Nope, that's not actually how science works. Rather, that is "formally" how science work. Actual practice is far more messy. Personalities matter, personal bureaucratic clout matters.
And happily, informal communication and message boards matter more than you would think!
Also, the published papers reporting these studies are all easily available. I highly advise reading them for yourself.
snowwrestler, it may vary by field, but my (non-climate) field relied almost entirely on informal communications, presentations, write ups being shared but not published.
I don't have direct experience with climatology, but from what I understand it's somewhat similar: conferences like AGU are really important to climatologists for that reason.
To present (even a poster) at a conference like AGU, you have to submit an abstract and it must be accepted by a committee of other scientists. It's not a paper, but still counts as a form of review and publication.
Edit to acknowledge: obviously a lot of work gets done informally during conferences as well.
But it's in the service of publishable research, is it not? I don't think many scientists are going to say, "I'm changing my research program based on something I read on Hacker News yesterday." There's a bar for serious consideration.
And happily, informal communication and message boards matter more than you would think!
Also, the published papers reporting these studies are all easily available. I highly advise reading them for yourself.