Climate change/global warming/climate emergency versus general climate research: comparative bibliometric trends of publications

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the scientific publication record from 1910 to 2020 on two topics: ''climate'' (CL) and ''climate change/global warming/climate emergency'' (CC/GW/CE). The goal is to comparatively visualize how these two distinct publication records have evolved over time, from different classification perspectives, using publication ratios as the key indicator. It is found that research output related to the Earth's contemporary changing climate overtook that of general climate research in 2010, and the publication ratio (CC/GW/CE)/(CL) has been expanding in the last decade. There are significant differences in the publication countries and sources between the two topics. Differentiation factors that affect the level of research output and engagement on the climate challenge include island versus landlocked nations, specialized versus general scientific journals, academic versus institutional organizations. The future of the publication records is discussed, such as the emergence of new terms to refer to the climate challenge, such as “climate emergency”.

Keywords

• Bibliometric analysis
• Scientometrics
• Human influence on climate
• Natural control of climate
• Improving climate monitoring
• Climate variability