When I was starting out in science journalism in the early 1980s, a writer had three choices to begin reporting a story. You could go to your publication’s wall of dusty encyclopedias of professional and scientific associations, phone directories and other reference tomes lining the walls (in my case, at Science Digest magazine). You could raid a more experienced colleague’s Rolodex. Or you could call the Scientists Institute for Public Information, S.I.P.I, a nonprofit group founded in 1963 and mainly paid for by media companies and foundations to provide, in essence, directory assistance for journalists seeking scientists.

These days, a journalist, or anyone else, can in seconds find heaps of scientists studying glaciology or marine mammal endocrinology or the toxicity of petroleum with a mouse click. But finding someone who’s reliable and appropriate for a particular piece is a tougher challenge.

Avoiding getting an expert more interested in making a policy point than explaining the science is a tough challenge, as well. That was the logic behind the much-discussed paper in this weeks’ edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that aimed in part to clarify which publishing climate scientists are most credible.

Today, the American Geophysical Union announced that it will try to help fill the source gap on climate science. The details are below. It’s great to see any scientific institution these days recognize the importance of deeper involvement in helping foster informed public discourse. As I’ve said a lot lately, traditional journalism, and particularly specialized journalism, is a shrinking wedge of a fast-growing pie of communication.

If academic and professional institutions with lots of expertise on scientific issues of great import shy away from the public arena, they leave that space to other groups that may put some background agenda ahead of accuracy.

Note that the geophysical union is offering up experts expressly in climate science, not policy, which is outside the research focus of its members for the most part. Here’s the group’s news release: