有人抱怨我们的学术讨论不够针锋相对，太痿了，没有活力，压根没有学术争鸣，老外据说显得坚挺一点。没有任何一个工作是完美无瑕的。仔细推敲总能找到一些问题，只是这些问题可能是致命的，也可能是吹毛求疵的结果。刚才在搜索我关注很久的一篇2013年Nature论文（Ecosystem resilience despite large-scale altered hydroclimatic conditions），无意间搜到一篇对此项工作的神评论（Shock News!! Plants Adapt To Water Availability!!!），够犀利的。不知国内如果有人对发表在中国科学上的论文做如此评论会有什么后果。

事实上，13年的这篇Nature论文结论比较有意思，部分数据很漂亮，也比较有说服力，对我目前的工作也很有启发，但对数据分析可能存在重大问题。在去年我向通讯作者去信讨论数据分析部分，一直到现在都还没有得到他们的答复，不知是什么情况。下面，就让我们领教一下这篇神评论：

Shock News!! Plants Adapt To Water Availability!!!

作者以澳大利亚为例进行反驳（澳大利亚没有出现论文作者声称的持续干旱等现象），认为论文作者故意夸大和扭曲事实，一点都不客气的。

No kidding.

The USDA did a study which concluded plants can adapt to extreme shifts in water availability.  I’m pretty sure this has been done before, but mostly people can know this by observation.  It’s not all that tricky.  

From the study’s abstract…..

Ecosystem resilience despite large-scale altered hydroclimatic conditions

We find a common ecosystem water-use efficiency (WUE_e: above-ground net primary production/evapotranspiration) across biomes ranging from grassland to forest that indicates an intrinsic system sensitivity to water availability across rainfall regimes, regardless of hydroclimatic conditions. We found higher WUE_e in drier years that increased significantly with drought to a maximum WUE_e across all biomes; and a minimum native state in wetter years that was common across hydroclimatic periods. This indicates biome-scale resilience to the interannual variability associated with the early twenty-first century drought—that is, the capacity to tolerate low, annual precipitation and to respond to subsequent periods of favourable water balance.

Of course, that doesn’t stop Science Daily from including a proclamation of doom, anyway.

The scientists also used the data to develop predictions about future plant response to climate changes. Their results suggest that ecosystem resilience will decline as regions are subjected to continuing warming and drying trends. They project that this downturn will begin in grassland biomes because these plant communities are particularly sensitive to the hot and dry conditions of prolonged warm droughts.

Both the article and paper suggest that a drier climate is inevitable.  The study included 29 sites in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Australia. I’m not sure how Australia looks, (see below) but in the US there is no discernable trend in wet vs dry.  If anything, it’s been a bit wetter over last 40 years or so.

Well, okay curiosity got the better of me.  Here’s rainfall for Australia from the BOM.

Notice the correlation with Australia’s temps……

Here’s a time series graphic at the bottom of this pic.  Again, from the BOM.  Notice the explicit relationship with ENSO, a naturally occurring phenomena.

Yeh, we are all really doomed to eternal droughts.  Idiots.