Climate researchers, many affiliated with Rutgers-led consortium, call for changes in how risk projections are reported and replicated
Science is a crucial component of responding to climate change. When results are transparent and research is replicable, they can support more effective adaptation and mitigation.
But the opposite also is true, and according to a new Rutgers-coauthored paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), climate risk analysis is underperforming in some of the most basic expectations of openness.
The study found that of 258 top-cited climate risk papers published in leading climate risk journals in 2021–2022, only 4% shared both their data and the computer code used to produce their results. While many of the journals had guidelines governing data openness, they were at the time rarely enforced, the researchers found.
Robert Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and a coauthor of the PNAS Perspective, said this collective omission limits science’s ability to interrogate and replicate relevant research with the urgency needed.
“When a risk analysis is based on algorithms or code that are not transparent or reusable, it cannot be properly verified,” said Kopp, who directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH), a National Science Foundation-funded consortium at Rutgers whose researchers and affiliates led the study. “Thus, the public is really taking it on faith that the conclusions are valid.”
Read the full story in Rutgers Today.