Why do good papers get few citations?

Have you ever looked at Google Scholar or your ISI Web of Science scores and wondered who was citing your papers and why were they citing them?

After thinking a bit more about why certain papers on my CV have received as much or as little attention through citation, I decided it was time to take action. Therefore, I now present an annotated bibliography of Dave’s Least Cited — But Should Be More Cited — Papers.

The rules to make my list here are that the articles should have fewer than fifteen ISI citations and were published at least five years ago.

1. Schultz, D. M., C. C. Weiss, and P. M. Hoffman, 2006: The synoptic regulation of dryline intensity. Mon. Wea. Rev., 135, 1699-1709.

Thanks to Roger Wakimoto for three of the five citations that this undervalued paper has. It was also nicely featured in Markowski and Richardson’s (2010) book Mesoscale Meteorology in Midlatitudes.

As far as I am aware, this is the first paper to study what the synoptic-scale processes are that create strong drylines. We showed that the strongest drylines were associated with extratropical cyclones over eastern New Mexico, which provided a favorable deformation pattern to tighten the dewpoint-temperature gradient and produce a dryline. No dryline was present when an upper-level ridge was over the region.

This paper ought to be more highly cited because of the emphasis on the dryline as a focus for convective storms, which is a common theme in many published papers. This paper provides the synoptic context for understanding whether the dryline will be strong, weak, or absent. Therefore, it should be cited more than it is.

2. Schultz, D. M., and F. Zhang, 2007: Baroclinic development within zonally varying flows. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 133, 1101-1112.

Two of the five citations were my own. Come on people. This paper is better than that! If you liked the article that came from my PhD thesis (Schultz et al. 1998, Mon. Wea. Rev.), where I showed that Norwegian cyclones were favored in diffluent background flow and Shapiro-Keyser cyclones were favored in confluent background flow, then this article is the natural follow-up and ought to be cited, too.

In Schultz and Zhang (2007), Fuqing Zhang took the standard idealized baroclinic channel model and added large-scale confluence or diffluence to demonstrate that the results using a barotropic model from my Schultz et al. (1998) do not change when going to a primitive-equation model. Also, this paper was able to link the surface frontal evolution (as described above) to the paradigm for upper-level frontogenesis in northwesterly and southwesterly flow that we discussed in Schultz and Doswell (1999, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.) and Schultz and Sanders (2002, Mon. Wea. Rev.).

The synthesis of these two conceptual models for surface frontogenesis and upper-level frontogenesis makes this one of my favorite papers that I’ve written, yet few others seem to have recognized its significance.

3. Verbout, S. M., D. M. Schultz, L. M. Leslie, H. E. Brooks, D. Karoly, and K. Elmore, 2007: Landfalling hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin with and without tornado outbreaks. Meteor. Atmos. Phys., 97, 255-271.

This is another paper published in 2007 that only received five citations. Hmmm, what was it about the papers that I published that year?

My contribution to this work was to demonstrate that tornado outbreaks associated with hurricanes along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico were associated with recurving hurricanes. The recurving was associated with the presence of an upper-level short-wave trough.

Given the recent emphasis on tropical storms, I am disappointed this paper is not more widely recognized. Perhaps it was because we published it in Meteor. Atmos. Phys., which is less well-read by American researchers? (Long story: This paper was originally submitted to an AMS journal, but we had problems with the Editor, so we published it elsewhere.)

4. Schultz, D. M., D. S. Arndt, D. J. Stensrud, and J. W. Hanna, 2004: Snowbands during the cold-air outbreak of 23 January 2003. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132, 827-842.

The likely reason this paper has only been cited 10 times is my own fault. The title lacks any description of what makes this study novel and worth reading. If I were to do it again, then I would retitle it something like “How the seeder-feeder effect can enhance snowfall production in horizontal convective roll clouds”.

This paper was the first documented evidence of how an upper-level cloud likely produced ice crystals that fell into shallow boundary-layer circulations that were generating horizontal convective rolls with clouds on the top. Light snow resulted, which normally would not fall from horizontal convective roll clouds.

Thus, this paper has the potential to be cited by anyone who is studying horizontal convective rolls. In reality, few cite it. This example is a nice lesson in the importance of choosing an appropriate and descriptive title for your paper.

5. Trapp, R. J., D. M. Schultz, A. V. Ryzhkov, and R. L. Holle, 2001: Multiscale structure and evolution of an Oklahoma winter precipitation event. Mon. Wea. Rev., 129, 486-501.

In this article (cited only 11 times), we show the complexity of what is going on from dual-Doppler analysis and dual-polarimetric analysis of a winter storm over Oklahoma. My role was to perform the synoptic and mesoscale analysis to put this storm into context. In there, we were able to show that the convective available potential energy (CAPE) was elevated above the frontal zone. This elevated instability, released by the frontogenesis associated with the frontal zone, allowed the production of a band of snowfall exceeding 10 inches (25 cm) across northern Oklahoma. Also, we showed that where the radar reflectivity was highest was not necessarily where the most precipitation fell.

6. Horgan, K. L., D. M. Schultz, R. H. Johns, J. E. Hales, and S. F. Corfidi, 2007: A five-year climatology of elevated severe convective storms in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Wea. Forecasting, 22, 1031-1044.

Another 2007 paper, and cited only 11 times. And, it is another paper on elevated convection. Given the recent research and operational emphasis on elevated convection (such as with the PECAN field program — Plains Elevated Convection At Night), this paper should be more widely recognized than it is. At its time (and possibly still is), it was the most thorough climatology of elevated severe convective storms in the U.S.

So, there you go. I need your help in getting the attention these papers deserve. Let’s start citing these papers and make this father proud of his underachieving children!

(Image from wastedtalent.com.ar)