Scientists call for ‘flawed’ climate crisis study to be pulled

A FLAWED study claiming that scientific evidence of a climate crisis is lacking should be withdrawn from the peer-reviewed journal in which it was published, top climate scientists say.

Appearing earlier this year in The European Physical Journal Plus, published by Springer Nature, the study purports to review data on possible changes in the frequency or intensity of rainfall, cyclones, tornadoes, droughts and other extreme weather.

It has been viewed thousands of times on social media and cited by some mainstream media, such as Sky News Australia.

“On the basis of observation data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident,” read the summary of the 20-page study.

Four prominent climate scientists said the study, of which they had been unaware, grossly manipulates data, cherry-picking facts and ignoring others that would contradict their discredited assertions.

“The paper gives the appearance of being specifically written to make the case that there is no climate crisis, rather than presenting an objective, comprehensive, up-to-date assessment,” said Richard Betts, head of Climate Impacts Research at Britain’s Met Office. The authors ignore the authoritative Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC) report published a couple of months before their study was submitted to Springer Nature, Betts noted.

“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” the IPCC concluded in its report. “Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened” since the previous report eight years earlier, it said.

The peer-reviewed paper by four Italian scientists appeared in January in one of the more than 2 000 journals published by Springer Nature, one of the most prestigious science publishers in the world.

The study is written “by people not working in climatology and unfamiliar with the topic and relevant data,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth Systems at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.