Patrick Brown of The Breakthrough Institute posted this today at The Free Press. It’s about wildfires and climate, and also IMHO does a great job of explaining the climate science system and what gets published. Warning: this is an extraordinarily long post because I believe it’s paywalled. So
This may be surprising to some of you, but to others.. not so much. Here are some excerpts.. I bolded sentences that deal with the theme of “why are the usual sciences that deal with, say, forests or wildfire, often overlooked in climate papers (as is adaptation)?”
I am a climate scientist. And while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires over many parts of the world, it isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus.
So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.
The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.
This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.
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Here’s how it works.
The first thing the astute climate researcher knows is that his or her work should support the mainstream narrative—namely, that the effects of climate change are both pervasive and catastrophic and that the primary way to deal with them is not by employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning—or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines—but through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
So in my recent Nature paper, which I authored with seven others, I focused narrowly on the influence of climate change on extreme wildfire behavior. Make no mistake: that influence is very real. But there are also other factors that can be just as or more important, such as poor forest management and the increasing number of people who start wildfires either accidentally or purposely. (A startling fact: over 80 percent of wildfires in the US are ignited by humans.)
In my paper, we didn’t bother to study the influence of these other obviously relevant factors. Did I know that including them would make for a more realistic and useful analysis? I did. But I also knew that it would detract from the clean narrative centered on the negative impact of climate change and thus decrease the odds that the paper would pass muster with Nature’s editors and reviewers.
This type of framing, with the influence of climate change unrealistically considered in isolation, is the norm for high-profile research papers. For example, in another recent influential Nature paper, scientists calculated that the two largest climate change impacts on society are deaths related to extreme heat and damage to agriculture. However, the authors never mention that climate change is not the dominant driver for either one of these impacts: heat-related deaths have been declining, and crop yields have been increasing for decades despite climate change. To acknowledge this would imply that the world has succeeded in some areas despite climate change—which, the thinking goes, would undermine the motivation for emissions reductions.
This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate paper. The authors should ignore—or at least downplay—practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change. If deaths due to extreme heat are decreasing and crop yields are increasing, then it stands to reason that we can overcome some major negative effects of climate change. Shouldn’t we then study how we have been able to achieve success so that we can facilitate more of it? Of course we should. But studying solutions rather than focusing on problems is simply not going to rouse the public—or the press. Besides, many mainstream climate scientists tend to view the whole prospect of, say, using technology to adapt to climate change as wrongheaded; addressing emissions is the right approach. So the savvy researcher knows to stay away from practical solutions.
Here’s a third trick: be sure to focus on metrics that will generate the most eye-popping numbers. Our paper, for instance, could have focused on a simple, intuitive metric like the number of additional acres that burned or the increase in intensity of wildfires because of climate change. Instead, we followed the common practice of looking at the change in risk of an extreme event—in our case, the increased risk of wildfires burning more than 10,000 acres in a single day.
This is a far less intuitive metric that is more difficult to translate into actionable information. So why is this more complicated and less useful kind of metric so common? Because it generally produces larger factors of increase than other calculations. To wit: you get bigger numbers that justify the importance of your work, its rightful place in Nature or Science, and widespread media coverage. *
Another way to get the kind of big numbers that will justify the importance of your research—and impress editors, reviewers, and the media—is to always assess the magnitude of climate change over centuries, even if that timescale is irrelevant to the impact you are studying.
For example, it is standard practice to assess impacts on society using the amount of climate change since the industrial revolution, but to ignore technological and societal changes over that time. This makes little sense from a practical standpoint since societal changes in population distribution, infrastructure, behavior, disaster preparedness, etc., have had far more influence on our sensitivity to weather extremes than climate change has since the 1800s. This can be seen, for example, in the precipitous decline in deaths from weather and climate disasters over the last century. Similarly, it is standard practice to calculate impacts for scary hypothetical future warming scenarios that strain credibility while ignoring potential changes in technology and resilience that would lessen the impact. Those scenarios always make for good headlines.
A much more useful analysis would focus on changes in climate from the recent past that living people have actually experienced and then forecasting the foreseeable future—the next several decades—while accounting for changes in technology and resilience.
In the case of my recent Nature paper, this would mean considering the impact of climate change in conjunction with anticipated reforms to forest management practices over the next several decades. In fact, our current research indicates that these changes in forest management practices could completely negate the detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires.
Another way to get the kind of big numbers that will justify the importance of your research—and impress editors, reviewers, and the media—is to always assess the magnitude of climate change over centuries, even if that timescale is irrelevant to the impact you are studying.
* When I first saw Patrick’s paper on TwitX, I thought “why on earth did they pick that bizarre variable when we know total acres haven’t gone up? I even wondered, skeptic that I am, if they had looked at a lot of other variables that didn’t work out for the Preferred Narrative.
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I think the article might be paywalled. So here’s more. I think I’ve tried to say this in the past but much less articulately..
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For example, it is standard practice to assess impacts on society using the amount of climate change since the industrial revolution, but to ignore technological and societal changes over that time. This makes little sense from a practical standpoint since societal changes in population distribution, infrastructure, behavior, disaster preparedness, etc., have had far more influence on our sensitivity to weather extremes than climate change has since the 1800s. This can be seen, for example, in the precipitous decline in deaths from weather and climate disasters over the last century. Similarly, it is standard practice to calculate impacts for scary hypothetical future warming scenarios that strain credibility while ignoring potential changes in technology and resilience that would lessen the impact. Those scenarios always make for good headlines.
A much more useful analysis would focus on changes in climate from the recent past that living people have actually experienced and then forecasting the foreseeable future—the next several decades—while accounting for changes in technology and resilience.
In the case of my recent Nature paper, this would mean considering the impact of climate change in conjunction with anticipated reforms to forest management practices over the next several decades. In fact, our current research indicates that these changes in forest management practices could completely negate the detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires.
This more practical kind of analysis is discouraged, however, because looking at changes in impacts over shorter time periods and including other relevant factors reduces the calculated magnitude of the impact of climate change, and thus it weakens the case for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
You might be wondering at this point if I’m disowning my own paper. I’m not. On the contrary, I think it advances our understanding of climate change’s role in day-to-day wildfire behavior. It’s just that the process of customizing the research for an eminent journal caused it to be less useful than it could have been.
This means conducting the version of the research on wildfires that I believe adds much more practical value for real-world decisions: studying the impacts of climate change over relevant time frames and in the context of other important changes, like the number of fires started by people and the effects of forest management. The research may not generate the same clean story and desired headlines, but it will be more useful in devising climate change strategies.
But climate scientists shouldn’t have to exile themselves from academia to publish the most useful versions of their research. We need a culture change across academia and elite media that allows for a much broader conversation on societal resilience to climate.
The media, for instance, should stop accepting these papers at face value and do some digging on what’s been left out. The editors of the prominent journals need to expand beyond a narrow focus that pushes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. And the researchers themselves need to start standing up to editors, or find other places to publish.
What really should matter isn’t citations for the journals, clicks for the media, or career status for the academics—but research that actually helps society.
Why would we do that? (Just joking, I am a proud graduate of land-grant institutions with that explicit mission).
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Here’s the beginning of the piece:
If you’ve been reading any news about wildfires this summer—from Canada to Europe to Maui—you will surely get the impression that they are mostly the result of climate change.
Here’s the AP: Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the “new abnormal.”
And PBS NewsHour: Wildfires driven by climate change are on the rise—Spain must do more to prepare, experts say.
And The New York Times: How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox.
And Bloomberg: Maui Fires Show Climate Change’s Ugly Reach.
I am a climate scientist. And while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires over many parts of the world, it isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus.
So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.
The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.
This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.
Why is this happening?
It starts with the fact that a researcher’s career depends on his or her work being cited widely and perceived as important. This triggers the self-reinforcing feedback loops of name recognition, funding, quality applications from aspiring PhD students and postdocs, and of course, accolades.
But as the number of researchers has skyrocketed in recent years—there are close to six times more PhDs earned in the U.S. each year than there were in the early 1960s—it has become more difficult than ever to stand out from the crowd. So while there has always been a tremendous premium placed on publishing in journals like Nature and Science, it’s also become extraordinarily more competitive.
In theory, scientific research should prize curiosity, dispassionate objectivity, and a commitment to uncovering the truth. Surely those are the qualities that editors of scientific journals should value.
In reality, though, the biases of the editors (and the reviewers they call upon to evaluate submissions) exert a major influence on the collective output of entire fields. They select what gets published from a large pool of entries, and in doing so, they also shape how research is conducted more broadly. Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted. I know this because I am one of them.
Disclaimer: I’ve had convos with various folks at The Breakthrough Institute and will be moderating a panel at an upcoming conference of theirs, but have never spoken to Patrick.
Most of the best research has confidentiality (i.e. commercial, military, economic, security, and etc.) and, therefore, would lose its value if it were published in the public literature. Academic research is published for advertising purposes and, therefore, is ‘protected’ by ‘gatekeepers’ as explained by Brown in his article above.
I reported my experience with the ‘gatekeepers’ in my submission to the UK Parliament’s Select Committee Inquiry (i.e. whitewash) of ‘climategate’. The submission is recorded in Hansard (i.e. the official Parliamentary Record) at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387b/387we02.htm .
Richard
As a practicing scientist, and one who has written several critiques of articles published in high profile journals like Science and Nature, parts of this article rang true to me, but parts seem quite distorted. To begin with, I think its quite clear that high profile general interest science journals such as Science & Nature prioritize publishing articles with the broadest possible implications and clearest, simplest storylines, often prioritizing potential media headlines over accuracy or good grounding in scientific understanding of a field (I’ve published in both Science & Nature – both times critiques of articles which I believe did exactly that). So there’s my agreement. But I think that this article misunderstands and distorts most of what actual science is like – at least based on my limited experience. While Science, Nature, and other similar high profile general interest journals have some influence on the progress of science, its small. In all the fields that I’ve interacted with, few scientists – even very prominent ones at prominent institutions – publish in these journals, although this does vary alot by field (as Science, Nature, etc., certainly pursue some fields more than others). Most scientific research is published in discipline-specific or topic-specific journals (e.g. the Journal of Forestry). Certainly publishing in Science or Nature can be a big break in a scientists’ career, but so can publishing in a prominent disciplinary journal – and in fact, in many disciplines, publishing in top disciplinary journals is seen as both more important and more difficult than publishing in Science or Nature (because editors and reviewers at disciplinary journals are more likely to have discipline specific expertise). And the incentives in disciplinary journals are very different than those in Science or Nature. Science or Nature do seem to prioritize things that will be exciting to outsiders – something a science journalist could write an article about for a newspaper that would be read by the general public. But disciplinary/field journals tend to prioritize instead contribution to the intellectual development of the field of study, and thus present a different set of incentives to scientists, and these are the *normal* incentives most scientists face in their careers. In addition, the biggest rewards in science often go to those who can disprove a popular view with evidence, and thus, rather than rewarding consensus, my experience has been that science rewards effective and evidence-based disagreement. In fact, as another journalist just pointed out on twitter (https://twitter.com/NiranjanAjit/status/1699392947681210742), the peer review on this paper criticized it for its single-minded focus on climate to the neglect of other variables, so its not even clear that the pressures this scientist felt to distort his research were derived from the journal, as opposed to his misperception of what the journal wanted.
To the extent that the Science/Nature biases towards narrow focused stories and scientists are biased towards publishing in those journals, the scientists (and thus the science) most prone to this kind of exaggeration are those scientists whose careers depend on demonstrating their ability to publish in venues which are seen by the general public. For better or worse, most scientists in US universities don’t have alot of pressure to do that – its a problem because we ought to communicate our science more clearly, but its also good because it allows us to focus on science that is useful for specific communities (for example, forestry departments conduct research that is useful to foresters, as opposed to research that would make a good headline news article – I think that’s a good thing). But scientists in NGOs (such as the author of this article) *do* face that pressure since their funders want quick measurable results, and being able to say that your research generated X amount of public attention is a great way to show your funders that you generated results. AND I’ve noticed that a disproportionate amount of the science published in Science/Nature in my area (i.e. forest policy) comes out of NGOs, who at the same time often publish little in the topical journals, so I do think this might be a real problem for the group of scientists who this author represents – but I don’t think he is accurately representing how science as a whole works – its much more diverse and I think that is a good thing.
Excellent points that answered my (non-PhD) question about what seems to be an underlying assumption by the author: Are Nature and Science (or other popular media) important sources of scientific information for government policy change? Maybe only in an indirect way where it mobilizes public support or opposition. The real progress is made within the disciplines, and hopefully their relationship to government programs and funding.
Very thoughtful response. For those that want another analysis on Patrick Browns post there is an article in The Telegraph by Sarah Knapton, Science Editor, that attempts to look at both Patrick’s post and responses from editors at Nature (yes, paywall, but for those that can get around it….): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/06/global-warming-climate-change-scientist-unrealistic-nature/ It does provide some balanced reporting of the issue.
Thanks, Carl! I found the coverage more fascinating than Patrick’s original post..and worthy of another post in itself.
from the Telegraph piece..
“He said his current research indicates that changes in forest management could “completely negate” the detrimental effects of global warming on wildfires.” Now Patrick couldn’t possibly know that, since he’s only an expert on one piece of the puzzle. So did he really say that? what’s up with that?
Another Story more detailed story if you haven’t seen it yet: https://www.yahoo.com/news/climate-scientist-wanted-start-debate-100030173.html
Thanks, we will have another post about that.
As to the author’s apparent climate point – that the “primary way to deal” with climate change should NOT be addressing its cause – defies common sense. If you don’t plug the leak, you’ll have to keep bailing forever.
There was this interesting teaser: “In fact, our current research indicates that these changes in forest management practices could completely negate the detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires.” Any idea of what “these changes” are or where such findings have been published?
Jon, I don’t think he said that the primary way to deal with climate change was to not address its cause. Perhaps he said the primary way to deal with wildfires is not to reduce CO2? But we see that every day.. when fire suppression folks use fossil fueled vehicles to fight fires and are generally successful. ??
Here’s the paragraph from above: “The first thing the astute climate researcher knows is that his or her work should support the mainstream narrative—namely, that the effects of climate change are both pervasive and catastrophic and that the primary way to deal with them is not by employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning—or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines—but through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Maybe I’m twisting his words, but I think a logical conclusion from his statement is that the primary way of dealing with climate change should be through “practical adaptation measures.”
John: I honestly think the author is correct and that the primary way of dealing with climate change is through adaptation. I also think (not “believe”) that we have no other choice. The climate has been changing for thousands of years for thousands of reasons. Some of it has been great for people and some of it has been bad. In most cases a warming climate has been a lot better for humans and most other plants and animals than a cooling climate.
You seem pretty convinced that a changing climate is a really dangerous situation, that people are responsible — in fact, are the principal cause — and that it is an emergency requiring immediate action, no matter how drastic. An “existential threat” to all life on Earth, or at least humans. I’m paraphrasing your statements here, but I think that’s pretty close.
If you are correct, then maybe your “common sense” approach to focus on “the” cause of this situation in order to “plug the leak” might be the correct strategy. Or maybe not. For the sake of argument, let’s say you are right and someone was able to discover a mechanism by which the climate could be stopped from changing. To whose specifications? The people in Arizona, or in northern Canada, or the Amazon? Or some minor sub-species somewhere with legal standing in some places?
My thought is that any attempt to neuter the climate is a fool’s errand with costly consequences and no clear objectives, as documented during the past 35 years of this effort. We are an adaptable species with real problems, of which fear of climate change seems to be far worse than actual climate change. My vote is for adaptation (we have no choice, so might as well make the best of it) and feeding the poor, which can be more readily accomplished with fossil fuels and increased atmospheric CO2. And I think this perspective is more realistic than optimistic.
Re: “feeding the poor, which can be more readily accomplished with fossil fuels”
I’d like to know what you think we humans should do adaptation-wise when fossil fuels start running out. I.e., when the EROI of recoverable fossil fuels drops too low to feed the rich let alone the poor and middle. More fundamentally, do you think that the supply of high EROI fossil fuels is unlimited?
Toby, I’m not Bob (there is only one Bob Zybach) but I’ll take a swing at this based on an article by historian Charles Mann (1491, Prophets and Wizards), “What If We Never Run Out of Oil?” the subtitle is “New technology and a little-known energy source suggest that fossil fuels may not be finite. This would be a miracle—and a nightmare.” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/?single_page=true
In the essay, he quotes Vaclav Smil “The world has been running into fossil fuels, not away from them.” Mann’s point is that while not infinite, fossil fuels will continue to be used and exploited probably into the 22nd century. That troubles Mann. Not me.
The article is well worth your time.
I look at it a little differently.. there are two ideas there..
I see the difference as being the difference between “dealing with climate change” e.g. decarbonizing;
vs. “dealing with the effects of climate change”.. where wildfire fits into an “effect”.
There are two different processes, mitigation and adaptation, each with different disciplines involved.. think lithium mining vs. levee building.
Hi Sharon: I agree. I’m definitely in the “dealing with the effects of climate change” camp because I’m not sure the climate is necessarily changing in a bad way; and definitely not in the “decarbonizing” camp as I don’t believe carbon controls the climate and that it is more of a political issue than anything. There are probably other good reasons for societal decarbonization, but I don’t think climate control is one.
Aside from causation, do you reject projections that the melting of the cryosphere will result in significant sea level rise over the next few centuries? Do you accept that the cryosphere is melting? My apology if either of these questions has already been asked of you and you responded.
I’m not Bob (there is only one Bob Zybach), but let me take a swing at your question. This comes from well-known “Science Denier,” John Christy who seems to know a lot about earth’s atmosphere and climate. “sea level is rising. And it will continue to rise because there is more land ice to melt. If you go back to the last interglacial, about 130,000 years ago, we find that sea level reached 6 meters higher than it is today. So, that should go on about an inch per decade just on that. Remember that out West in the Rocky Mountains and so on, those glaciers only appeared between a period of 3700 and 1900 years ago. So they are relatively new in the sense of our most recent climate. When I advise people about sea level, I say it’s going to go up about an inch per decade, and if you are on the Gulf Coast, that’s not your problem. It’s the 15 feet in 6 hours when the next hurricane comes. That’s your problem.”
Source: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/03/john_christy_an.html
Nope, he said the primary way to deal with “them” which goes back to the “effects of climate change” which are both “pervasive and catastrophic.” I’m pretty much of a both/and person.. we need to mitigate and adapt. But I have to acknowledge there is a pervasive tendency in the media and certain journals to not involve experts in adaptation when future projections are involved. It’s too hard to talk to us? It doesn’t give them the right answer? Research $ might go to adaptation disciplines instead of climate modelers? We don’t know.
I guess we could debate “primary,” but he clearly favors investing in adaptation over mitigation/reduction.
I would agree that experts in adaptation would be helpful in understanding the effects of climate change, but not helpful “when future projections (of climate change) are involved.”
Roger Pielke Jr.’s Substack article touches on this THE NARRATIVE RULES
“Imagine that you work in public relations for a major university. Several of your researchers have published a new study projecting future deaths in this United States related to climate change, demographic change and adaptation to change.
“The three statements below are each conclusions from that study. Which one do you choose to emphasize in the top line of your press release to the world?
“1. Temperature-related deaths in the U.S. will increase by a factor of five with 3 degrees Celsius of warming¹
“2. Overall, warming temperatures will result in 2,000 fewer deaths per year in the U.S. over the next 100 years²
“3. Adaptation can significantly reduce temperature-related deaths no matter how much climate changes³…”
[more at] https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-narrative-rules
Thanks for your comment, Forrest! I have worked in both worlds and what you say is true for our forestry disciplines.
I used to get Science and read it regularly. Mostly our kind of science, forest science or even lots of social science never was published there. They had an idea of what was “cool” science. If you remember the Donato kerfuffle at Oregon State, and had been reading Science, and knew the political background of the salvage controversy. Science decided to publish something about our humble little area finally, at a specific time.. because it was a political hot topic AND the paper reflected certain popular views in some quarters.
My colleagues had a similar experience with Nature. I warned them that because their paper did not agree with some folks’ current thinking (on forest carbon) they were unlikely to be published there. They spent a great deal of time revising, and finally gave up and published in.. the Journal of Forestry.
I think, like some of the profs at OSU, that my colleagues wanted to believe that these journals were fair and impartial when it comes to quality scientific work. I’ve always been a bit more skeptical of Big Science and its institutions. I attribute to the fact that when I started there was a pretty obvious anti-female bias in hiring, promotion, tenure and publication. So we, at that time, were always a bit of outsiders to the System.
I think it’s true that most of us labor in the fields of smaller and more technically specialized journals. But there is a science-media-policy complex that uses publication in Science and Nature to effectively launder policy predilections via what they publish. I think my colleagues with the carbon paper wanted to bring their findings to the attention of people outside the forest bubble.
It would be an interesting graduate student project to analyze forest papers in Nature and Science over the past years and compare the topics to say, JFor. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be much funding for investigating these topics.
Finally, you pointed out “In fact, as another journalist just pointed out on twitter “(https://twitter.com/NiranjanAjit/status/1699392947681210742), the peer review on this paper criticized it for its single-minded focus on climate to the neglect of other variables, so its not even clear that the pressures this scientist felt to distort his research were derived from the journal, as opposed to his misperception of what the journal wanted.”
I read a lot of climate/wildfire papers and most of them do not incorporate other variables.. think about it. Let’s think of wildfire, say acreage, as a linear regression problem (I realized that’s an old-fangled tool but just for the sake of understanding.)
First of all, you’ll notice that wildfire acreage hasn’t gone up in the last 20 years according to NIFC as we pointed out here. But we could go back further to find differences. If we look at 1980
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-wildfires maybe there’s a change from 1980-2000 vs. 2000-2020. So if you wanted to put variables into your model, you might put changes in fire suppression policies, changes in vegetation conditions, changes in number of ignitions and so on. I think modelers can get more data on changes in veg condition (although remember what we had in 1980 in terms of veg condition info… maybe not so great). It seems to me that they can’t possibly put all the variables into any modeling equation..
And so all wildfire/climate modeling papers have to focus on weather conditions.
1. I think the issues that Patrick Brown posted about make for a good start in a conversation about bias, but it is only a starting point. But as whole I find it very flawed in the conclusion. I see a lot of passionate beliefs/opinions/statements, but he does not provide enough proof for me to validate:
– “I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.” How/Who told him what Nature/Science wanted, how did he know this? Or was it just his belief?
– “And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.”
And what is the analysis to make such a broad sweeping statement? Is there a document from the editors saying these are the preapproved narratives? So run the numbers by me of the approved/unapproved… or is it just obvious…
– “In my paper, we didn’t bother to study the influence of these other obviously relevant factors. Did I know that including them would make for a more realistic and useful analysis? I did. But I also knew that it would detract from the clean narrative centered on the negative impact of climate change and thus decrease the odds that the paper would pass muster with Nature’s editors and reviewers.”
The editors of Nature stated in other news articles that this was not true: (Paywall sorry..) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/06/global-warming-climate-change-scientist-unrealistic-nature/
I could go on but again I think it is a valid issue to explore but his method is not optimal.
2. Thrown on top of the issue of editorial bias/preapproved narrative is his issue of “employing practical adaptation measures” that he feels is being minimized or marginalized:
– “To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.”
– “The first thing the astute climate researcher knows is that his or her work should support the mainstream narrative—namely, that the effects of climate change are both pervasive and catastrophic and that the primary way to deal with them is not by employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning—or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines—but through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
– “This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate paper. The authors should ignore—or at least downplay—practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change.”
Not sure where this takes us when trying to understand the climate change and wildfires, or editorial bias of scientific journals. I think it would be great to have papers written about how and what can mitigate climate change. But mitigation is not the same as solving or understanding the root problem. Sure we can use more air conditioners, build stronger, higher and so one, doesn’t mean the temperature decreases, or sea levels lower, or…
I do think we need to differentiate between a scientific paper trying to expand our body of knowledge and a position/policy paper proposing solutions to problems.
3. Then the basis of the post: “Wildfire-Related Sciences Are Left Out” seems to be a bit more muddled. His paper was published and the editors did raise the point that it was only looking at one factor (climate change). And in a around about way he told us the paper he wanted to publish:
– As a starting point he posted (pertaining to wildfires) “So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause?”
So maybe he is interest in the root cause.
– “I focused narrowly on the influence of climate change on extreme wildfire behavior. Make no mistake: that influence is very real. But there are also other factors that can be just as or more important, such as poor forest management and the increasing number of people who start wildfires either accidentally or purposely. (A startling fact: over 80 percent of wildfires in the US are ignited by humans.)”
OK, so forest management is also a factor in extreme wildfire behavior. (Not sure where he is going with how (human caused) ignition affects wildfire behavior, are human caused fires more extreme than natural fires? I’m lost on that one.) OK so still focused on root cause.
– “In my paper, we didn’t bother to study the influence of these other obviously relevant factors. Did I know that including them would make for a more realistic and useful analysis? I did.”
Good, I think he is looking for the root cause.
– “Shouldn’t we then study how we have been able to achieve success so that we can facilitate more of it? Of course we should. But studying solutions rather than focusing on problems is simply not going to rouse the public—or the press. Besides, many mainstream climate scientists tend to view the whole prospect of, say, using technology to adapt to climate change as wrongheaded; addressing emissions is the right approach.”
Oh, now this sounds like a position/policy paper.
– “Our paper, for instance, could have focused on a simple, intuitive metric like the number of additional acres that burned or the increase in intensity of wildfires because of climate change. Instead, we followed the common practice of looking at the change in risk of an extreme event—in our case, the increased risk of wildfires burning more than 10,000 acres in a single day.
This is a far less intuitive metric that is more difficult to translate into actionable information.”
Now we are talking about action not root cause.
– “A much more useful analysis would focus on changes in climate from the recent past that living people have actually experienced and then forecasting the foreseeable future—the next several decades—while accounting for changes in technology and resilience.
In the case of my recent Nature paper, this would mean considering the impact of climate change in conjunction with anticipated reforms to forest management practices over the next several decades. In fact, our current research indicates that these changes in forest management practices could completely negate the detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires.”
So now we seem to be drifting away for root cause to projecting future conditions. (And Wow, would the USFS love to see your research on forest management changes, have they been published?)
– “You might be wondering at this point if I’m disowning my own paper. I’m not. On the contrary, I think it advances our understanding of climate change’s role in day-to-day wildfire behavior.”
Good, basic research.
– “Now, as a member of a private nonprofit research center, The Breakthrough Institute, I feel much less pressure to mold my research to the preferences of prominent journal editors and the rest of the field.
This means conducting the version of the research on wildfires that I believe adds much more practical value for real-world decisions: studying the impacts of climate change over relevant time frames and in the context of other important changes, like the number of fires started by people and the effects of forest management. The research may not generate the same clean story and desired headlines, but it will be more useful in devising climate change strategies.”
Umm, sounds like what he really wanted to write are strategic policy/position papers.
– “But climate scientists shouldn’t have to exile themselves from academia to publish the most useful versions of their research.”
“Useful versions” yep, policy/position paper.
So I think he really wanted to write a strategic policy paper but went about it in a scorched earth campaign.
Then he ends with:
“but research that actually helps society.”
I agree, but also do not want to limit research to just that. What “helps” society is hard to define, and I’m also content with basic research that may never “help” at this point in time. Understanding the first few microseconds of the big bang may not help society now or anytime soon. But having that knowledge base is important to me to understand the world I inhabit.
I wish Patrick well and hope he continues looking to solutions to mitigate climate change. I also hope there are other equally talented people looking at how to reverse greenhouse gases and climate change not just mitigate the affects. We can have the discussion on what might cost more, mitigating climate change or reversing climate change, but both have a significant cost.