Nature has retracted 32 papers since 2020, including three in 2024. The retraction today marks the sixth for the journal in 2025. 

Retraction Watch

Authors of the first “Matters Arising” commentary published August 6 noted the article projected the global gross domestic product would be lowered by 62 percent by 2100, “an impact roughly 3 times larger than similar previous estimates.” The authors of the critique also pointed out the PIK authors had used a dataset for Uzbekistan with “anomalies.” By removing the Uzbek dataset, the estimate in the original paper “aligns closely with previous literature,” the critique reads.

In a second Matters Arising, published a week later, Christof Schötz, a researcher at the Technical University of Munich in Ottobrunn, Germany, and a researcher at PIK, argued the analysis in the paper “underestimates uncertainty … rendering their results statistically insignificant when properly corrected.” 

The PIK press office responded to our request for comment from the authors, including more information regarding the new data and where they plan to submit for publication, with a copy of the embargoed retraction notice, as did Nature’s press team. 


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