Scientific knowledge is always in a state of flux; there is simply no such thing as "settled science", peer reviewed or otherwise.
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a branch of the UN that advises governments on the topic of global warming allegedly caused by human greenhouse emissions.
Contrary to common assumption, the IPCC does not deal with the wider topic of climate change in general. And neither is it the role of the scientists who advise the IPCC to conduct new research as such (though some, incidentally, do).
Rather, the IPCC's task is to summarise the established science as represented in the published scientific literature.
On February 3, 2010, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, commenting in The Hindu on the IPCC's 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, said: "Everybody thought that what the IPCC brought out was the gold standard and nothing could go wrong."