IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v19y2008i2p287-301.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evidence for “Publication Bias†concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick J. Michaels

    (Cato Institute 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington DC 20001)

Abstract

The climate research community believes that published findings on global warming will have an equal probability of raising or lowering forecasts of climate change and its impact. This is a testable hypothesis based upon the recent literature and the assumption that extant forecasts are themselves unbiased. A survey of Science and Nature demonstrates that the likelihood that recent literature is not biased in a positive or negative direction is less than one in 5.2 × 10 −16 . This has considerable implications for the popular perception of global warming science, for the nature of “compendia†of climate change research, such as the reports of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, and for the political process that uses those compendia as the basis for policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick J. Michaels, 2008. "Evidence for “Publication Bias†concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature," Energy & Environment, , vol. 19(2), pages 287-301, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:287-301
    DOI: 10.1260/095830508783900735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1260/095830508783900735
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1260/095830508783900735?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Quirin Schiermeier, 2006. "Insurers' disaster files suggest climate is culprit," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7094), pages 674-674, June.
    2. Kerry Emanuel, 2005. "Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years," Nature, Nature, vol. 436(7051), pages 686-688, August.
    3. Elizabeth C. Weatherhead & Signe Bech Andersen, 2006. "The search for signs of recovery of the ozone layer," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7089), pages 39-45, May.
    4. Michael Cherry, 2005. "Ministers agree to act on warnings of soaring temperatures in Africa," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7063), pages 1217-1217, October.
    5. T. P. Barnett & J. C. Adam & D. P. Lettenmaier, 2005. "Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7066), pages 303-309, November.
    6. Danilo Mollicone & Hugh D. Eva & Frédéric Achard, 2006. "Human role in Russian wild fires," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7083), pages 436-437, March.
    7. Anny Cazenave, 2005. "Sea level and volcanoes," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7064), pages 35-36, November.
    8. David C. Lowe, 2006. "A green source of surprise," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7073), pages 148-149, January.
    9. Heather M. Stoll, 2006. "The Arctic tells its story," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7093), pages 579-580, June.
    10. John A. Church & Neil J. White & Julie M. Arblaster, 2005. "Significant decadal-scale impact of volcanic eruptions on sea level and ocean heat content," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7064), pages 74-77, November.
    11. Flavia Nunes & Richard D. Norris, 2006. "Abrupt reversal in ocean overturning during the Palaeocene/Eocene warm period," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7072), pages 60-63, January.
    12. Quirin Schiermeier, 2005. "The chaos to come," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7070), pages 903-906, December.
    13. Michael N. Evans, 2006. "The woods fill up with snow," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7088), pages 1120-1121, April.
    14. E. Detlef Schulze & Annette Freibauer, 2005. "Carbon unlocked from soils," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7056), pages 205-206, September.
    15. Samir S. Patel, 2006. "A sinking feeling," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7085), pages 734-736, April.
    16. Andrew R. Blaustein & Andy Dobson, 2006. "A message from the frogs," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7073), pages 143-144, January.
    17. Quirin Schiermeier, 2006. "Methane finding baffles scientists," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7073), pages 128-128, January.
    18. Jim Coakley, 2005. "Reflections on aerosol cooling," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7071), pages 1091-1092, December.
    19. Michael Hopkin, 2005. "Biodiversity and climate form focus of forest canopy plan," Nature, Nature, vol. 436(7050), pages 452-452, July.
    20. Michael Hopkin, 2005. "Antarctic ice puts climate predictions to the test," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7068), pages 536-537, December.
    21. Roger A. Pielke, 2005. "Are there trends in hurricane destruction?," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7071), pages 11-11, December.
    22. Sarah C. B. Raper & Roger J. Braithwaite, 2006. "Low sea level rise projections from mountain glaciers and icecaps under global warming," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7074), pages 311-313, January.
    23. P. C. D. Milly & K. A. Dunne & A. V. Vecchia, 2005. "Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availability in a changing climate," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7066), pages 347-350, November.
    24. Timothy J. Garrett & Chuanfeng Zhao, 2006. "Increased Arctic cloud longwave emissivity associated with pollution from mid-latitudes," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7085), pages 787-789, April.
    25. Quirin Schiermeier, 2006. "A sea change," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7074), pages 256-260, January.
    26. Jaime B. Palter & M. Susan Lozier & Richard T. Barber, 2005. "The effect of advection on the nutrient reservoir in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7059), pages 687-692, September.
    27. David Cyranoski, 2005. "The long-range forecast," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7066), pages 275-276, November.
    28. Eric A. Davidson & Ivan A. Janssens, 2006. "Temperature sensitivity of soil carbon decomposition and feedbacks to climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7081), pages 165-173, March.
    29. Quirin Schiermeier, 2006. "On thin ice," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7090), pages 146-147, May.
    30. Nathan P. Gillett, 2005. "Northern Hemisphere circulation," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7058), pages 496-496, September.
    31. Gabrielle Walker, 2006. "The tipping point of the iceberg," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7095), pages 802-805, June.
    32. Detlef Quadfasel, 2005. "The Atlantic heat conveyor slows," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7068), pages 565-566, December.
    33. Dan Lubin & Andrew M. Vogelmann, 2006. "A climatologically significant aerosol longwave indirect effect in the Arctic," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7075), pages 453-456, January.
    34. Eric Steig, 2006. "Climate may not be linked with circulation slowdown," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7077), pages 660-660, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. S . K. Oni & F. Mieres & M. N. Futter & H. Laudon, 2017. "Soil temperature responses to climate change along a gradient of upland–riparian transect in boreal forest," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 27-41, July.
    2. Alvaro Calzadilla & Katrin Rehdanz & Richard Betts & Pete Falloon & Andy Wiltshire & Richard Tol, 2013. "Climate change impacts on global agriculture," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 120(1), pages 357-374, September.
    3. Leiwen Jiang & Karen Hardee, 2011. "How do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 30(2), pages 287-312, April.
    4. Asim Zia, 2012. "Land Use Adaptation to Climate Change: Economic Damages from Land-Falling Hurricanes in the Atlantic and Gulf States of the USA, 1900–2005," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(5), pages 1-16, May.
    5. Wei Shi & Fuwei Qiao & Liang Zhou, 2021. "Identification of Ecological Risk Zoning on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from the Perspective of Ecosystem Service Supply and Demand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-17, May.
    6. Peng Qi & Guangxin Zhang & Yi Jun Xu & Zhikun Xia & Ming Wang, 2019. "Response of Water Resources to Future Climate Change in a High-Latitude River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-21, October.
    7. Shreedhar Maskey & Stefan Uhlenbrook & Sunal Ojha, 2011. "An analysis of snow cover changes in the Himalayan region using MODIS snow products and in-situ temperature data," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 391-400, September.
    8. Boudreault, Mathieu & Cossette, Hélène & Marceau, Étienne, 2014. "Risk models with dependence between claim occurrences and severities for Atlantic hurricanes," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 123-132.
    9. Boulanger, Pierre & Jomini, Patrick & Zhang, Xiao-guang & Costa, Catherine & Osborne, Michelle, 2010. "The Common Agricultural Policy and the French, European and World Economies," Conference papers 332019, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    10. Luis Garrote, 2017. "Managing Water Resources to Adapt to Climate Change: Facing Uncertainty and Scarcity in a Changing Context," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(10), pages 2951-2963, August.
    11. Iglesias, Ana & Garrote, Luis, 2015. "Adaptation strategies for agricultural water management under climate change in Europe," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 113-124.
    12. Mendelsohn, Robert & Emanuel, Kerry & Chonabayashi, Shun, 2011. "The impact of climate change on hurricane damages in the United States," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5561, The World Bank.
    13. Elaine Wheaton & Suren Kulshreshtha, 2017. "Environmental Sustainability of Agriculture Stressed by Changing Extremes of Drought and Excess Moisture: A Conceptual Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-14, June.
    14. M. Scott Taylor, 2009. "Innis Lecture: Environmental crises: past, present, and future," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 1240-1275, November.
    15. Molini, A. & Talkner, P. & Katul, G.G. & Porporato, A., 2011. "First passage time statistics of Brownian motion with purely time dependent drift and diffusion," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(11), pages 1841-1852.
    16. Xiuchen Wu & Hongyan Liu & Dali Guo & Oleg A Anenkhonov & Natalya K Badmaeva & Denis V Sandanov, 2012. "Growth Decline Linked to Warming-Induced Water Limitation in Hemi-Boreal Forests," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(8), pages 1-12, August.
    17. Stanley Changnon, 2009. "Characteristics of severe Atlantic hurricanes in the United States: 1949–2006," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 48(3), pages 329-337, March.
    18. Ikefuji, Masako & Horii, Ryo, 2012. "Natural disasters in a two-sector model of endogenous growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 784-796.
    19. Brokovich, E. & Schwarz, A.M. & Oeta, J., 2012. "Building social and ecological resilience to climate change in Roviana, Solomon Islands: PASAP country activity for Solomon Islands: Brief review: climate change trends and projections for Solomon Isl," Monographs, The WorldFish Center, number 40178, April.
    20. Shibly Shahrier & Koji Kotani, 2016. "Labor Donation Or Money Donation? Pro-Sociality On Prevention Of Natural Disasters In A Case Of Cyclone Aila, Bangladesh," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(01), pages 1-26, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:287-301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.