Science is science because it is self-correcting. That means that when researchers go down a dead-end path they turn around and look for another route. [emphasis, links added]
However, science in highly politicized situations can face obstacles to self-correction, meaning that it can be more difficult to change course when science gets off track.
This is especially so when bad science becomes politically important.
That’s where climate science finds itself in 2024. Long-time readers here at THB will know that climate change is real and poses risks.
At the same time, the climate science community appears to have lost its collective ability to call out bad science and get things back on track.
Today, particularly for the many new readers that THB has gained this year, I summarize the top five climate science scandals covered here at THB over the past few years.
I define a scandal as a situation of objectively flawed science — in substance and/or procedure — that the community has been unable to make right, but should.
Let’s jump right in . . .
5. The Interns Made a “Dataset” and We Used it for Research
I have recently documented how the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) — supposedly one of the top science journals — published a paper using a “dataset” cobbled together by some interns for marketing a now-defunct insurance company.
There is actually no such dataset out in the real world — it is fiction.
The paper is the only normalization study purporting to identify a signal of human-caused climate change in disaster losses and thus has been highlighted by both the IPCC and the U.S. National Climate Assessment.
That context makes its correction or retraction politically problematic. When I informed PNAS about the fake dataset they refused to look at it and stood behind the paper. Read about the backstory and how PNAS stonewalled any reconsideration.
4. The Alimonti Retraction for an Unpopular View
The science community has shown a willingness to retract a climate science paper — in this case not for being wrong in any substantive way, but instead for expressing politically unhelpful views.
In 2022, a group of Italian scientists published a paper that summarized the IPCC’s conclusions on extreme weather trends, consistent with what you’ve been reading here at THB.
The paper broke no new ground but was a useful review to have in the literature.
Even so, several activist journalists and scientists demanded that it be retracted — and, remarkably, the Springer Nature journal that published the paper obliged.
I heard from a whistle-blower who shared all of the sordid details, which you can read about here and here.
3. A Major Error in the IPCC
This accurate finding became its inaccurate opposite by the time it reached the IPCC Synthesis Report.
The IPCC is a massive effort, and if it did not exist then we’d have to invent it. It is not surprising that a few mistakes can creep into the assessment.
What matters is what happens when mistakes are made. I identified a major error in the IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report involving confusion over hurricane intensities — It was a simple error having to do with technical terminology that was misunderstood (hurricane fixes, i.e., measurements — became reinterpreted as hurricanes).
At least once a week someone quotes to me the mistake in the IPCC Synthesis Report to claim falsely that hurricanes have become more intense.
You can read here about the error and also how an IPCC insider later revealed to me that the error resulted from the IPCC’s failure to follow its OWN quality control protocols.
Read rest at The Honest Broker
Roger Pielke Jr. has been a professor at the University of Colorado since 2001. Previously, he was a staff scientist in the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He has degrees in mathematics, public policy, and political science, and is the author of numerous books. (Amazon).
The Honest Broker is written by climate expert Roger Pielke Jr and is reader-supported. If you value what you have read here, please consider subscribing and supporting the work that goes into it.
