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Cited by 341scientometrics and bibliometrics researchClimate Change Communication and PerceptionPsychology Research and Bibliometrics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 40 of the 40 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Climate Change Research in View of Bibliometrics

Open access
Haunschild, Robin, Bornmann, Lutz, Marx, Werner·2016·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0160393PMC PMC4966958
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Abstract

This bibliometric study of a large publication set dealing with research on climate change aims at mapping the relevant literature from a bibliometric perspective and presents a multitude of quantitative data: (1) The growth of the overall publication output as well as (2) of some major subfields, (3) the contributing journals and countries as well as their citation impact, and (4) a title word analysis aiming to illustrate the time evolution and relative importance of specific research topics. The study is based on 222,060 papers (articles and reviews only) published between 1980 and 2014. The total number of papers shows a strong increase with a doubling every 5-6 years. Continental biomass related research is the major subfield, closely followed by climate modeling. Research dealing with adaptation, mitigation, risks, and vulnerability of global warming is comparatively small, but their share of papers increased exponentially since 2005. Research on vulnerability and on adaptation published the largest proportion of very important papers (in terms of citation impact). Climate change research has become an issue also for disciplines beyond the natural sciences. The categories Engineering and Social Sciences show the strongest field-specific relative increase. The Journal of Geophysical Research, the Journal of Climate, the Geophysical Research Letters, and Climatic Change appear at the top positions in terms of the total number of papers published. Research on climate change is quantitatively dominated by the USA, followed by the UK, Germany, and Canada. The citation-based indicators exhibit consistently that the UK has produced the largest proportion of high impact papers compared to the other countries (having published more than 10,000 papers). Also, Switzerland, Denmark and also The Netherlands (with a publication output between around 3,000 and 6,000 papers) perform top-the impact of their contributions is on a high level. The title word analysis shows that the term climate change comes forward with time. Furthermore, the term impact arises and points to research dealing with the various effects of climate change. The discussion of the question of human induced climate change towards a clear fact (for the majority of the scientific community) stimulated research on future pathways for adaptation and mitigation. Finally, the term model and related terms prominently appear independent of time, indicating the high relevance of climate modeling.

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Figures

Fig 1 Time evolution of the overall number of climate change relevant papers (articles and reviews). The distinct step from 1990 to 1991 does not signal a sudden increase in productivity but solely the fact that the WoS does not include abstracts before 1991. As a consequence, searches using the WoS field tag “topic” in combination with publication years prior to 1991 yield significantly lower hit numbers (frequently one order of magnitude).
Fig 1 Time evolution of the overall number of climate change relevant papers (articles and reviews). The distinct step from 1990 to 1991 does not signal a sudden increase in productivity but solely the fact that the WoS does not include abstracts before 1991. As a consequence, searches using the WoS field tag “topic” in combination with publication years prior to 1991 yield significantly lower hit numbers (frequently one order of magnitude).CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 2 Time evolution of the field-specific climate change related papers published since 1980, based on the main OECD categories assigned. Papers which are assigned to more than one main OECD category are multiply counted.
Fig 2 Time evolution of the field-specific climate change related papers published since 1980, based on the main OECD categories assigned. Papers which are assigned to more than one main OECD category are multiply counted.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 3 Field-specific relative increase of climate change related papers published since 1980, based on the main OECD categories (the number of papers published in 1980 equals 100%).
Fig 3 Field-specific relative increase of climate change related papers published since 1980, based on the main OECD categories (the number of papers published in 1980 equals 100%).CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 4 Time evolution of the papers of the major subfields within climate change research. These research topics comprise 182,594 papers (82.2%) of our publication set (n = 222,060).
Fig 4 Time evolution of the papers of the major subfields within climate change research. These research topics comprise 182,594 papers (82.2%) of our publication set (n = 222,060).CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 5 Title words from bibliographic coupling of climate change papers published within the overall time period 1980–2014. The minimum number of papers containing a specific title word is 20. Readers interested in an in-depth analysis of our publication set can use VOSviewer interactively and zoom into the clusters. The NET and MAP files for the time period 1980–2014 for VOSviewer can be found at http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_20.zip and a Java-based web-runnable version can be started at http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_20_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_20_net.
Fig 5 Title words from bibliographic coupling of climate change papers published within the overall time period 1980–2014. The minimum number of papers containing a specific title word is 20. Readers interested in an in-depth analysis of our publication set can use VOSviewer interactively and zoom into the clusters. The NET and MAP files for the time period 1980–2014 for VOSviewer can be found at http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_20.zip and a Java-based web-runnable version can be started at http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_20_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_20_net.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 6 Title words from bibliographic coupling of climate change papers published a) 1980–1990, b) 2003, and c) 2014. The minimum number of papers containing a specific title word is 10. The coloring of the clusters automatically performed by VOSviewer is different for each map of the three selected publication times. Readers interested in an in-depth analysis of our publication set can use VOSviewer interactively and zoom into the clusters. The NET and MAP files for the three time periods 1980–1990, 2003, and 2014 for VOSviewer can be found at http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_time_periods.zip and Java-based web-runnable versions can be started at http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_early_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_early_net for 1980–1990, http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_middle_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_middle_net for 2003, and http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_late_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_late_net for 2014.
Fig 6 Title words from bibliographic coupling of climate change papers published a) 1980–1990, b) 2003, and c) 2014. The minimum number of papers containing a specific title word is 10. The coloring of the clusters automatically performed by VOSviewer is different for each map of the three selected publication times. Readers interested in an in-depth analysis of our publication set can use VOSviewer interactively and zoom into the clusters. The NET and MAP files for the three time periods 1980–1990, 2003, and 2014 for VOSviewer can be found at http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_time_periods.zip and Java-based web-runnable versions can be started at http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_early_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_early_net for 1980–1990, http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_middle_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_middle_net for 2003, and http://www.vosviewer.com/vosviewer.php?map=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_late_map&network=http://www.fkf.mpg.de/CC4_TI_10_late_net for 2014.CC BY · PubMed Central

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Metadata

Authors
Haunschild, R., Bornmann, L., & Marx, W.
Affiliations
  • Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (DE)
  • Max Planck Society (DE)
Corresponding author
Haunschild, Robin
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2016-07-29
Volume
11
Issue
7
Pages
e0160393
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0160393
PMC
PMC4966958
OpenAlex
W2267732457
Cited by
341
References
39
Citations by year
2026: 29 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 58 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 7
FWCI
20.86
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
Keywords
climate change research, citation impact, climate modeling, climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, climate change vulnerability, climate risk, research topic evolution, journal impact
MeSH terms
Research, Bibliometrics, Climate Change

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