cognitive dissonance . I would be very encouraged if. we could replace the prevalent climate hysteria with a more nuanced view of the problem and the trade offs of potential mitigating actions. And I would broaden the discussion to make the much more comprehensive and topic of sustainability of all types the central point goal,on which to focus.
Actually, Roger has his biases as well. We all do. His overriding virtues are a) he is honest about them, and b) he tries to present all of the facts without cherry-picking [and for me c) I mostly share his biases!).
In a sense, he is a journalist of Climate - he both curates and presents information. The former is probably the most difficult and he does it well.
Regarding the exponential number of "climate change" papers being written, it is a circular, chicken-or-egg problem with scientific publishing. When I was just a lad (back in the days when my hair was still black, and mastodons still roamed the earth) regardless of whatever you were researching, you had to have the words "atomic" in your paper title to get considered for publication. Then that went out of fashion with the funding agencies and the journal editors, and you had to have the word "environmental" in your paper title to get published, even if you were studying the effect of lima beans on flatulence. Now just citing "environmental" in the paper title won't get you published. You have to have both "environmental" and "climate change" in the paper title or the piece will disappear under the editor's "delete" button on his (or her) computer. I suspect that there are exponentially more papers about "climate change" these days because that is what will get published. And scientists still need to get published to prosper.
A hypothesis:
A difference should be made between research that have the purpose to better understand the climate system, and those studies that extrapolate already established knowledge (and the models that include it) to play scenario games. The first kind can be called science and is probably most challenging and interesting but the least frequent. The second kind is similar to an engineering process, applying knowledge to various cases, including the vagaries of prediction, to provide same sort of a design or to tell a specific story. Publications of this second kind are each a sort of mini or micro IPCC report chapters and get more and more abundant. They are particularly exposed to the risk of being advocacy at the service of a [political] agenda, with a high rate of redundancy. IPCC's WG II and III are dedicated to such second kind of climate studies with little, if any, scientific contribution.
I've no certainty on the validity of this hypothesis.
Nevertheless, if confirmed, it should shape the future organisation of IPCC: on one hand, to assess the state of scientific knowledge (as scientific societies do regularly) and on the other hand, to open true debates on the methodologies and the validity of assessments of the second kind.
Roger,
Despite the shamelessness of your plea for
clicks on the βheartβ and contrary to my otherwise stern and unsympathetic temperament, I am heart number 106.
Ed
Thanks Ed!
I'm 117.
And I'm no. 152. And this is how we change the climate hysteria narrative - one voice at a time!
I'm on auto like. Even when I think Roger is off base I want to understand why and I'll call him out when warranted IMHO.
Roger is never wrong, but he is also not always right π
One time when I was presenting at a conference someone got up to pose a question and point out where they thought I was wrong, I replied that I disagreed with him but that didnβt mean I thought he was wrong.
The underlying question that is rarely asked is: how long is it possible for a scientific organization located within a political organization, like the United Nations to remain scientific if the science doesn't coincide with the political agenda? I think that question is beginning to answer itself.
As Trump 2.0 seeks out and eliminates sources of government sponsored propaganda and censorship, the billions in research grants devoted to supporting the narrative of catastrophic climate change is ripe for picking. No doubt the explosion in research documented in this post was a direct result of massive U.S. Government funding. It would be fascinating to hear from those familiar with how this all takes place on how one would go about fixing it.
Whenever I see an exponentially increasing number of scientific papers being published on the same subject, such as shown in your Fig. 1, it occurs to me that the real phenomenon being displayed here is not climate change, or whatever the subject matter might be, but the necessity of employing a surplus of post-doctoral fellows with the object of adding yet another publication to the name of the supervising professor. Of course, this outcome is predicated on getting published in the first place, so it is more or less a given that such papers will adhere to the current paradigm: βclimate change is upon us and massive efforts must be undertaken to save humanityβ.
A similar phenomenon can be seen with regard to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. A comprehensive paper published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2006 by an international team (βEstimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accidentβ) concluded that βresults of analyses of time trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe do not, at present, indicate any increase in cancer rates β other than of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions β that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl incidentβ. However, this does not seem to have upset the usual deluge of scientific papers saying much the same thing but hinting broadly that things might get much worse.