杏吧原创

A high profile scientific journal is investigating how it came to publish a study suggesting that global warming is down to natural solar cycles. The paper was criticised by scientists for containing 鈥渧ery basic errors鈥� about how Earth moves around the sun.

was published online on 24 June by Scientific Reports, an open access journal run by Nature Research, which also lists the prestigious Nature journal among its titles. A spokesperson told New 杏吧原创 that it is aware of concerns raised over the paper, which was authored by four academics based at Northumbria University, the University of Bradford and the University of Hull, all in the UK, plus the Nasir al-Din al-Tusi Shamakhi Astrophysical Observatory in Azerbaijan.

The authors suggest that Earth鈥檚 1掳C temperature rise over the past two centuries could largely be explained by the distance between Earth and the sun changing over time as the sun orbits around our solar system鈥檚 barycentre, its centre of mass. The phenomenon would see temperatures rise a further 3掳C by 2600, they say.

Ken Rice of the University of Edinburgh, UK, criticised the paper for an 鈥渆lementary鈥� mistake about celestial mechanics. 鈥淚t鈥檚 well known that the sun moves around the barycentre of the solar system due to the influence of the other solar system bodies, mainly Jupiter,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his does not mean, as the paper is claiming, that this then leads to changes in the distance between the sun and the Earth.鈥�

鈥淭he claim that we will see warming in the coming centuries because the sun will move closer to the Earth as it moves around the solar system barycentre is very simply wrong,鈥� adds Rice. He is urging the journal to withdraw the paper, and says it is embarrassing it was published.

Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies聽says the paper聽contains egregious errors.聽鈥淭he sun-Earth distance does not vary with the motion of the sun-Earth system around the barycentre of the sun-Jupiter system, nor the sun-galactic centre system or any other purely mathematical reference point,鈥� he says. He says the journal must retract the paper if it wants to retain any credibility.

Michael Brown of Monash University in Australia .

Following criticism of the paper, lead author Valentina Zharkova, of Northumbria University, described Rice as a 鈥渃limate alarmist鈥� in an .

鈥淭he close links between oscillations of solar baseline magnetic field, solar irradiance and temperature are established in our paper without any involvement of solar inertial motion,鈥� Zharkova told New 杏吧原创.

Scientific Reports says it has begun an 鈥渆stablished process鈥� to investigate the paper it has published. 鈥淭his process is ongoing and we cannot comment further at this stage,鈥� a spokesperson said.