Addendum from the editors and publisher of Global and Planetary Change

The article ‘Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere’ by Hermann Harde which was published in Global and Planetary Change at the beginning of 2017 attracted considerable attention due to its flawed content. Three members of the editorial board (Martin Grosjean, Joel Guiot and Zicheng Yu) expressed their concern at the publication of this paper and, with the agreement of the editors and publisher, undertook an independent investigation to determine the reasons why the paper was accepted for publication. The results of that investigation are presented earlier in this document. The Editors and Publisher thank the investigative team for their efforts and support of the journal, and apologise for the lapses made in the peer review process.

Peer review is regarded as the gold standard of quality assurance for scholarly publishing. As long as established procedures are followed and good choices are made, especially with due care and attention taken to deal with failures or limitations that may arise along the way, it should not fail. Occasional failures can happen however; in this case the author selected an editor who was not an expert in the field and that editor invited the reviewers suggested by the author without checking their credentials – the editor was therefore not in a position to perform a sufficiently critical evaluation of the manuscript. The acceptance of the Harde paper and the consequent investigation therefore serve as a reminder that constant vigilance is required by those who use the peer review system to ensure that it delivers consistently high quality results.

After much consideration by the editors at the time of publication, it was felt that the paper should not be retracted, but rather let it remain to stimulate further discussion about such a highly charged and contentious topic. It was also felt that although the implementation of the peer review of this paper had failed, no unethical action has been found in its publication.

The investigation highlighted one of the important functions of an editorial board - to provide the checks and balances required when difficult situations arise. It also provided an opportunity for the editors and publisher to reflect on how the peer review process-is undertaken by Global and Planetary Change and we have taken proactive steps to ensure a more robust approach to peer review in the future. In order to lessen the possibility of introducing bias into the peer review process, authors are no longer able to suggest the names of possible reviewers for their manuscript. To give more credit to the Editors for their work and increase a sense of accountability, published manuscripts will additionally provide the name of the editor who made the final decision. New editors have been brought on board to bring new blood into the system, but critically to ensure the required subject specific knowledge base in this area is met.

As a scientific journal, Global and Planetary Change serves a community where readers and authors hold a wide variety of sometimes very differing or controversial views and should remain scientifically open and neutral. We try to provide the opportunity for all scientists to express their views, even though they might not be the majority and, in a fair and balanced way, stimulate further debate provided that the underlying science is sound and correct. Editors will continue to judge whether a manuscript should be accepted for publication in the journal based on the objective feedback of the peer review process provided by carefully selected experts in the field, and would like to reassure the community that they will exercise the highest standards and vigilance to ensure that GPC remains a forum of robust, trustworthy science and constructive scientific debate.