Trends in research on global climate change: A Science Citation Index Expanded-based analysis

This study was conceived to evaluate the global scientific output of climate change research over the past 18 years and to assess the characteristics of the research patterns, tendencies, and methods in the papers. Data were based on the online version of Science Citation Index Expanded from 1992 to 2009. Articles referring to climate change were assessed by distribution of source countries, source institutes, paper titles, author keywords, KeyWords Plus, abstracts, and the most cited articles in these years. By synthetic analysis of the four kinds of keywords, it was concluded that the items “temperature”, “environment”, “precipitation”, “greenhouse gas”, “risk”, and “biodiversity” will be the foci of climate change research in the 21st century, while “model”, “monitoring”, and “remote sensing” will continue to be the leading research methods. A novel method, “phylogeography”, may have a strong application potential in the near future.

Research Highlights
► We analyzed 30843 articles in global climate change research from 1992 to 2009.
► “Temperature”, “environment”, and “precipitation” will be the foci of research.
► “Model”, “monitoring”, and “remote sensing” will be the leading research methods.
► A novel method, “phylogeography”, may have a strong presence in future research.