Finding Information in the

Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Climate

Sciences

A Historical Perspective

Jean Phillips

Schwerdtfeger Library

Overview

● Literature review

● Searching

● Sources for finding information

● Examining the research problem

● Sample search

● Saving your reserach

Literature review: the essentials

● Formulate a research question

● Search the literature

● Gather, read, analyze, and assess the quality of

the results

● Search and refine

● Write and reference

For detailed information...

For detailed information on putting together a

literature review, the library has created a series of

tutorials:

http://go.wisc.edu/0svhuh

Types of sources

● Experts

● Journals

● Books

● Dissertations

● Encyclopedias

● Digital collections

● Government documents

Finding journal articles

● UW-Madison libraries have licensed many databases

for your use

● Not all articles and information are free and available

from a Google search (most are proprietary)

● Most databases have links to full text articles through

the Find It feature

● AOS subject databases

Deep Web: Proprietary

• According to a study published in Nature, Google indexes no more than 16

percent of the surface Web and misses all of the Deep Web.

• That is, >54% of valuable information is in curated, specialized databases –

many of them public, like NOAA and the U.S. Patent Office, but not

accessible to crawlers for indexing. Much of the rest is proprietary, licensed,

or behind a paywall – like Elsevier journal content.

• “Any given search turns up just 0.03 percent of the information that exists

online (one in 3,000 pages). It’s like fishing in the top two feet of the ocean—

you miss the virtual Mariana Trench below.” Popular Science, 2015

Search strategies

Remember variant word endings, Boolean

connectors,synonyms

Limit search terms to specific fields (title,

author), within a certain proximity to each

other (“”), year ranges

To broaden a search: generalize your

topic, check more databases, limit jargon,

check Web or newspaper databases if

topic is too new

To narrow a search: limit by theoretical

approach, one aspect of subject, by time,

by geographic location

Note controlled vocabularies (link to

similar articles)

Perform search, review results, refine

search, search again, refine search,

search again, export results

Subject databases

● Web of Science

● Meteorological and Geoastrophysical abstracts

(MGA or Met Abstracts)

● Oceanic abstracts

● NTIS (documents from DOD, EPA, NOAA,

NASA, DOE)

Characteristics of government documents

•What are they? Conference literature, government reports, internal reports, reports on

contracts, etc.

•Why are they important? Cited in literature and historically have provided a rapid

means of scientific communication.

•Who publishes them? Agencies, governmental bodies, professional societies, federal

contractors, etc.

•What characteristics do they have? Alpha-numeric report numbers, accession

numbers, grant or contract numbers, sponsoring agency, no commercial publisher,

distributed through facility like NTIS.

•Where can I find them? 1)Libraries: Campus libraries have most reports distributed

2)NTIS, DTIS, NASA, STI 3)Author 4)Issuing agency

The sciences are rich with reports

of government funded research

Define the research question

•How can I trace the historical roots of ENSO (El Niňo Southern Oscillation)?

•Who published the first critical papers?

•How has the theory developed over time?

•Synonyms: ENSO, El Niňo Southern Oscillation, history, bibliography, tropical ocean circulation, phenomena, theory

Search the Catalog

● Yields 22 resources

● Choose “El Niňo theme

page access to

distributed information

on El Niňo”

Record

El Niňo theme page

Check selected references:

Under “Explaining El Nino” we find “Origins” and “Where did the

name El Nino come from” to find further historical information.

El Niňo, La Niňa & ENSO publications

...but these articles only go

back to the late 1960s.

Are there older references?

Going back to the Catalog search...

Obtain a copy and review references for early publications.

Collecting historical references

•1891: Dr. Luis Carranza, Lima Geographical Society, contributed a small article to its

Bulletin, noting a countercurrent flowing from north to south along points on the coast of

Peru – first recorded observations. Named El Nino

FROM THE EL NINO BIBLIOGRAPHY:

•1923: Sir Gilbert Walker names the Southern Oscillation by recognizing that changes

across the tropical Pacific were not isolated phenomena but connected as part of a larger

oscillation

•1969: Jacob Bjerknes, UCLA, first real description of El Niño/Southern Oscillation in

terms of physical mechanisms

•1970s-1980s: S.G.H Philander and K. Wyrtki continue to expand the concept

•1990s

FROM THE EL NINO THEME PAGE:

Using Web of Science for citations

Go to library.wisc.edu, databases, then Web of Science

Hint:

Type in the author’s

last name and first

initial with an asterisk

to retrieve the most

inclusive results

With a cited reference search,

you can discover how a known

idea or innovation has been

confirmed, applied, improved,

extended, or corrected.

Cited author searching

The cited author search will populate all possible

authors given your search criteria

Make your selection, click Finish search.

Then Find It!

Citing articles

Cited author searching, again

Cited author searching, Walker

Cited author search, review article

Metrics: Times cited

Web of Science is the gold standard for citation

metrics. The numbers are reproducible and

generally more reliable than Google Scholar

citations.

Bjerknes bibliography

Who is Bjerknes

citing?

Repeat for Philander, Wyrtki

•Review references from other papers and from the

bibliographies in hand

•Check Web of Science and Met Abstracts for other papers

and cited references

Review

Are all of your sources pointing to the same

articles, giving the same view of the history of El

Nino?

Scopus

Scopus

Philander, SGH 99 84

Walker, GT 67 23

Wyrtki, K. 59 41

Bjerknes, J. 9 2

Comparison of Web of Science and Scopus:

http://go.wisc.edu/73m046

Current literature

Who is publishing on ENSO?

● Refer back to PMEL/TAO pages

● Search the open web for trending news articles

● Search news outlets/databases for announcements

● Search Oceanic Abstracts, Met Abstracts, Web of

Science

Met abstracts, keyword search

Refining your results

Sort by publication,

limit by source type,

subject, or you can

add additional

keywords

Refining your search

More Met Abstracts features

You can also search for Authors individually

using the “Look up Authors” link

Saving your research

● Create an account with the individual database (Met

Abstracts, WoS) so you can save your searches or

create alerts

● Email records

● Export records to a citation manager like zotero,

endnote, mendeley

Citation managers

The libraries provide documentation and

classes on citation managers:

Go to:

http://go.wisc.edu/c4c588

Review research so far...

● Reviewed and compiled results

● Modified searches

● Found articles

Now consider...

● Have you gone back as far as you can go?

● Have you covered the current literature?

Examine other avenues of inquiry

● Weathering the Weather: The Origins of Atmospheric

http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/weather/index.html

● Is there a cross-over between your topic and law, art, social sciences,

environmental sciences, agriculture?

● Newspapers, current and historical:

http://xerxes.library.wisconsin.edu/wisc/databases/subject/newspapers

● Military periodicals and government documents

● National Archives and Records Administration

● Antarctic and Cold Regions Bibliography

● History of Science Databases

● WorldCat for holdings of other major science libraries

Finding dissertations

● A list of dissertation databases can be found here: http://go.wisc.edu/4muhk1

Citation guides

● American Institute of Physics

https://publishing.aip.org/authors

● American Geophysical Union

http://publications.agu.org/author-resource-center/

● Internet Citation Guides (UW-Madison)

http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/citing

● Citing References in Your Paper (Writing Center, UW-Madison)

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/Documentation.html

Overview

● Determine search criteria and keep a notebook detailing what you’ve done and where you’ve looked

● Select database(s) to be searched: MGA, NTIS, Oceanic Abstracts, Web of Science, Scopus

● Look for full text or request articles using Find It

● Set up alerts in databases

● Check the catalog for availability and location

● Schwerdtfeger Library: http://library.ssec.wisc.edu

● Research Guide: Atmospheric/Oceanic/Climate Sciences http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/c.php?g=177688

Ask a librarian

If you have any questions about anything covered here, or

need any research assistance, please contact us:

library@ssec.wisc.edu

Schwerdtfeger Library

Room 317 AOSS

8:30am-5:00pm, Monday-Friday