Talk:Climate change/Archive 55

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Archive 53

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Merge from Climate Security

On new page patrol, I noticed a new article entitled Climate Security (with a capital 'S'; not to be confused with Climate security, which redirects to Weather warfare). Before flagging article issues, article name, etc. I thought it would be more sensible to suggest merging it with this article, specifically with the section Global warming#Responses to global warming and/or the sub-articles of that section. Unfortunately, current full protection prevents me from adding {{Mergefrom}}. If the new article is retained, links to it should probably be added to it from this article and from Index of climate change articles. I'm not very happy with the Weather warfare redirect from ~~Global security~~ Climate security either. --Boson (talk) 11:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Err? Why should it be merged into a top-level article, that is already at the edges of being too large? The more relevant articles would be the ones that are summarized in the Responses section: Mitigation of global warming, Adaptation to global warming or into Effects of global warming and Politics of global warming (which isn't summarized in that section - but which may be relevant). I would oppose a merge to this article. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I think CS and Cs should be the same article. Google-wise, it appears to be a popular topic [1]. But I'm not familiar with it. I suspect there is enough there for an article, though William M. Connolley (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"See also" section

Would you please add global cooling in a "See also" section? I think it's really worth mentioning. Thank you very much :) --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly an excellent article. But not particularly relevant here William M. Connolley (talk) 23:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it is related because it is about climate change :) --Mahmudmasri (talk) 23:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

ah, then you want index of climate change articles William M. Connolley (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Mahmudmasri, Global Cooling should be mentioned in the article text as a contrast to the Global Warming/Climate Change theories and should be included in the "See also" section. Mytwocents (talk) 04:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

as a contrast to the. Sigh. Go read the article, realise you're wrong, be outraged and complain to no purpose William M. Connolley (talk) 11:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Support. The opposite of Global Warming is Global Cooling; obviously the mirror image article should be referenced. Freedom Fan (talk) 16:36, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Just for once, please, go and actually *read* the article before commenting William M. Connolley (talk) 22:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Article read. I think a link should be included. Manticore55 (talk) 16:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Global cooling seems to be a favorite with certain bloggers, but I see no reason to reference it in a discussion the scientific aspects of global warming. --TS 08:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Semi please

This thing is supposed to be permanently semi, can someone please fix? William M. Connolley (talk) 08:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I favor full protection right now. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Forcing Global Warming as Fact

Several users continue to revert my edits that simply clarify the state of Global Warming in the scientific community. Global warming is a scientific THEORY. It has yet to be accepted as a law, and is therefore not necessarily true. Please stop trying to slant this article towards the left by attempting to project global warming as fact. I only ask that this article be 100% neutral in its point of view, and present the facts as they are known. It is the job of each individual to make a decision based on accurate scientific facts. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonked116 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

A Scientific theory like the theory of gravity and the Theory of relativity. :-) Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 22:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Please see FAQ #8. The warming of the earth is an observed fact, not a theory, the same way that the fact that apples fall to the ground is an observed fact and not a theory. What is a theory is the cause of this warming, which is not presented as fact in the article: it clearly states "the IPCC concludes". Also, calling something an "unproven theory" is redundant — all theories are unproven — and merely serves to POV-push by stabbing at the credibility of the scientists and others who support this theory. — DroEsperanto (talk) 00:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Lede is (deliberately?) misleading

Discussion ended with conclusion to add a section on pre-human climate change similar to that found when article was promoted to FA

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion ended with conclusion to add a section on pre-human climate change similar to that found when article was promoted to FA

Global Warming has only been occurring since the 20th Century? Hell, that's not only mislead, but it's an outright lie, apparently inserted for the ulterior purposes (advancing left-wing political agendas).

Global Warming is NOT a new phenomenon. In fact, it has been steadily progressing for the last 12,000 years since the last ice age. Warming itself is a loaded term, implying that there is a "pristine"/"correct" temperature. A more accurate term would be "global thawing" as that's precisely what happens when the planet comes out of an ice age. Akulkis (talk) 02:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Earth's climate has been changing for billions of years. It never stays still. There were times it was hotter than now, there were periods when CO2 levels were many times higher than today, go back far enough and the atmosphere's composition becomes completely incapable of sustaining human life. The idea behind this article, the topic being discussed, is alleged man-made warming resulting from/amplified by industrial pollution producing a greenhouse effect. If you think the lede needs to be changed to more directly make this distinction, please share your proposed wording. The purpose of this talk page is to discuss changes to the article. »S0CO^{(talk|contribs)} 02:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You're right, except where you're wrong. Of course the planet's climate has changed in the past. What the lead section is doing is defining the term global warming as it is used today. The term is not normally used with the broader meaning. If you look at the hatnote at the top of the article, it says:

For past climate change, see paleoclimatology and geologic temperature record.

That is intended to redirect people who come to the article expecting an article on the broader theme in paleoclimatology.

Perhaps we could put it better. Any suggestions?

On the argument that current warming is entirely natural, well, this isn't a discussion forum. We describe the scientific consensus as it exists. --TS 03:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

"...We describe the scientific consensus as it exists.". Perhaps. That's why I say, wait two months. Consensus will have changed. • Ling.Nut 05:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The lede is supposed to give a complete definition of the subject. I agree with Jc-S0CO: the current definition is not complete. I also agree with TS: the word is mainly used for the current warming of the global climate. Solution: so say it. The lede should be something like:

Global warming is the warming of the average global climate. The word is mostly used to mean the perceived current rise in global temperatures.

The title should capture the subject of an article. If that isn't possible, we should change the title into something like "global warming (anthropogene)". Having {main|...}} constructions to keep 'unwanted' other meanings (that aren't disambs) out is a form of POV (the link should stay imho, the POV is in the definition or title). Regards, Woodwalker (talk) 05:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think TS has it right, but if needed, perhaps the 1st sentence should read, Global warming is the vernacular name for the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation.--CurtisSwain (talk) 05:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Not quite, and this is Etymology. By 1989 the connotative definition of "global warming" has been well-established.[2] Denotatively, past increases in temperature have been followed by decreases, these are cycles described as paleoclimatology, not "global warming and cooling". Whether the current change will do the same is uncertain and depends on the stabilization scenario (page 17 & 21 [3]), right now the consensus is a "projected continuation". When the consensus changes, the article changes, and not before. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:05, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Some scientists think the current cycle peaked in 1998! The article should reflect desent against 'global warming' NOW. The fact that is doesn't makes it POV. POV is anathama to wikipedia and begs to be made right. This article needs to be balanced and complete (no forking) or it doesn't deserve WP:FA status. Mytwocents (talk) 06:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It certainly doesn't deserve FA-status since it is POV. Anyway, vernacular should never be the source of Wikipedia's content or structure. We should be descriptive, not reflective of popular misunderstanding. Woodwalker (talk) 07:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

<sigh> It's not 'scientists' who misunderstand noisy data with superimposed cycles, it's 'bloggers'. The title refers to a term in everyday use today. It's like trying to hold a sensible conversation in an unruly school corridor here. --Nigelj (talk) 09:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It's like trying to hold a sensible conversation in an unruly school corridor here -> That's what I'm saying. Some of you seem unable to understand what verifiability, balance and NPOV mean for encyclopaedic treatment of scientific subjects like this one. If one billion people say 1+1=3 we should mention it (notability principle), but also mention it to be wrong. Remember Wikipedia is a tertiary source, it should be based on sound secondary sources. So instead of commenting and debating about each other's unimportant POVs till you drop, go to the library, look into trustworthy recent sources on climatology and base the article on them. Ask yourself: in what way is the term "global warming" used in such sources? Then look again at the current content of the article and note it doesn't fulfil the requirements of balance and NPOV. Content doesn't stop with the body text of an article, it also includes the title and lede. Take any writing course and one of the first things you'll learn is that the choice of a title is one of the most important things. Woodwalker (talk) 10:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Strangely enough people have done that (checked usages). And they've come to a different conclusion than you. There are some discussions on this in the archives. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:47, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Woodwalker, if you read rather than rushed, wrote rather than rambled, and reasoned rather than ridiculed—perhaps then your arguments would worth its weight rather than being rubbish and waste. The dictionary definitions (denotation) and usage (connotation) of "global warming" has been well-established for over twentry years.[4] What you're doing is begging the question by arguing the notability and neutrality of an alternative defintion when the alternative definition itself lacks verification. Until you get a source and write a solid arugment to support it—this discussion simply has no substance. ChyranandChloe (talk) 15:21, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I never imagined to run into ABF behaviour, but considering the general level of discussions at this TP, I should probably have been prepared for some rude remarks. Actually, I did take the time to read the literature before I "rushed", "rambled" or "ridiculed". I'd never accuse people of introducing imbalance without doing thorough groundwork myself. Since I never contested the fact of the vernacular usage, I'll concentrate on scientific sources. My scientific dictionaries have no entries on global warming, though I admit I don't have a dictionary for climatology. My first choice of handbook for climatology is Ruddiman. This source has a couple of chapters on the thing described by this article, and calls it "global warming in the twentieth century" and the surrounding scientific and political disagreement the "greenhouse debate". When it uses the term "global warming", it only does so in a general sense. Unfortunately, the term is not included in its glossary. However, the same usage occurs in my other handbooks: Stanley, Levin (handbooks on Earth history) and Harrison & de Mora (atmospheric geochemistry handbook, see pp 270-271). All of these sources use the word global warming somewhere, but only in a general sense, so explicitly not only for the current trend. If they do describe the current trend, they call the phenomenon anthropogene global warming ("the anthropogene" is also an unofficial denomination of time), recent global warming, late Holocene global warming, etc. Rothschildt & Lister (book about influences on biological evolution) have an entry "global warming" in their glossary: they define it as a general form of climate change, so not restricted to the last period in Earth History. Because this book is off-topic, you can forget about it though.

Refs:

Harrison, R.M. & de Mora, S.J.; 1996: Introductory chemistry for the environmental sciences (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-48-450-2.
Levin, H.L.; 2003: The Earth through Time (7th ed.), Wiley, ISBN 0-470-00020-1.
Rothschild, L.J. & Lister, A.M.; 2003: Evolution on Planet Earth, Academic Press (Elsevier), ISBN 0-12-598655-6.
Ruddiman, W.F.; 2001: Earth's Climate, Past and Future, Freeman, ISBN 0-7167-3741-8.
Stanley, S.M.; 1999: Earth System History, W.H. Freeman & Co, ISBN 0-7167-2882-6.

Before I contributed to this TP yesterday, I went to the library and checked about five more recent scientific textbooks, most of them more specialized in current global warming than those on my own book shelf. They all confirmed the conclusion I drew from my own books. If you're interested, I can give the other references too (I didn't write them down yesterday). If you still trust more in what you find on the internet or in endless TP archives I'll graciously pull out of this discussion and remove this TP from my watchlist as an example of a hopeless case. I believe that this is exactly the type of thing that makes Wikipedia being "ridiculed" by readers with a professional background though. Kind regards, Woodwalker (talk) 18:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the horse dead yet? I think so. Everyone, please stop responding to Woodwalker and this will remove the incentive for him to continue this "debate." Rev. Willie Archangel (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Contributing on this talk page can be a nightmare. Woodwalker is only adding to a discussion that he didn't start. He has a fair point about the title, I don't think many of the people here would choose it if they were starting such a page now. However, I think that the subject of the title has been discussed endlessly previously and that there is a consensus that it's the least worst of those on offer (someone will correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't been watching this page for long enough to be certain). No reason (apart from bitter experience I suppose) to ABF when someone new turns up. Mikenorton (talk) 19:47, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think Woodwalker has a good point, although we need to keep in mind WP:COMMONNAME:

Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article....instead of a more elaborate, formal or scientifically precise alternative

The title is in no way misleading given the hatnotes. However, I see no problem with changing the title to Global warming (anthropogene), Anthropogenic global warming, or even Human-cause global warming (with a Global warming disamb). We could even change the first sentence to read, Global warming is the term commonly used to describe the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Or, just leave it like it is. This whole "issue" is rather pedantic and splitting hairs.--CurtisSwain (talk) 20:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Could we please use English? Reading the above I'm trying to wade through a comment that refers to "ABF behavior." If this is a Wikipedia term, please understand that I'm a Wikipedian of some five year standing, and *I* didn't know what ABF means. Imagine what a newcomer thinks.

Looking carefully around Wikipedia I realize that the writer means "assumption of bad faith." This is a perfectly good English term. Why replace it with gobbledygook? --TS 22:21, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Woodwalker you're wrong. Curtis you should be more careful. Harrison & de Mora, pp. 170-171, doesn't use "anthropogene global warming", anywhere, even when attributing it.[5] There are 18 instances of "global warming" in Stanley, Levin, but no "anthrogene global warming".[6] There are 11 instances of "global warming" in Rothschildt & Lister, none use "anthrogene global warming".[7] You realize that there's a difference between (1) the title "anthrogenic/anthrogene global warming", and (2) using anthrogenic (human-induced is more common from source) and global warming in the same sentence, right? Furthermore these sources aren't even authorities within the climate field. I'm getting sick of vetting haphazard research with confirmation bias overtones. Curtis see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC there isn't a distinguishable "other topic" here that would justify a disambiguation. ChyranandChloe (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Oops, my bad. Thanks for setting things straight. So, we'll just go with WP:COMMONNAME and leave everything as is. Case closed. End of discussion.--CurtisSwain (talk) 23:15, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the original poster of this topic. The definition is suited only towards the AGW proponent community. The definition is not helpful towards those who are either neutral or undecided on the AGW theory. Obviously, the definition is also wrong for detractors as well. Can't we come up with a neutral definition? Theories are theories and should be defined that way. Commercial marketing strategies and political movements are what they are, and can be defined accordingly. So why not split up with disambiguation? To User CurtisSwain, by what authority do you rule discussion has ended and you close a case? -- Knowsetfree (talk) 03:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

@ChyranandChloe: You don't read well or you are misreading my arguments on purpose. I wrote my first choice of handbook for climatology is Ruddiman. This source has a couple of chapters on the thing described by this article, and calls it "global warming in the twentieth century" and the surrounding scientific and political disagreement the "greenhouse debate". When it uses the term "global warming", it only does so in a general sense. Do you contest that? If you think this source is off-topic, please say so too. Further, I think Levin nor Stanley aren't exactly off-topic, since climate change is an important part of the subject of Earth history. I hope this shows that referring to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is WP:WIKILAWYER-ing, so please cool down and start reading and reasoning. Since I don't have many climatology books here at home, I went to the library. I forgot to write down the refs. However, I'll return to the library as soon as possible and give the other refs too. You'll find them way more on-topic, yet I have the feeling it's not going to convince you anyway.

I may have found the term "anthropogene" in a book I didn't cite yet, it was just a general example and I gave more. No idea why you picked only that particular example, it wouldn't be my favourite choice for the title of this article anyway. My examples were meant to show a more important fact: the term "global warming" is only used in a general sense (so not only for the current trend) in all of these sources. Do you contest that fact? Wherever I looked, I couldn't find a single recent scientific source using it in the way it is used here. For all I see, this "general sense" I find in all the sources is the "other topic" you find missing. However, please tell us what your sources are because you seem to hold back information that clarifies things. Do your sources deny there is a topic of global warming in, say, the Eocene? Eocene global warming is a big topic in climatology and there are hundreds of papers written on it every year. At the moment I think the current title doesn't only go against the principle of verifiability, but it also makes little sense, except for the argument of vernacular usage.

@CurtisSwain: I don't object to WP:COMMONNAME, nor do I disagree with it. I believe that guideline doesn't apply in this case though. We're not talking about an alternative, simpler word for the same thing, because the simple meaning of the term "global warming" is... global warming. No indication of time there, it's not restricted to the 20th century. See WP:KISS (in this case for content, not policy). Woodwalker (talk) 06:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

PS: we should be careful when using google books. When I referred to Harrison & de Mora, I was referring to a section covering pp 270-271. The word "global warming" is used only on page 271, which unfortunately isn't included in Google's online scan. Quote p 271:

However, if conditions were to change such that more energy was absorbed in the troposphere, less energy would be lost back to space. Eventually a new energy balance would be established, but at a slightly higher ambienet temperature. Such a scenario could be envisaged if the concentration of IR-absorbing gases increased. As this is indeed the case for several important greenhouse gases, a trend toward global warming is thus anticipated. This is at best a first order approximation as, of course several other considerations ultimately influence the climate (especially the hydrological cycle: evaporation, condensation and cloud cover). My point being that, even though this is about the current situation, the term "global warming" is deliberately used in a general sense. Woodwalker (talk) 06:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, some good points have been made here, so it seems the best thing to do is simply change the 1st sentence to read, Global warming is the term commonly used to describe the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Just to make things abundantly clear. So, if nobody objects…--CurtisSwain (talk) 09:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have become aware of this dispute when I saw Woodwalker's frustrated wikibreak notice. (I have been watching his talk page since the time when he was doing excellent work on North Sea and I was doing research on Doggerland that unfortunately still hasn't found its way into the Doggerland article.) Some comments:

(1) I don't agree with the tone and subtext of the original poster.

(2) I do agree with Woodwalker.

Doggerland is a former cultural centre that is now submerged under the North Sea. When I researched this topic, as far as I remember most sources used words such as "global warming at the end of the last glaciation" to refer to the event that first allowed human civilisation to spread northward starting from southern Europe (see Last Glacial Maximum refugia), and then quickly submerged part of the area where they had just started settling. For an example of these sources see Global Warming and Lost Lands: Understanding the Effects of Sea Level Rise. ([P]eople might well pause for thought if they realised that, between 10,000 and 7,000 BC, global warming raised sea levels and swallowed a vast, inhabited plain that had stretched without break from England to Denmark – an area so large that, effectively, Europe lost an entire country.)

Since we are very likely going to experience global warming that happens even more rapidly than that which is already known to have had very strong effects at the end of the last glacial maximum, some researchers are beginning to work on global warming and its effects in the past.

Global warming among geo-scientists refers to the general phenomenon, not just to contemporary global warming. You can see this by doing a Google Books search on exact phrases such as "paleocene global warming" or "ordovician global warming". All the sources I found that use the term in this general way are relatively recent, so it may be the case that the term first came up in connection with man-made global warming but was immediately generalised by scientists.

In any case defining "global warming" as only what we are (or at least may be) facing now is problematic for the following reasons:

It's apparently not the definition used among the relevant scientific community.
Among the two competing definitions it's the less natural one and the one that leads to clumsy formulation if enforced. (E.g. we would have to say silly things such as the submersion of Doggerland having been caused by an "analogue of global warming".)

Perhaps the ideal solution would be something close to the following:

This article can still be primarily about man-made global warming.
It could start with something like the following: "Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. More generally the term can also refer to similar events that happened at various times in the past."
In any case the article needs a section about global warming in the past, especially at the end of the last glaciation: its speed, and the beneficial and catastrophic effects it had. If this material grows to the point that it needs its own article it can move to something like global warming in the past. Hans Adler 21:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

PS: When researching the meaning of the term "global warming" it's important to keep in mind the following facts:

"Global warming" only needs an explicit definition if it refers to something other than its plain meaning, i.e. if it is restricted to recent and near future global warming.
Even authors who are aware of the more general meaning of the term may well restrict its meaning in publications that only deal with the most important instance of it. This can be done with subtle clues rather than explicit explanations.
Since publications about global warming in the past are by far outnumbered by publications related to the projected global warming, we get distorted results if we simply look for uses of the term and determine in each instance whether it refers to the general or restrictive meaning. Hans Adler 21:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Putting aside the tone of earlier comments by others, my reaction to this is that you have a point. But the article is way too long as it is...hmm --BozMo talk 21:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

We are not going to get around this anyway. If we want to get a good idea of what happens when the temperature and the sea levels rise, we must look at what happened in the past in this situation. After all this has happened dozens, if not thousands of times (not sure how often, as I am not a geologist). We must look into the past if we want to answer questions such as whether in England it will get colder in the short run due to the Gulf stream changing its course. Or how fast flora and fauna can follow the changing climate. Without this information the article is incomplete, whether we call past periods of global warming "global warming" or not. That's what WP:Summary style is for. I notice it's been used for effects of global warming already. It gives us the flexibility to summarise some topics more briefly without really losing any information. And a short new paragraph or two may be all that is required here anyway, with more in global warming in the past. Hans Adler 21:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hans' suggestions make a lot of sense to me. The language he suggests for the definition would strengthen it significantly without adding all that many words. The article is long, but a short paragraph is probably all that's needed, with a link out to a more detailed article if that becomes appropriate. It will strengthen the article and, as I read it now, most of the current text doesn't seem to implicitly assume a mid-20th century start date for "global warming."EastTN (talk) 21:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no objection in principle to including further mention of palaeolithic global warming events in this article (over and above the existing, very clear hat-note). But we must not forget the very present-day political posturing of the original post and that of many of those who have waded into this discussion to date as well. It hugely suits uninformed 'flat-earth' climate change sceptics (not my words and very topical) to be able to latch onto half-understood half-facts to help them argue that there's nothing to stop us continuing our disastrous life-style of greed and pollution with no requirements to change it. Therefore we need, in the same breath, very carefully to distinguish the relatively rapid warmings at the ends of the LGM and the Younger Dryas from that which is current. (a) they were fast, but not nearly as fast as what is forecast (b) they happened when large parts of the current temperate regions were uninhabitably covered in ice sheets, so warming was a clear benefit to water-based lifeforms like ourselves, (c) they happened at a time when humans were completely nomadic with no fixed structures, let alone property ownership, civil infrastructure, or total dependence on industrial mass production (including that of food). Finally (d) they happened with a total global human population of a few tens or hundreds of thousands compared to the current 6 and projected 9 billion of us crowded onto the modern planet. There's a lot of words involved in researching and explaining all this with accurate figures and references. --Nigelj (talk) 22:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying, but honestly, I think Wikipedia is best served if we focus on the fullest, easiest to understand, and most neutral presentation of all the issues without worrying about whether someone could take a sentence or factoid out of context and misuse it. The fact of the matter is that they can - and someone will, on both sides. So why don't we just forget about that and focus on doing the best job we can for the average Joe who just wants to learn about what we know, what we don't know, and what people on both sides are saying? EastTN (talk) 22:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hans has the best solution. All we need to do is start the article with...

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. More generally the term can also refer to similar events that happened at various times in the past.

or maybe even...

Global warming is the term commonly used to describe the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. More generally the term can also refer to similar events that happened at various times in the past.

That should make it perfectly clear to the average Joe that the article is in no way implying that Global Warming has only been occurring since the 20th Century. There's no need to add anything about past warming, because the hat notes, with their subsequent linkage to Historical impacts of climate change provide for that. We just add a few simple words, and that should stop any accusations about the article being "misleading". --CurtisSwain (talk) 00:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

No. "Global warming," when used without further qualification, refers to the current period. When applied to other periods it has to be specified that it's not applied to the modern period. The meanings of terms cannot always be back-constructed from their individual elements, much as "anti-semitism" does not refer to prejudice against semitic peoples. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"Global warming" without further qualification or context does in fact refer to the current period. That's a result of how language works. Definitions in encyclopedias work differently. "Anti-semitic" is not a good example because of the political issues and because a general hate against semitic peoples, if this even exists, is so insignificant that we don't need a word for it. A better example is America, which, as you will note, is not a redirect to United States of America because that's not how it works in an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are a bit more pedantic. Or take mathematics. For most people it's just calculations with numbers, but that would be a totally inadequate restriction of the definition in the context of an encyclopedia. (I am familiar with the problem of the etymological fallacy, but I am sure I didn't fall prey to it.)

I honestly don't see what the problem is. The term is defined according to currently accepted usage, and those who come to the article for other purposes will know where to go from the hatnote. --TS 02:06, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

This is "Global warming", not "paleocene global warming" or "ordovician global warming". Average readers won't be looking of past global warmings, and if they are, paleoclimatology is better place to start than throwing them into specific time periods.
Does the second definition warrant exposure? I don't think so. If the warming isn't associated with the current change, then it needs to be qualified to do so. And if the term is qualified, then we're not on the same topic as we were before, are we? This is why Geologic temperature record is a hat note, it's to cover the general definitions without assuming the reader's knowledge on specific warmings.
Curtis, your proposal seems to be a verbose version of "For past climate change[/global warmings], see...", which (a) gets an even broader sense down, (b) names the articles that best describes it, and (c) with fewer words.

ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound a bit negative, but it looks to me as if the latest responses are by people who didn't actually read my explanation and proposal in detail. I know it's TLDR, or at least close, but that's at least in part because I had to explain what is unusual about the situation, and because when commenting at this article for the first time I felt it particularly important to be completely open about my motivations and demonstrate good faith.

When I said above that I agree with Woodwalker that was misleading because most people seem to have misunderstood Woodwalker. The point (of Woodwalker and me; I am not talking about the original poster of this section) is not to change the title of this article, hijack it for a different topic, or push a POV; the point is to

avoid giving a formal definition of the term "global warming" that is much more restrictive than another one used in the relevant academic community, and give the impression that it's the only valid one; and
make this article more complete by discussing the relation between present and past global warming adequately (i.e. in a few sentences).

These two problems must be addressed because they make the article wrong. (I don't like to use "POV" in this context because there seems to be no real difference in POV between me and those who are responsible for this defect in the article.)

Here are some of my key points again, in bullet form, and a few new ones:

We must distinguish between global warming in general, and present-day global warming.
The most natural term for present-day GW is "global warming".
The most natural term for past/general GW is "global warming". (And in contrast to "hate of semitic peoples", which was made up as part of a political attack against the word "anti-semitic", the term is used by relevant experts because there is an actual need to express past/general GW.)
This article currently only hints that past GW may ever have occurred: "Variations in solar output have been the cause of past climate changes, but solar forcing is generally thought to be too small to account for a significant part of global warming in recent decades."
The article claims that the term "global warming" can only refer to the recent phenomenon. This claim is not only verifiably false because it contradicts the usage in many sources, it is not even verifiable itself. (Obviously I am using "verifiable" in the technical sense, so that two claims that contradict each other may both be verifiable. Also see new subsection below.)
An analogous phenomenon can be observed in global cooling. Our article only discusses an obsolete hypothesis that continues life as a minority/fringe opinion. It does not discuss the overwhelming majority [8] of uses of the term in the scientific literature and gives the impression that these uses are incorrect or mere analogies. (In a weird way this is a form of recentism.)
While we may not need an article on general global cooling, general (especially past) GW is becoming a 'hot' research field, highly relevant to this article. I believe it deserves its own article, and in any case the matter must be mentioned (summarised) here.
To demonstrate how incomplete the article is w.r.t. everything that even touches on general GW: Nowhere (not even in the section on expected environmental affects) does it mention that the expected rate of global warming and sea-level rise is much higher than that of past GW. This is of course highly relevant because it leads to a dramatically higher extinction risk from global warming than in those past events.

Hans Adler 10:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I concur with the key points enumerated by Hans Adler. Freedom Fan (talk) 17:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Misleading claim in first sentence

The article's first sentence currently claims that "global warming" only refers to GW since the 20th century. This is not only false, I couldn't even find a source for this claim. For obvious reasons I am reluctant to add a fact tag to the first sentence, but I will do it if within a week or so the claim is still there and no adequate source for it has materialised. An adequate source for (formally) 'verifying' this claim would be a sufficiently reliable source that defines or at least uses "global warming" only in the restricted sense, even though it also discusses past or general GW or in other ways clearly operates in a sufficiently general context. Hans Adler 10:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It's now clear to me from searching for "global warming" in connection with "pleistocene" on Google Scholar that even most sources that discuss primarily past GW use "global warming" without qualifier to refer to present GW. However that's original research on language use. In my personal opinion increased research of "[geological epoch] global warming" will lead to a generalised notion of "global warming" that is more suitable for scientific debate than the current notion. This kind of thing happens with new scientific terms all the time, and cautious scientists don't cement a certain word usage before it has become stable. Because of our influence we shouldn't do this either, and the mechanism that is supposed to prevent us from doing it is the prohibition of original research: We can only present such a usage explicitly as the correct one after a scientist has done it. Hans Adler 10:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Yet another round of fiddling with the lede text will not solve anything. It would be better for you to admit that your problems with the article aren't that you don't quite like the wording of the defn, but that fundamentally you don't agree with the science described William M. Connolley (talk) 11:36, 5 December 2009 (UTC) The first sentence is correct. The rest is entirely unjustified. Striking; full apology on HA's talk page William M. Connolley (talk) 19:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I contacted William M. Connolley on his talk page, but he seems to have logged out after making this comment. I am confident there will be a retraction or removal of this comment, but in the meantime: It would of course not be "better" for me to "admit" something that is manifestly wrong. Hans Adler 12:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm cool now. I decided to come back. If I leave now, that would mean giving up the ideal of improving Wikipedia's content beyond the level of its rudest/most narrow-minded contributors. Yet it's a shame to see how little ability some people here have to read or understand sources or others' contributions to this talk page, or to understand the principles behind quality of content. "True believers", users introducing or defending POV, are often doing so because they believe what they do is "morally right", not because they have bad intent. Despicable tactics I've experienced so far on this talk page include:

Giving an opinion about a comment without understanding or even reading it;
Openly rude behaviour such as framing or personal insults (do you understand how it feels to be called "fiddling", while you come with reasonable new arguments?);
Declaring a discussion to be closed without reading it or comprehending it;
Wiki-lawyering of all kinds, misinterpretation of guidelines;
Deliberate mal-citation (a link was posted to scholar.google yesterday, meant to disprove an argument. When I studied that link in detail, I found all google's results were actually comfirming the argument).

Shame on you. Do you really think to make a neutral, worthy source of information for our children and children's children in this way? This type of behaviour is the pest to Wikipedia, it prevents the process of intelligent inquiry and therefore the growth of the quality of Wikipedia's content. However, I now understand what it means to contribute on this talk page and I will be prepared for any such tactics in the future. When it happens again, I will ask for excuses to be made immediately and point out the invalidity of such tactics.

In this case the past contributions of another POV-pusher, including multiple sockpuppetry, seem to have driven some into an aggressive, defensive stance. I think that's understandable and honestly wasn't aware of it before. However, I would like to urge all to drop their defensive attitude, because you are becoming an obstacle to helping this article become NPOV.

@Hans Adler: thanks for writing out my arguments yet again. My main argument was that in recent, on-topic scientific sources, global warming is used for the general warming of the Earth's climate and oceans. There is no reason to have a more elaborate definition in use here, such as limiting it to the 20th century. As of yet, I haven't seen that argument being refuted. Again I would like to point to the fact that Wikipedia is a tertiary source and content should as such be based on recent, on-topic secondary sources to meet the requirements of verifiability and balance.

I've also brought to your attention the textbook by Ruddiman, which distinguishes between "global warming" (a general process) and the "greenhouse debate" (the scientific and political debate about current global warming, we have the article global warming controversy for that). I haven't seen any arguments yet why this source shouldn't be considered valid here. Seeing these arguments, the most logic step is imho to add a section on "global warming in the past" to this article and make the lede simpler, more general and easier to understand. Woodwalker (talk) 13:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

You couldn't find a source for the fact that "global warming" refers to the modern period? How hard did you look? Try a dictionary, for example.[9] As for scientific usage it's clear you have little familiarity with the relevant literature.

Sure, if you dig hard enough you can find examples where "global warming" is used for other periods. But per WP:COMMONNAME that's not on. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:57, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Please try not to be personal in your comments (assuming cherry picking or unfamiliarity with the subject is assuming bad faith), try to discuss content only. If you object to my sources, please give your arguments instead of insulting me. I told you before I don't dispute the vernacular usage of "global warming" (see above, 18:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC)) and I see no reason why a common online dictionary wouldn't reflect anything else but vernacular usage. Not an appropriate source for climatology. I told you before why WP:COMMONNAME doesn't apply in this case (see above, 06:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)). Woodwalker (talk) 15:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Look at the scientific literature then, and you'll see that you're still wrong. Don't just search for the examples that support your argument but look at the prevalence of usage across the literature. (Aside: I find it ironic that an editor who routinely derides other using terms such as "true believers" and "despicable tactics" should complain of assuming bad faith, but whatever.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Boris, thanks for the Merriam-Webster link. I am currently without my dictionaries, and therefore a bit handicapped in that respect. I can't speak for Woodwalker, but I didn't even think about the possibility that the term might already be in general dictionaries. I accept this as a sufficient source. This kind of source isn't really suitable for references in the article, so the lack of a reference is not a defect. Presumably someone has pointed out such a dictionary definition before and I could have found it by wading through the archives. That's two ways in which I could have found this on my own. I apologise for not having done my homework. Of course I am not going to add a fact tag now I am aware of this.

On the other hand, please make sure not to oversimplify things. We are discussing the first sentence, not the title. The topic and title of this article are perfectly fine. There is also a slightly more general topic that might get an article at some time, which would then also have a claim to the same title, also by WP:COMMONNAME. In that case per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC the present article would have precedence over the more general one.

But the title has nothing to do with the two problems. This article pretends that the more general meaning doesn't exist, or is wrong. (Merriam-Webster proves that the restricted meaning exists and is the primary one. Obviously it can't prove that it's the only meaning; only an up-to-date technical dictionary for the geosciences could do that.) We just need something like the last sentence in the first paragraph of equator. ("The equators of other planets and astronomical bodies are defined analogously.") And this article is incomplete in that it doesn't discuss the extremely noteworthy question of the projected rate of current global warming compared to earlier periods of global warming. Hans Adler 16:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(Editing conflict with Hans Adler) That's what I did: I checked here available secondary scientific literature for climatology and related subjects. The term "global warming" is in such literature used in a general sense. It is only used in the specific sense (20th century) when that is clear from the context. I then posted my first comment here to show what I found. Though I did do a minor in atmospheric geochemistry, I won't say I'm an expert in climatology so I wouldn't have edited the article directly (apart from it being protected for the moment). I went to the talk page instead. To my surprise, I got irritation, personal attacks and superstitions instead of constructive comments. Woodwalker (talk) 16:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for being curt but I had previously noted the dictionary definition in the latest round,[10] as I had done in earlier rounds (see archives). One gets tired of the same old arguments but that's not an excuse for getting snippy. Anyway, I'd be OK with an aside that "the term occasionally has been used for earlier periods" or the like. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If the Global Warming page is the about the theory of recent warming of the earths climate, then is should say so, clearly, in the lede. This previously posted example by another editor works for me;

Global warming is the term commonly used to describe the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. More generally the term can also refer to similar events that happened at various times in the past.

Mytwocents (talk) 17:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Boris, as I said, missing the dictionary definition was very obviously my mistake.

Your suggestion would certainly work for me as a solution to the first problem. Regarding the second problem, I wondered how this article was ever featured with this (to me) blatant gap and had a look at the two milestone versions:

May 2006: The version in which the article got its star.
May 2007: The version in which the article passed its FA review.

It is interesting that the FA version had a long section "Pre-human global warming", that the FA review version had a much smaller section "Pre-human climate variations", and nothing is left in the current version. However, I am not exactly thrilled by these old sections, and they don't discuss the aspect that I think is missing in the current article. It is also interesting that the FA version talked about pre-human "global warming", and that the FA review version had difficulty talking about the same topic because it avoided using the term in its more general meaning. Hans Adler 17:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for digging out the old versions (though the "Pre-human global warming" sections are a bit misc). I note we used to say The term 'global warming' is a specific case of the more general term 'climate change' (which can also refer to cooling, such as occurs during Ice ages). In principle, 'global warming' is neutral as to the causes, but in common usage, 'global warming' generally implies a human influence. However, the UNFCCC uses 'climate change' for human-caused change, and 'climate variability' for other changes [2]. Some organizations use the term 'anthropogenic climate change' for human-induced changes. In fact I'm fairly sure I wrote that. I also recall objecting to its departure but I was overruled (so much for ultimate power :-(). If we *did* have that back, adding a bit about pre-human warming to that would be natural. And this article is incomplete in that it doesn't discuss the extremely noteworthy question of the projected rate of current global warming compared to earlier periods of global warming - on first blush, this sounds like a fair point too William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

@William M. Connolley: the old definition was a lot better indeed. It's probably with its removal that the imbalance was introduced.

Actually, I don't normally object to using Merriam-Webster as a source (I have a paper version myself), even for scientific subjects. However, in this case I do and I'll try to explain why. Merriam-Webster is a tertiary source, it uses the same secondary scientific sources we should use. The "secondary" scientific literature uses "global warming" to describe the processes by which the temperature in the oceans and atmosphere rises. It doesn't make a difference between say, the Ordovician or the 20th century for a simple reason: these processes are supposed to be the same (with the exception of the anthropogenic influence on CO₂). Only specific scientific literature uses the words "global warming" in a time-restricted sense - logical, because these papers are about that certain restricted period of time. I'm confident thatliterature about say, Cretaceous global warming, uses the term "global warming" (without "Cretaceous") because the context is clear (I haven't checked this specific example though).

I think it would be strange to have two articles describing exactly the same thing, with the only difference that one is for the 20th century (and includes the question of human influence) and one is for the Cretaceous. Another example: in palaeoclimatology, the emergence of large scale forests during the Carboniferous and consequent burial of carbon (in the form of organic material) is supposed to have been directly responsible for the Karoo Ice Age during that period. It's the same hypothesis (carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere being related to average global temperatures) that's used by climatologists to explain the current global warming, except for working in the opposite direction. This is the second reason why past global change is important to the subject of present global warming: it is strong scientific evidence for the correlation between [CO₂] and the global temperature (apart from the problem of the definition, a sentence about this evidence is worthy of inclusion).

Of course vernacular usage is almost solely limited to the 20th century, since that is the most obvious subject of media coverage and popular discussions. In this case I think Merriam-Webster made a mistake, they somehow missed the wider usage. That wider usage is not my opinion, as far as I can judge it's a fact (see for example Ruddiman) and we shouldn't copy their mistake. Woodwalker (talk) 05:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Let's face it, from a common-sense pov, global warming is when the world gets warmer and global cooling is when the world gets cooler. Just referring to the current episode as the ONLY example of global warming is, indeed, misleading, even if the current episode is more severe than past episodes. Also, nuclear winter, volcanic winter, ice ages, etc., could be considered periods of global cooling, and warm periods and thermal maxima could be considered periods of global warming. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:15, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Please read the above discussion. TLDR: the hatnotes concede that this isn't the only period of global warming, and when people say "global warming" they generally mean the current man-made kind. Being any more explicit tends to give weight to the POV that "global warming has happened before, this isn't really a big deal, it's just natural variations in the earth's climate", which is fringe. — DroEsperanto (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

NASA spece probe

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Reference desk is the right place for factual queries. Please use this page to discuss the article.

I think NASA is going to launch a probe to measure global warming more directly. I couldn't find out anything about it in the article. Should this be in there? And can someone point me to info about the probe? Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 03:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

It’s probably a satellite rather than a probe. You might want to check Eyes on the Earth [11], NASA main web sight for global warming/climate change.--CurtisSwain (talk) 08:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is either. A satellite orbits the Earth; a probe escapes the Earth's gravity well. This thing goes to a Lagrange point, so it doesn't fit either definition. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 18:15, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't find it - there are many of them. It was built during the Bush administration, but Bush would not allow it to be launched so NASA put it into storage until this administration. I think it was to go to a Lagrange point and directly measure how much of the warming is due to the Sun, getting a definitive measure of the amount due to humans. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 01:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I found it by looking at objects at Lagrange points: Deep Space Climate Observatory. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 01:56, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The Eyes on the Earth website given above has so many satellites that I think it would have an article listing them. Is there such an article (i.e. probes/satellites that study GW)? Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 03:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The closest we have is probably Satellite temperature measurements, but there's lots more to measuring climate change than microwave temperature retrievals. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Started a new article, List of climate research satellites. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I like it, but Deep Space Climate Observatory isn't listed. Bubba73 ^{(Who's attacking me now?)}, 18:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

On Neutrality

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

{Full disclosure: I first read this article about a month ago. My initial reaction was to look for a simpler graph (ie. one line of plotted data) that offered a more thorough perspective on the subject (I later learned there isn't really a 'simple way' to present much of this data). The chart I settled on was developed by a meteorologist and climatologist, but ultimately did not meet the article's standard of reference. Regulars may recall that discussion. I didn't consider it a big deal and I resumed my regular activities on Wikipedia.
But something about the article's presentation still nagged me. I came back and read it and reread it, and ultimately realized the scope of the 'controversy' surrounding global warming (as it's presented) is incredibly vague and hardly warrants much discussion (the 'Debate and skepticism' section appears to address 'global warming awareness' more than anything else). At the very least, it didn't seem to be what I would consider controversial. So I took it upon myself to research the subject to see how accurately it was being presented.

As it stands now, I've spent 82 hours of the past two weeks researching the material and the state of this article - reviewing past revisions, talk page archives, content forks, and relevant sources cited within. In truth, the deeper I found the rabbit hole went, the more I caught myself wishing I'd never even started the process to begin with (what with ignorance being bliss and all). :-)
I was two days into this process when the CRU email fiasco hit its stride in the news. Initially, I didn't consider it that significant, but like others, with time to digest it, I came to realize the magnitude of what it represented.
I'm not explaining all this to create some illusion of authority on the matter. I just want it to be understood that this was not a 'flyby' assessment intended to raise the hackles of those who have contributed heavily to the maintenance and upkeep of such a controversial article. Reviewing it was not a matter I took lightly. I consider my efforts in contributing to Wikipedia as not just a reflection of my own integrity, but the integrity of the the project as a whole. This represents the most time I've dedicated to a single subject here and when it's resolved, I'll be glad to get back to my regular, scatterbrained contributions elsewhere.}

All that being said, here is the summary of why I've concluded the article fails to meet Wikipedia's standard for neutrality:

If it's resolved that we intend to address the subject on the basis of current social perception (ie. the circumstances of the most recent warming trend as opposed to any period of warming in the climate record), then the entire scope of that perception must be addressed, including the dissenting view on AGW (anthropogenic global warming). The degree to which humans affect world climate is still under intense scrutiny and a matter of great debate in both the public sphere as well as scientific and scholarly circles. We have an intellectual responsibility to make this clear in the article. Yet even in the 'Debate and skepticism' section, mention is limited to a single sentence listing a few notable skeptics.

That relentless sockpuppetry has been employed in an effort to inject dissenting perspective into this article is certainly reprehensible. But it does not automatically invalidate the perspective or justify its ommission - content's veracity should not be judged solely on the methods employed in contributing it. Even good faith contributions to the article that shed light on the dissenting perspective are summarily dismissed (or quickly relegated to a POV fork) by finding some questionable aspect about the source so a policy for exclusion can be applied. But as questionable aspects of the currently accepted sources have come to light, this has become a bit of a double standard (ie. demanding 'peer-reviewed' sources when the possibility of subversion and manipulation of those sources has become evident). Nor is undue weight a valid reason for exclusion, as no weight whatsoever is given to the fact that there has been and still is heated debate over many assertions presented here.

In the lead, the IPCC's conclusions are issued with absolutely no mention of legitimate, significant concerns of reputable scientists and scholars regarding its data and assessments. While the IPCC report is important (as it represents work from a large segment of the climate change community), its assertions as to the degree of human influence on global climate should not be the only ones presented. It's important to remember that the IPCC is a heavily politicized force with a goal in presenting scientific data to provoke or influence action. It now exists to 'build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change'. Essentially, its purpose has become something more than simple scientific understanding (it could even be argued that it has an agenda). That does not mean the underlying data is necessarily wrong. Nor does it mean that its cause is not worthy. It simply warns us not to be so quick about addressing the subject through the filter of its conclusions alone. Legitimate concerns about its transparency and lack of peer-review have been voiced for years and the recent email fiasco simply serves to reinforce validity of that concern. The reality is that the science of global warming is still in its first generation of analysis. Addressing only the conclusions of a highly politicized report, regardless of its scope, simply cannot lend to neutral treatment of the subject.

A couple potential solutions that would help in resolving this:
1) Adjusting the lead to include a summary of the debate regarding anthropogenic influence on global warming with a corresponding passage appended to the Debate and skepticism section that goes into greater detail (and a serious review of the existing material in that section). Additionally, I would recommend inclusion of information relating to how the fossil fuel industry has conspired to manipulate debate on the matter as well.
or,
2) Removal of all 'conclusions' (and debate) from the lead. Including theories and assertions (consensus and otherwise) further along in the article would be reasonable, but should not be the lens through which we wholly assess (or summarize) it.
or,
3) Simply presenting the current state of global warming, explaining the science behind climate shifts and human interaction with them, and relegating all assertions, conclusions, debates, and criticism regarding AGW to related pages and/or a single page (ie. Anthropogenic Global Warming). This would be beneficial in reducing the number of 'Politics of global warming', 'Global Warming Controversy', 'Scientific opinion on climate change'-type articles on wikipedia (and there's alot of them) as they can all be summarized and addressed in a single article devoted to the majority opinion.

Of course, the latter two options would result in a sweeping restructure of the article and, given human inclination to avoid change, I defer to the first option as the most reasonable means of resolving the issue. Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, even good faith efforts to incorporate critical evaluations of the IPCC conclusions have been summarily dismissed and frequently degenerate into edit-warring. Blithe disregard for a subject's reality deals as heavy a blow to Wikipedia's integrity as an article's manipulation by sockpuppets.

In conclusion, looking at the article overall, it's almost as if the maintenance has been overseen by editors so emotionally invested in remaining vigilant against persistent sockpuppetery that they lost objectivity. Ironically, as the puppetmaster tried harder and harder to incorporate his material, the article drifted further and further from his objective. It has left us in a situation where such a concerted effort has been made to actively suppress and sterilize any matter of dissent that the article has accumulated a half dozen POV forks and retained only a bunch of nonsensical, long-winded statements that are completely unrelated to any of the actual controversy or skepticism.

Input from uninvolved editors, especially those who are indifferent about the causes or mitigation of global warming, would be greatly appreciated (although the homework required for such an editor to properly assess the situation is pretty obscene).
--K10wnsta (talk) 03:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm in favor of option one. However, I sincerely doubt that this is going to go very far on the basis that the IPCC is right because it's the IPCC. Macai (talk) 03:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well said, K10wnsta, and hallelujah! I concur with your post from beginning to end. Let's bury the strawman of past sockpuppetry and make this a complete, NPOV article. Mytwocents (talk) 04:51, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

You know, I think most established editors are still scarred by Scibaby. You guys didn't have to deal with 473 confirmed socks and a standing 132 suspected. This isn't amendable with empty words, actions that lead to full-protection speaks greater. I'm not against the proposal, I just want to see it. Essays like this are always eloquent. What happens next is more important. The lead reflects the body, so start with "Debate and skepticism". The last paragraph was put together by Cla68 after a proposal on polling towards the end of the thread.[12] Make it be better, make it be sourced, and make it be well-written. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's resolved that we intend to address the subject on the basis of current social perception - no, it isn't so resolved. I fear that your exteensive study has not resulted in much understanding.

It's important to remember that the IPCC is a heavily politicized force is just one of your many mistakes.

here is the summary of why I've concluded - it isn't clear why we should be so interested in your opinion. Everyone can comment, of course, but not everyone can post a vast long text as you've just done and expect people to read it all. I have a suggestion fro you: help keep the GW and related articles sane. Revert socks, don't support them on talk, and generally be helpful. Do this for a month or two, *then* come back with your opinions William M. Connolley (talk) 11:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

This statement perfectly exposes the exclusivity and eliteness that the ogliarchy style of leadership in this community enforces on people. Regardless of the sincerity of the post, the response is one of personal attack (against PA standards) followed by a suggestion that requires favoritism for inclusion. Even though I disagree with the POV of some of the significant contributors, they have always pointed out my flaws graciously. Can people still not see the bigotry in the response to an effort to represent POVs equally where the POV is significant to the subject? When looking up an article in a real encyclopedia where the subject of hippies is a significant contribution to the article, is the popular opion of said group included in the article? I hardly can find a source for such information. Excluding the relevancy of the public opinion, and having on passing remark that delegates itself to a negative tone (How dare those Americans argue over AGW; look at how progressive England is) is hardly NPOV. Cflare (talk) 21:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Correction: It has been resolved that all significant views be represented fairly by Wikipedia. The public and mainstream media perception happens to be a significant perspective, and excluding it from the main article constitutes POV content forking.
I don't see how it's a mistake to say that the IPCC is a politicized force, since it admits to suggesting political policies.
Being unestablished does not rob one's arguments of merit. Macai (talk) 22:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's resolved that we intend to address the subject on the basis of current social perception...
I based that statement on past discussion, the Terminology Page, and, primarily, the first sentence of the article ("increase in the average temperature ... since the mid-20th century ").

And what has that to do with current social perception? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It's important to remember that the IPCC is a heavily politicized force...
You'll have to elaborate on why I was mistaken in characterizing it as 'heavily politicized', as I don't see how that's inaccurate. It was created by political process and engages and influences every significant political entity on the planet.

I assert that the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that. Its role and activities are essentially scientific William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

here is the summary of why I've concluded...
I probably could have worded that better (it was sort of a remnant from an earlier draft of the post that I left for transition).
Of course no one is obligated to be interested in my opinion. But opinions are the driving force of how issues are addressed and things get done on Wikipedia. I meticulously explained the circumstances of my own and you are welcome to agree or disagree with it...or even disregard it completely.
--K10wnsta (talk) 00:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

OK William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

K10wnsta, thank you for all the time and thought you have put into improving this deeply flawed, disturbingly biased article. I concur with your approach to cleaning it up to conform with the high standards for neutrality at Wikipedia. Freedom Fan (talk) 16:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I think what would need to be established is that the GW deniers constitute something larger than a fringe opinion, otherwise the above proposal are undue weight. JPotter (talk) 23:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There has been no change in the official position of any scientific body: AGW is real and denial ot 'scepticism' of that is utterly fringe. UK PM Gordon Brown has been reiterating this again today, using words like 'flat-earther' etc for them. Nothing to discuss when all major scientific bodies and world leaders agree. --Nigelj (talk) 00:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

AGW is a theory. A popular theory, with a lot of science behind it (good AND bad), but it is still a theory. Sceptics (or Flat-Earthers/Denialists, if your propaganda inclinations lie in that direction) are not fringe. A fringe theory is only, by definition, supported or acknowledged by a small percentage of the population. While I personally prefer to stay on the fence on this issue, it bothers me that people on both sides of the arguement prefer slandering their opponents to meaningful scientific debate. From what I've read of the emails, they could be taken either way. This article does side with the AGW theory, and quite blatently. K10wnsta's proposal is a solid one. Option one would still leave the article on the pro-AGW side (which, for the forseeable future, it belongs), but would correctly note that there is a sizable opposition to this theory. -Tainted Conformity ^Chat 16:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If I may interject. Yes, there is sizable opposition to the theory, in the general public. However, there is almost no opposition in the scientific community, and I think that's what really matters here. Tim meh 16:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

And when this article is called "The Science of Global Warming" I would agree with you, but it is not. Furthermore, what many of those who are vigilant on such subjects often fail to understand is the Streisand effect that their suppression causes. After reading the extraordinary efforts that were made to alter this article, I now understand the hypersensitivity even in the comments page; but nevertheless K10wnsta's points are incredibly valid. I do not like to justify or 'reward' hacked emails any more than I want to justify or reward sock puppet masters, but on the other hand, I do not want to empower them either by justifying their abhorrent acts (and speaking of someone who has actually broken the law or wikipedia policy is not 'bad faith') by going to the opposite extreme on the article. This NOT about Global warming (science). Science should be the most prominent feature of the article. It should have the dominant voice and should contextualize all other criticism in its wording, but quite frankly, there is a lot more in terms of criticism that should be mentioned, if only to repudiate with science rather than simply pretend it does not exist. Manticore55 (talk) 16:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

So what is the opposite of 'science'? 'Blind faith'? 'Religious dogma'? 'Uninformed speculation'? 'Mass hysteria'? 'Childish fantasy'? 'Conspiracy theory'? Do you propose that in every WP article that deals with something with a solid scientific basis, we must give equal weight to each of these? Why don't you start with Astronomy, Electricity, and Plate tectonics, and see how far you get there before focussing on this article? I know why - because the conclusions of those scientific theories suit our purposes: they don't threaten our cosy, greedy, destructive, poluting lifestyles. Non-scientific, illogical, uneducated thought processes do not get equal weight in our modern world, and proposing that they should is, frankly, disingenuous. --Nigelj (talk) 19:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be disingenuous to pretend that the only opposition is from non-scientific, illogical, uneducated thought processes. It's lines of thought like that from both sides of the debate that bother me. And the only reason that Global Warming/Climate Change is such a heated issue in the first place is because of the affect it has on ordinary life, which things like astronomy, electricity, and plate tectonics lack. There's people on both sides who want their side to be right for selfish reasons. I'm not going to pretend that there's not a lot of falsified data floating around on the skeptics' side, but that doesn't change the fact that the same thing happens (although not in such quantities) on the pro-AGW side. I agree that we should be trying to reduce our impact on the earth as much as possible. However, that doesn't mean that the earth is necessarily going to die if we don't. And frankly, even if AGW is right, and the earth heats up past human inhabitability, the earth will survive, just without us. ;P -Tainted Conformity ^Chat 19:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not a 'debate' between two alternative sides. The two sides are those who understand the severity and urgency of the problem and those who don't. As you say, if we don't act within narrow bounds, the earth will survive without us. There is no doubt about that. There is no other side to the argument, other than that some people don't get it. What 'selfish' reasons could scientists and world leaders possibly have for propagating that harsh reality, other than that it is necessary to do so? --Nigelj (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

<- While I'm sure that there are plenty of the scientists are acting out of a sense of duty, you can't deny that there are people who are on the AGW side for the cash they can milk out of it. World leaders haven't exactly been known for their selflessness, either. And there are scientists who are against AGW. But that's not really important. What is important is that when scientists disagree, they should provide their research that backs up their theories. Regardless of why they do their research, as long as they do it right, their research should benifit finding the final answer. As recent developments may or may not implicate the higher ups on the AGW side of cooking their data, the playing field may have leveled out a bit on whose research is or isn't viable. And this page only seems to display the pro-side research. At the least, it should have a part that discusses what dissenting scientists say, and what the pro side has done to debunk it. If the pro side's rebuttle is stronger, then it will only serve to strengthen their arguement. -Tainted Conformity ^Chat 00:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but I have yet to see any evidence that global warming deniers constitute more than a fringe opinion among scientists. Global warming is a scientific issue and science articles need to be based on the weight the scientific community assigns a position. By looking at the percentage of experts in a given field who support a given theory shows if its mainstream, contentious or fringe. Global warming is as main stream as the theory of evolution. JPotter (talk) 01:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a page that is is not linked on the GW page; List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming (a overly long, contrived title IMO) It lists quite a few individual scientists. I don't think they can all be nuts. They have a minority opinion, but they deserve to be mentioned in the GW article. Mytwocents (talk) 02:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The page is already linked (under "global warming skeptics") and the important ones listed, last paragraph "Debate and Skepticism". Please be more careful and check your facts Mytwocents. I remember Cla68 and I worked on it in July after finishing the paragraph on polling (it's at the end ot the linked thread).[13][14] It wasn't our best, it could be better. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget that the article has a Debate and skepticism section for a reason. This is not purely a scientific issue; it's also a critical public policy issue. It's fully as important to understand the public policy debate as it is to understand the scientific consensus. Also, the possibility of scientific misconduct (which destroying information to avoid a freedom of information request and manipulating the peer review process certainly would be, if those allegations were to prove true) are serious issues in their own right, regardless of whether or not they undermine the broader scientific consensus. EastTN (talk) 15:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That's why we have a debate and skepticism section with links to relevant subarticles. — DroEsperanto (talk) 17:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The Debate and skepticism section should summarize the content of those subarticles. While there's a limit to how much detail we should include, the policy debate is just as much within the scope of the article as is the Economic impact - after all, the article has a "section with links to relevant subarticles" on that topic as well (as it does for Feedback and pretty much every thing else in the article). EastTN (talk) 02:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Further discussion

<I think public policy needs to be addresed. The news media, Al Gore and other advocates of global warming policy, the Copenhagen Summit etc. need to be mentioned. Here's a list of the latest Drudge Report headlines;

COPENHAGEN CLIMATE SUMMIT: 1,200 LIMOS, 140 PRIVATE PLANES...

Spews More CO2 than 60 Countries do in Entire Year -- COMBINED...

Saudi Arabia calls for 'climategate' investigation...

UN film shows 'children of the future facing an apocalypse'...

Gore turns to poetry: 'The shepherd cries, the hour of choosing has arrived'...

Major winter storm to wallop central USA...

There is a world outside the strict world of acedemia, that is affected, and plays a part in the story of Global Warming ,that should be reflected in the article. I don't that as fringe. Mytwocents (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Those headlines aren't about a globe, warming; they're about politics and a conference and weather. We can't put all of that into one article. There're articles for each of those things. Give it another 3 years and there will be nothing left on earth that hasn't been affected by Global Warming... so at that point we can delete the rest of WP and just keep everything in this one article?! (Overdoing it to make a point, but you get the drift? That's what 'links to relevant subarticles' are for) --Nigelj (talk) 17:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Not to be snippy, but where's the proposal? Complaining about what you believe "needs to be addressed" isn't the same as having (1) the replacement text, (2) the location, (3) the source, and (4) the objective reasons of what you want and how to amended the article. This discussion falls under WP:NOTFORUM. I've offered you twice,[15][16] with encouragement, that the last paragraph could be better. Most of the sources in "Debate and Skepticism" are news sources, this article isn't academia-only, and that's twice Mytwocents. EastTN, yes, the policy debate is important; if this is still about Climategate though: (1) the policymakers won't be meeting for a week, and (2) in terms of public opinion less than half of Americans are following this "somewhat closely" (overall opinions are still roughly half as it were before)[17] and this is certainly not something more notable than how opinions differ world-wide.[18] ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:06, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

What I have noticed monitoring this discussion is that whenever the issue of neutrality is raised, time and time again, the most prominent editors of this article insist on adding any information to the "controversy" article, rather than addressing the issues on this one. This is not good practice and leaves a very unbalanced and somewhat misleading article.--Baina90 (talk) 16:07, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

ChryanandChloe, I don't want to turn this article into a treatise on "Climategate." I am convinced, though, that the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident has already become a notable part of the debate. There are more than enough articles in newspapers of record from more than one country to demonstrate that much. The notability comes on a couple of levels. First is the nature of the allegations, which deal with things that (if true) would constitute serious scientific misconduct. Most significantly, perhaps, efforts to destroy information subject to a freedom of information request and efforts to manipulate the peer review process. Second, the extent to which it has affected the politics and public discussion. We can look to Australia and to the role it's playing in the debate around the Copenhagen conference.

Beyond that, we're already seeing thoughtful analysis of how the incident is playing out in the public forum:

Mike Hulme, "The Science and Politics of Climate Change," The Wall Street Journal Online, December 4, 2009
Bryan Walsh, "As Climate Summit Nears, Skeptics Gain Traction," Time, December 2, 2009
Peter Kelemen, "What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change," Popular Mechanics, December 1, 2009
Peter N. Spotts, "‘Climategate’: leaked emails push scientists toward transparency," Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 2009
David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin, "In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate," The Washington Post, December 5, 2009

Granted, all that should show up in the Debate and skepticism should be a brief summary, and that summary should not be long enough to overwhelm the section. How it should be summarized, and just how long that summary should be, are things we should talk about. But the idea that this particular incident is not notable is becoming less and less plausible. EastTN (talk) 16:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. This is an article covering the entire, generalized topic of global warming. The CRU incident is a microscopic piece of WP:RECENTISM about data theft that really has no place in this article. The number of sources is irrelevant, compared to the import of those sources with respect to global warming in general. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Data theft? Yes, that's part of it - but the consequences of that data theft are being played out politically across multiple continents. The "import" we're discussing is not the import to the science of global warming, but to the public policy debate on global warming. The sources we have already demonstrate that.

Let's try to clarify the issue a bit. I'm convinced that the sources we have demonstrate that this is already a notable part of the debate. You disagree. What would it take for you to conclude that the event is notable? As a hypothetical, let's say that when the Copenhagen conference ends, the results are generally recognized as disappointing - and that the CRU email incident is reported as a contributing cause by more than one newspaper of record. Would you then consider the incident to be notable relative to the public policy debate? That would seem to me to pretty much nail it to the wall. If that would not be enough, then what else would you be looking for? EastTN (talk) 16:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I would be looking for irrefutable evidence from reliable sources that the incident had a direct, negative impact on global warming-related international legislation - with statements from several world leaders (or their representatives) that this was indeed the case. Or similar proof that the incident somehow shifted the overwhelming scientific consensus for global warming. If that was the case (and it would certainly be several weeks or months before something like that would become evident), then one could conceive of introducing a carefully weighted sentence or two of summary. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That strikes me as an unreasonably high standard. Newspapers of record are generally considered reliable sources. If, for instance, the The New York Times and the The Washington Post both report the same thing, I can't think of another setting in Wikipedia where we would argue that it isn't adequately sourced - particularly when we're dealing with political issues. (There can be other considerations, other points of view, and additional information may be uncovered latter, but the base reporting would be well sourced.)

It seems to me that we're running a real risk of setting a higher standard for this particular issue than we do for anything else, just because we don't like it.EastTN (talk) 18:47, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a top-level article, that summarized quite a large number of sub-articles. Focus on the sub-articles first. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

This is also a different kind of article to the ones that rely on 'newspapers of record' for their facts. Newspapers are the best source for facts like "Person A said X" and "Person B has been convicted of crime Y". You do not find newspapers used as sources for mathematical articles or for other science topics. It is well known that if a newspaper reporter strays into these territories, they are likely to over-simplify at best and usually to make technical mistakes as well. This is because it is newspapermen's (and -women's) job to sell papers, and proprietors know the public cannot be bothered with tiresome technical detail, so they don't hire people who understand or care about science, maths and statistics. They hire people who can tell a good, gripping, emotive story. In a complex, scientific and mathematical subject such a story, in itself, does not register on the encyclopedic notability scale at all, unless supported by all the real facts and theory. And we don't have room *here* to explain all the facts and theory behind some of the nonsense in the media at the moment. That's what the sub-articles are for, as I said more briskly above. And there are plenty of them. --Nigelj (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim, that would be great advice, except that we're having the same discussion with every article other than the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident one. I'd be much more comfortable if we were working on the first level summary in the Global warming controversy article and discussing how to incorporate it into the Global warming template. But, there appears to be an unwillingness to consider summarizing this information anywhere except in the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article, despite a growing number of sources demonstrating its impact on the public debate. Statements are made that it's not notable, fringe, ephemeral "news," out of scope or irrelevant; but those arguments are made without any reference to sources that document the effect it's having on the public debate.

Scjessey's response is a good example. What he in essence said was that if more than one newspaper of record reported that the CRU incident was a contributing factor behind a failure of the Copenhagen summit to produce the results we're all hoping for, that would still not be notable. Please step back for a moment. Does that really strike you as right? If The New York Times and The Washington Post were both to say that this incident helped bring down the Copenhagen talks, we would still be willing to say that it's not an important enough part of the policy debate to mention? If so, I don't see how we could still claim to be basing our decisions on the available sources. EastTN (talk) 19:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You have an interesting definition of how we can determine "impact", this "crisis"/"scandal"/whatever is less than a month old. All you can determine is how it's impact is right now, with only speculation as to whether it will have an lasting impact. Impacts are determined after the event, not during or before. You are arguing that a news flare is more important than existing long-time conflicts, in fact so much that it should be summarized in the top-level article. That is not how an encyclopedia works (nor even how the world works). WP is not the news, and we do not have a deadline. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be arguing that it is per se impossible to determine whether an event is significant without the passage of a great deal of time. That argument seems flawed to me. To take an extreme example, we knew the Virginia Tech shooting was significant the first day it was reported. This is, of course, not anything like the Virginia Tech shootings. But I would argue that we can often tell if an incident is significant based on it's nature and the early reporting - for instance, in the political realm, we knew the Monica Lewinski incident was going to be an important part of the history of the Clinton administration well before the whole impeachment thing played out. Again, I would argue that the sources already show that this incident is significant for the debate. I would also argue that we're past the initial "news flare" - this has been playing our for a couple of weeks now, and shows no evidence of going away. Beyond that, what disturbs me is this whole discussion seems to be driven not by what the sources say about the political significance of the incident, but what we would like the significance to be ("none"). If we dig into reliable sources, such as the Times and the Post, and find that they tell us that it's too early to tell if this is going to affect the debate or not, then fine - we should wait. That's not what I'm seeing, though. It's one thing to say it's non-notable or premature based on reliable sources (or lack thereof) - it's an entirely different thing to ignore something because we don't like it or hope it will just go away.EastTN (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigelj, we're not talking about using newspapers of record to establish a mathematical equation or demonstrate the validity of a scientific theory - we're talking about using them to establish what's happening in a public policy debate. They are very good at that, and are routinely used in other articles dealing with political and public policy issues. The Debate and skepticism section demonstrates that this is within the scope of the current article. We have multiple reliable sources showing that the incident is already having a material impact on the shape of the public debate. None of the discussion so far really engages with those sources. It makes no sense to say that The New York Times and The Washington Post aren't reliable sources for this article simply because it's scientific article, when we're talking about using them to source non-scientific aspects of the policy debate. EastTN (talk) 20:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No, you're trying to use newspaper reports to 'demonstrate the invalidity of a scientific theory', I think. I liked your edit comment from half an hour ago, " We're getting the same arguments everywhere, and they're becoming more and more threadbare". You and a few others seem to feel that you have a limited time-window to get the maximum mileage from this e-mail hack. I guess the right-wing press and the denialist bloggers have put that feeling together for some. The science has not changed. No new data has been revealed, no new theories proposed, the glaciers are still melting and world leaders are still working on a solution at Copenhagen. Try reading this, and calm down for a while, see what happens. --Nigelj (talk) 20:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"No, you're trying to use newspaper reports to 'demonstrate the invalidity of a scientific theory', I think." You're mistaken. Please read what I've actually said. I never claimed that the hacked e-mails invalidated any of the science. What I have said is that they have been used to allege certain behavior that, if true, would constitute serious violations of scientific ethics, and that they have had a notable effect on the public debate over global warming. That much, I believe, is easily demonstrated by reliable sources. At least one leading climate scientist has had to temporarily step down. It has contributed to a political shift on the issue in Australia. Saudi Arabia is using it as one of their arguments in Copenhagen. CRU is moving to release data that has previously been withheld. If I had to summarize the sources in a nutshell, the consensus seems to be that the new information has not undermined the overall conclusions on climate change, it does suggest that there may have been some serious misbehavior by specific scientists, and it has heightened the political debate on the issue:

Mike Hulme, "The Science and Politics of Climate Change," The Wall Street Journal Online, December 4, 2009
Bryan Walsh, "As Climate Summit Nears, Skeptics Gain Traction," Time, December 2, 2009
Peter Kelemen, "What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change," Popular Mechanics, December 1, 2009
Peter N. Spotts, "‘Climategate’: leaked emails push scientists toward transparency," Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 2009
David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin, "In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate," The Washington Post, December 5, 2009

That's all open to debate, of course. But in debating it, let's actually engage the sources and not just blow it off because we don't like it, or because we naively think that the scientific facts are all that matter.EastTN (talk) 21:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Using newspaper coverage to argue for the modification of how an encyclopedia covers the science seems so misconceived to me that it's hard to take seriously. --TS 21:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow...well, wow. here at Wikipedia, we do use newspapers as sources for articles, on a wide variety of topics, and with great frequency. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I've never argued for that. What I have argued for is using newspapers of record as reliable sources for how the incident is playing out in the political and public policy debates. EastTN (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The incident has had little to no effect on global warming policy, and the only discernible political impact is that it has given Jim Inhofe more ammunition to misrepresent reality. It won't come to anything. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be nice. What's your source? Did you consider the Time article "As Climate Summit Nears, Skeptics Gain Traction"? Or perhaps the Christian Science Monitor article "‘Climategate’: leaked emails push scientists toward transparency"? Or perhaps the WP article "In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate"? Or perhaps the Wall Street Journal article "The Science and Politics of Climate Change"? EastTN (talk) 22:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with EastTN. it seems excessive to oppose such well-sourced material so inflexibly and absolutely. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, EasTN, for the sources. Shut up, you don't have the replacement text and the location. This is a broad topic. Specific incidences owe little significance unless described in context. The problem therefore, isn't verifiability, it's taking the next step stating this is how to to put "...the proposed change..." in the article. Of course, this assumes you have a good summary prepared. Under WP:NOTFORUM, opinions, however right, isn't getting us anywhere. Get the proposal going, and we'll judge it on its own merits. If you need help, I don't mind you asking on my user talk. ChyranandChloe (talk) 23:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's be civil. I am still not convinced that that coverage constitutes evidence of significant weight to be included in this top-level article. The sources you cite are enough to establish that the incidence has enough coverage to be notable enough for its own article, true, but they can't establish any lasting significance because 1)it has yet to lead to any colossal upheaval or policy shift and 2)it is just too soon. All other reasons you've (collectively) cited to demonstrate that a description of global warming would be incomplete without this incident's mention are pure speculation and OR ("it undermines the reliability of the IPCC, which AGW theory is based on, and therefore is important" or the Monica Lewinsky analogy, "we can just tell it's important"). — DroEsperanto (talk) 01:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Dro, just to clarify, I haven't made (or, at least have not intended to make) the argument that "it undermines the reliability of the IPCC, which AGW theory is based on, and therefore is important." As for Lewinsky, the political coverage early on made it clear that it was having an impact on the Clinton presidency. What I intended to suggest by that analogy is that for many events a fairly early examination of leading newspapers can demonstrate whether an event is significant for the public debate. Nothing further was intended. EastTN (talk) 16:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's a list of the latest Drudge Report headlines... No thanks William M. Connolley (talk) 08:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't, as a matter of fact, report on scientific matters using newspapers as sources. We're never going to do that. No good encyclopedia ever has, or ever will, do so. --TS 08:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't, as a matter of fact, report on scientific matters using newspapers as sources. We're never going to do that. No good encyclopedia ever has, or ever will, do so.

hmmm. ok. well, this article already uses USA Today, the Guardian, Newsweek and other similar periodicals as sources, among others. so I think this is an issue where we can all try to show some flexibility.

I think you mean that we don't report on actual SCIENCE using newspapers; if there is a legitimate news EVENT which relates to a scientific MATTER, such as a political or regulatory ruling, then we would use newspapers.

I don't think it's helpful to outline some blanket rule which eliminates a whole set of sources. There are many Wikipedia entries on science which do use newspapers as sources; this entry already does so as well. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We are reporting on the very current news related to global warming, in Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 and Copenhagen treaty, to name but three sub-articles. What we don't do is alter the top-level explanations of the science (and the notable controversy that went into the science) here, as if this was a current affairs article. I have repeatedly said, we cannot cover all this complex ephemera in just one huge article, please join in and contribute to the relevant sub-articles, if you feel they are lacking in notable coverage. --Nigelj (talk) 15:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Another section break

ChyranandChloe, I apologize if I've annoyed you - that was not my intent. My specific suggestion would be to add a short paragraph towards the end of the Debate and skepticism section that briefly states what the incident is, links to the main article on it, and briefly summarizes what the best sources we can find have to say about its impact on the debate so far.

More generally, what I was hoping to get was an agreement in principle that the issue was within the scope of the article, and start a useful discussion of what the sources had to say about it. I must say that I do strongly disagree with the idea that leading newspapers such as the NYT and WP categorically fail as reliable sources - if nothing else, that seems to eliminate any objective common ground for determining when something has had an impact on the political debate (or, at least eliminate it until the issue shows up in Political Science theses ten years later).EastTN (talk) 16:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, newsources are apparently acceptable, if you go to the said section (Debate and Skepticism), you will see the references are newsources. The problem lies in the fact that you're asking editors here to summarize the sources for you, which serious isn't smart. It's a bad analogy, sorry, but I think I can equate it to begging. And the editors here are just shooing you off. I'll comment on your talk. Don't worry. ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

ChyranandChloe, thank you. I may have handled this poorly. I'm more than willing to summarize the sources - what I really wanted was agreement in principle that we could begin discussing the issue based on sources like those. Anyway, given where everyone is at, I may let it sit for now. I do appreciate your understanding and advice. EastTN (talk) 15:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Another response to "On Neutrality"

I do not believe that there is any chance of neutrality per wikipedia definitions of neutrality in THIS article. Wikipedia rules do not exactly apply here.

Years ago, I came here without any specific agenda but just to improve the article if possible. I had no leaning one way or the other but I noticed that the definition in the first paragraph was (at least at that time) novel and unsupported by references. So I searched for references that defined the term "Global Warming" and suggested a summary that incorporated the vast bulk of those fully reliable sources' definitions. This was rejected despite wikipedia standards by a cadre editors who stand guard over the article. I was viewed as an enemy, insulted, called names and slandered.

And notice now the responses to requests for neutrality. For example, this very definition that I discussed, which (at least at the time that I researched it, was novel to wikipedia alone) is used as a defense of the content of the article: "I based that statement on ... primarily, the first sentence of the article ("increase in the average temperature ... since the mid-20th century ")" (Now I understand the resistance I got at the time, though it baffled me then).

Here is another perspective of an editor rejecting the wikipedia standards of neutrality: "This is not a 'debate' between two alternative sides. The two sides are those who understand the severity and urgency of the problem and those who don't." These are editors who are ignoring wikipedia standards of neutrality because they believe the issue is just too important. I can understand that sentiment... but it is not wikipedia standards.

And another: "Using newspaper coverage to argue for the modification of how an encyclopedia covers the science seems so misconceived to me that it's hard to take seriously. ... We don't, as a matter of fact, report on scientific matters using newspapers as sources. We're never going to do that." Notice... they will NEVER do that. Once again, wikipedia standards are considered ridiculous for this article and should be abandoned.

The protectors of this article find it impossible to imagine that if someone disagrees with their perspective, they are not somehow evil and need to be squelched. Good luck to anyone who tries to object. You will fail and you will find that it has nothing to do with wikipedia standards of neutrality. --Blue Tie (talk) 02:39, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

In case there is some question about my intent here, let me be clear. The original editor talked about having spent a very long time reviewing the information and having some issues. This was EXACTLY the situation I had. I spent hours and hours in review and went entirely by the rules of wikipedia. To no avail. I do not want this person or others to spend a great deal of time (or even get into warring) on this article .. when in the end nothing will come of it. My point is that you should really check with the protectors of the article first on anything you want to do, otherwise you are wasting your time and should not bother with this article. There are supposed to be 10 million articles on wikipedia and arguing with the protectors here on this one is just a waste of your time. --Blue Tie (talk) 03:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with BlueTie, and can vouch for his previous efforts here, exactly as he describes them. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is There Any Chance of Getting Some Balance in the Global Warming Article?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have tried to put a little balance in the first paragraph of the Global Warming article. Anyone reading this would be left with the impression that AGW is a more solid scientific theory than Newton's Laws of Motion. I had added the following:

"However, a number of highly respected scientists dispute the consensus view. Recently, leaked emails reveal that the leading Global Warming scientists, at the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia and elsewhere, have been concealing or altering the raw data, which shows the world has been cooling for the past decade. These Global Warming scientists have admitted in their emails, that none of the climate models can account for this lack of warming in the real world."

Not unsuprisingly, it was deleted a minute later. I note that despite the recent startling revelations of Climategate, this has completely failed to find any mention in the article. This strongly indicates censorship - since I am sure many editors must have tried to write about this highly relevant information.

I have asked for advice on how the editors controlling the article would recommend I rewrite these facts so that they wouldn't object to their inclusion. I received the following reply:

Roughly, the only things that are correct is the name of the university, and that emails have been leaked. The rest is somewhere between obviously wrong and egregiously wrong, with a bit of WP:PEACOCK thrown in for good measure. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please feel free to make any suggestions regarding balancing the first paragraph, so that the fact that many scientists dispute the AGW theory is mentioned. - Brittainia (talk) 12:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this a bit like complaining that the article on Elvis Prestley doesn't have a current news section on recent sightings?--BozMo talk 13:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

To me it appears rather like requesting that the statement "1+gasoline>chicken" is kept and improved in Algebra. Sure, some of the symbols match the domain, but there is nothing useful to rescue. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've talked with some of my climatologist friends and their POV is that the media are making a huge fuzz about nothing new. The main point is that the data the IPCC used were always publicly available. Many climatologists were therefore perfectly aware that some of the IPCC's conclusions weren't supported by the data, and they have been saying so for years. The media and general public were simply not interested or receptive adn mistook them for climate scepticists. Woodwalker (talk) 12:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit considerations

Because I don't have the time or inclination to explain this myself, I recommend you read this or this, which will help you understand why your edit was reverted. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Brittania; people here don't care if there are a notable number of editors holding an editing philosophy in opposition to their own. The email story was a major world headline which appeared in every single major news outlet. However, people here feel that if an editing proposal can be considered even minutely flawed or marginal, they can simply strike it out. in other words, no compromise is actually needed with those holding differing views on editing. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe there are a lot of contributors that confuse encyclopaedic relevancy with relevancy in a particular article. I'm not taking any sides here myself, just trying to show where I think the misunderstanding is. Woodwalker (talk) 16:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We base everything in this article on the scientific perspecitve as reported in peer reviewed journals. Sm8900 had tried to change this consensus but he was unsuccessful. His Armada never made it to this article :) . Count Iblis (talk) 16:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, CountIblis, thanks so much for showing how dedicated you are to keeping things constructive. and thanks for confirming my assertion that people here have no interest in legitimately discussing ~~other people's views~~ other editors' opinions on how to approach and edit this article, but rather would like to escalate this to an editing conflict as much as possible.

dude, bringing up editing disputes from TWO YEARS ago is really not cool. Please try to show some better constructiveness. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Steve I think we are interested in improving the article here. Legitimately discussing other people's views is perhaps better not done here if there is no relevance to the article. --BozMo talk 16:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Sorry, I want to clarify; are you saying that in regards to CountIblis's comment or my own? I am truly asking this. If you were referring to mine, I was simply replying to CountIblis comment about my personal conduct; is that not appropriate? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh wait, now I understand. I meant other people's views on editing this article. Is that a clearer phrasing? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussions dating back from that time are worth reading. It was exactly at that time that the consensus that exists today on this page took shape. At that time there were a lot more sceptics editing this article, so you had a lot of vigorous arguments. In the end these discussions led to the consensus view that news reports are generally not suitable for this article. Count Iblis (talk) 16:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah. then can you please tell me why the article already uses several news reports as sources right now, including USA TOday, newsweek, guardian, etc? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(copied from above*) We are reporting on the very current news related to global warming, in Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 and Copenhagen treaty, to name but three sub-articles. What we don't do is alter the top-level explanations of the science (and the notable controversy that went into the science) here, as if this was a current affairs article. I have repeatedly said, we cannot cover all this complex ephemera in just one huge article, please join in and contribute to the relevant sub-articles, if you feel they are lacking in notable coverage. --Nigelj (talk) 15:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

* I don't think just to keep on starting another section, or putting 'another section break' is going to help anyone win an argument, not without new scientific sources saying that the science has actually changed. So, I'm not going to keep composing detailed counter-arguments - they're all the same anyway. And, with an edit history like that, calling people 'dude' does not make you look cool. --Nigelj (talk) 16:46, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"dude" is an idiomatic colloquialism, used by various speakers of the English language, and does not carry any pejorative meaning at all. If it did, i would apologize for using it, or if any was perceived. I stand by my right to use it within an appropriate context. how's that? :-)

Also, I did not start this new section; another editor did. I was simply replying to them. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It's probably better to avoid salutations like "dude", as they can appear patronizing and belittling on the page. Familiar forms of address (buddy is another) do not travel well, and this is a global forum. --TS 08:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Text discussion

Getting this conversation back to my original point, is there any way to introduce some balance into the opening paragraph? I will accept that very current news needn't go here. But, the fact that there are many notable scientists who disagree with the consensus view does belong here to balance a certainty otherwise apparently stronger than both death and taxes.

How about the following at the end of the first paragraph: "However, a number of leading scientists dispute the consensus view. Recent climate data shows the world has not been warming for the past decade. Climate models cannot currently account for this lack of warming." - Brittainia (talk) 18:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately this proposal seems to fail the "true" test before we get on to "relevance" "notability" etc. There has been little or nothing in scientific terms concluded from Climategate, as yet, and it affords little grounds for changing the article, per consensus above. In other non scientific terms I guess so far we have only learned some sceptics are prepared to law break to try to muddy the water which raises questions on lesser moral standards like telling the truth. I haven't yet seen any analysis which is more than trying to find out of context messages and build scandal from thin air. Of course other sceptics may have higher standards of integrity and of course they may be right about the science but we are not the judges of that here. --BozMo talk 19:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, well how about we just put back the sentence which always used to end the first paragraph: "Some scientists dispute the consensus view."

It was removed without discussion on October 23, 2009 by Atmoz [[19]] Since it was there for years, it surely can't "fail" any of your tests - unless you've created a new one since October 23rd. - Brittainia (talk) 19:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Many of the people on that list are not even scientists, and others are scientists in fields unrelated to global warming. I shall have to watchlist it and begin cleaning out the garbage. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This was not the only removal. The sentence has ended up at as the closing sentence of the whole article. There were a vast number of edit wars over it (small number, few, scientists etc) over many months and there was some agreement on the eventual wording and placement. Personally I don't have any strong feelings on it but it does not seem of enough weight for the lede to me. --BozMo talk 20:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please do not start editing warring this inaccurate list back into the article. There is no consensus for it to be re-added. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Was there a consensus for it to be removed? --GoRight (talk) 00:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

No - None. = Brittainia (talk) 07:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, then it should not have been removed. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It was removed because it had no place in the article. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That's it. Consensus reached??? Just because there is an consensus amoung an exclusive group of government backed scientist with government backed grants, does not invalidate an opposing view. We can liken this to the times where the religious elite was science and the earth was flat. That is until a few 'deniers' claimed it was round. They were also excluded from the consensus, ridiculed, and cast-away. That's why I find it ironic that they compare AGW skeptics to flat-earthers. If we fail to include skeptics, even if we concede that their theories are not plausible, we liken ourselves to the olden times where an ogliarchy of 'religious' 'scientists' dominated popular opinion. What if the consensus was that the first atomic model was the correct one. The first model has significant hypotheses backing its formation. That didn't make it truth. There's a consensus that the theory of relativity is flat wrong, but they still teach it in school. However, relativity or not doesn't impose heavy taxes on a middle-class that don't agree in an unproven theory based on observations that try to isolate one variable amoungst millions. We should be as inclusive as possible. Many of these skeptics are published scientists. Their thoughts should be shared with the public as well. --Cflare (talk) 17:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, when a million variables are involved, in ANY science-based profession, one must be absolutely sure when isolating variables, that no hidden variable is the cause for a change in value. Is the consensus absolutely positive there is no hidden variable? Even when a consensus is reached, it is still speculation, and not necessarily true. Why are the skeptics the only ones testing for alternative variables? When a consensus is reached so early, one has to consider the possibility of bias. Really? 30 years of data, 80 years of spotty data is proof? Aren't the climate scientist the ones that set the bar for sufficient data required for consensus? Have about we include the methods of data aquisition to the article. Variances in methods, non-uniform distributions of measurements. Current methods that get even distribution are compared to older methods without adequate distribution. Even in the pro-crowd's data, the lower elevations are warmer now, but the higher elevations are cooler, yet we don't see anyone noting that this is spot on with increased solar activity. How do I know, from my home, that they aren't fiddling with sun activity using 'value-added' data. Truth is, no one knows, because we don't have access to raw data. --Cflare (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

This is full of wrong assumptions. Skeptics are not "the only ones testing for alternative variables". In fact, few of the skeptics do any science at all - exceptions are Lindzen (who agrees that CO2 warms, but believes the effect is self-limiting) and Christy (who is a half-baked sceptic at best). Sami Solanki and Nigel Weiss have both worked on solar influences, for example. But their research supports the IPCC consensus, as both have made clear in strong statements when so-called skeptics tried to hijack and misrepresent their work. Also, see the FAQ Q15.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Steve. You strawman me. I'm not referring to people as skeptics. I'm referring to scientists as skeptics. Fact is they only have 30 years of verifiable and accurate data which uses the same sampling methods. However, it isn't enough data to infer MMGW, so they refer to 80 years of spotty data which has to be calibrated against the method used. All of this spotty data has error ranges well in excess of the 'trend' they refer. To make matters worse, the data collected is not managed by a single entity. Other than satellite data it is not uniform. To make a full-blown joke, there is no method of acquiring a 'control' to the data. There is no 'second earth'. There isn't anything with an equivalent atmosphere which can be used as comparison. It is impossible to create such a thing. So scientists rely on spotty data from 80 years ago and no control to verify a trend. Yes, we have ice-core drilling, but those have been used by both sides of the debate to disprove the other. So please, explain to me how this is verifiable data. Please, explain to me how data 80 years ago is accurate enough to make a comparison. Come back to me when you have data adequately taken and overseen by a single entity over a period of 30 years with the intent of dis/proving MMGW. Then we'll have verifiable data. Still won't have a control, but at least we can infer data that doesn't have an error margin larger than the trend. That is the can of worms that's been open by 'climategate'. I could care less about the correspondence, but it has allowed me to discover the measurement methods used to aquire data. I ensure you, I've never heard of anything so spotty, so ill-supervised, so unscientific. --Cflare (talk) 18:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Text discussion, 2nd section

Well, I added that one small line back into the lede but as you can see, it was deleted within seconds:

(cur) (prev) 20:19, 9 December 2009 Scjessey (talk | contribs) (98,300 bytes) (Undid revision 330721894 by Brittainia (talk) - er...no. Discussion ongoing, list inaccurate.) (undo)
(cur) (prev) 20:18, 9 December 2009 Brittainia (talk | contribs) (98,433 bytes) (Replaced line deleted earlier without discussion, to bring the tiniest bit of balance to the Lede - See discussion page.) (undo)

So I guess that answers my original question. This was a lesson in the definition of "Censorship." - Brittainia (talk) 20:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Claims of "censorship" are without merit. You wish to add inaccurate material into the article without even attempted to establish a consensus for doing so. The problem here is that you are being tendentiously disruptive, possibly because you are attempting to pursue an agenda. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I merely returned a short line, which had been in the article for years and which was deleted without consensus or discussion. What is inaccurate about these 6 words? "Some scientists dispute the consensus view." - Brittainia (talk) 20:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with a mention that a small fraction of scientists disagree. On the other hand, with regard to censorship Antandrus's Observations are on target as always. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) It was not the words, it was the list associated with the hyperlink. The list itself is inaccurate, as I said above. Several of the people on the list aren't properly qualified to be on it. That is probably why it was removed before. Seek consensus before making changes, especially obviously controversial changes, to protected articles in future. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The "list" you refer to is simply the link to the appropriate Wikipedia page. This page has been edited by hundreds of editors for many years. If you have a problem with that page, then take it up there. That does not affect the accuracy of this short sentence in ANY way. - Brittainia (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not "appropriate". And in any case, the "accuracy" of the sentence is not the issue. It is the "appropriateness" of it. You must seek consensus for it, or you cannot add it. Simple as that. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, the sentence itself has problems, not the least of which is that it begins with a weasel word. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"Consensus" does not mean "unanimous agreement." There is no good reason that a single small sentence cannot be added, if one or more good-faith editors feel it is useful and appropriate. I agree with Brittainia's proposal as stated. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

That is not a correct interpretation of "consensus". When there is disagreement (as in this case), "one or more" editors cannot make the decision on their own - especially on a protected page. A proper consensus must be established, and if there is not a "snowball"-like agreement, a third opinion should be sought. We aren't having weasely stuff shoved in willy nilly. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey, if you have a problem with the people included at List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming I suggest that you take that discussion to that page. As it pertains to this article, it would seem legitimate to have a single sentence in the lead that refers to that list. It purports to be a list of scientists and it's contents are closely monitored so if there are any inaccuracies there they are certainly minor for the purposes of our discussion relative to THIS article, and any corrections thereof should be made THERE not here. --GoRight (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely with GoRight. There should not be this much needless contention over just one brief and reasonably-phrased sentence. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 02:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not "needless contention" at all. I am seriously opposed to having that list of "scientists" in the lede of this article. It has been added to the final section in an appropriate manner by another editor, and that should be the only appearance it makes. Bear in mind that the skeptics represent a tiny majority of scientists - so tiny, in fact, that their views should be considered to be on the fringe. Giving them a "voice" in the introduction would be a gross violation of WP:WEIGHT. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

They are not tiny at all, or fringe at all, as the entry itself shows. Using those adjectives on an existing article at Wikipedia shows that you have a partisan opinion on this issue. The way to reach a resolution between two sides on any disputed issue is to incorporate some of the material proposed by each side, using WP:Discussion and WP:Compromise. This is simply a single sentence which a group of credible, well-reasoned good-faith editors have requested to have included. i see no reason for it to be continually obstructed. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The reason is because it would violate NPOV, one of our core policies. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

So, according to your comment, inclusion of BOTH sides of a notable debate makes the article LESS neutral and balanced??? I disagree with your comment, and with the underlying premise of your comment. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

that's not even remotely what I said. Why are you making stuff up and accusing me of thinking it? KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I was simply trying to make the point that simple inclusion of this single brief sentence would be enough to insure that both sides of this notable debate get some degree of fair coverage. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

No, you were simply saying I'd said something I had not. I don't appreciate your dishonest method of "making a point." KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 17:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

do you define making a tautology as dishonesty? Well, anyway, it was not my intention to misrepresent what you said, or to imply any dispute as to your character. I apologize if I did, or if any statment of mine appeared that way. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I consider that use of petitio principii can indeed be used as a form of character assassination, and I appreciate your withdrawal and apology. I fail to see a tautology in your assertion, and your characterization that you were merely using tautology and not loaded phrasing leads me to believe that there is a possibility your apology is less than wholly sincere. However, if you cease such unacceptable flights of fancy as regards my thoughts and opinions, and indeed other editors' thoughts and opinions, I see no reason to continue this. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 17:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I understand your concerns, and appreciate your reply. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, counting me, that's four for, two against. How do we officially reach a snowball consensus, or are we censored from organization such a consensus because the five in biased approval of this artical outweigh the 20 or so requesting more balance.--Cflare (talk) 18:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no "balance" achieved when those requesting it are really requesting an exception to the Wikipedia:Undue weight policy. The point is mentioned in the article. It doesn't need to be in the lead, as it's an extremely minor point that is largely irrelevant to the article's topic. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Bull. It doesn't violate weight, and it is not a minor point. To say it is irrelevant is quite disengenious. That many scientists disagree is wellknown. The only recourse against it is from AGW's that claim that those scientists are not qualified to have a voice. Anyone that has done any scientific research with a high degree of statistical analysis, simulation research, oceanography, geology, etc is qualified to disagree with the statistical conclusions being used to base the supposed concensus view. If the focus of this article is that man is the primary cause of global warming (which it is), then NPOV and WEIGHT require the inclusion that the view is not universal. Arzel (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC);

restatement of idea

I feel that including this brief sentence in the lead section would not violate NPOV, and improves the article by giving both sides of a significant debate some basic coverage. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The key piece of policy involved is UNDUE, which is part of NPOV. Specifically, in order to be included, the "sides", or more accurately, "views" (since "sides" implies a near-even distribution which is clearly inaccurate in this case) must be shown to be significant. The view that global warming is a farce or hoax, or even in any way inaccurate, is insignificant. I am aware of no serious scientist in any related field who holds this view. If one exists, the view would still constitute a vanishing minority and not be a significant view. What we have are some outliers, such as flat-earthers, who have a good bit of media exposure due to the politicization of this subject. The onus is on those who wish to include a minority view to demonstrate that it is significant; I invite you to do so. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 17:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You;'re not aware of ANY serious scientist? then why do we have an entry here at Wikipedia which lists them? The existence of the entry confirms the existence of several such scientists who are serious and notable, for the purposes of our discussion. if you are disputing that article's validity, that is your own opinion. the article clearly shows there are notable scientists on both sides. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A short list of scientists who are not noted as climate experts? That's exactly what I'm talking about. A few people who are not experts is not an alternate view. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you are dismissing the many leading scientists already listed here at Wikipedia. Also the latest news coming out of Copenhagen is relevant: "While the UN Secretary General has told the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen that mankind is primarily to blame for global warming, 150 scientists have signed an open letter demanding hard evidence for that." These are "150 Top Climate Scientists" according to the news report. I agree with Steve, Sm8900, that this brief sentence should be returned to the lead section - from which it was removed without consensus after being there for years. = Brittainia (talk) 19:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Brit is indefblocked as a disruptive sock account; no cite coming from that direction. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The fact that "some" scientists dispute the idea that humans are causing the recent wave of global warming is about as relevant as the fact that "some" physicists reject the natural process of evolution. In other words, it's not relevant. The intro is fine and the article already has a skepiticism section at the end. It's not like we're hiding anything. We're saying it plainly: there are some notable people and scientists who disagree with the various ideas surrounding global warming. Should they be mentioned in the lead? No.UberCryxic (talk) 18:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Missing information about Climategate consensus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is an article about the hacking of the Climatic Research Unit. As yet there seems to be no material effect on the science. This isn't surprising as climatology is a global field.

I added a 'missing info/climategate' tag to the Debate and skepticism section. I left a note to leave it up for 48 hours to reach a consensus to add text that mentions the climategate news.

Thats disruptive editing but I see the tag has correctly been removed. --BozMo talk 17:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

OK. This text was deleted by tonysidaway 3 minutes after it was added by User:Brittainia;

However, a number of highly respected scientists dispute the consensus view. Recently, leaked emails reveal that the leading Global Warming scientists, at the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia and elsewhere, have been concealing or altering the raw data, which shows the world has been cooling for the past decade. These Global Warming scientists have admitted in their emails, that none of the climate models can account for this lack of warming in the real world.

I added tag to the Debate and skepticism section. {{Missing information|Climategate}} It was removed 10 minutes later by William M. Connolley Who just said "see talk". Curiously, no talk by William Connolly, BozMo did the talking for him. He declared adding the tag "disruptive editing". I see this as little more than bullying to preserve a turgid status quo. Mytwocents (talk) 18:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)Strangely enough there has already been quite a lot of discussion about this, and consensus wasn't for inclusion. So tagging the article really is disruptive - since you are ignoring consensus. (and when you are saying "Curiously, no talk..." you are apparently deliberately ignoring the previous discussions, which is rather dishonest. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This article has nothing to do with the CRU hacking incident, so the tag was quite rightly deleted. Constantly trying to shove the CRU stuff into the article is indeed disruptive. The "Debate and skepticism" section is already too large, so we certainly don't need it to be expanded by adding stuff that is (at best) tangentially related. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is what is wrong with the proposed lead text. The lead is a summary of the article, which is in turn a summary of a number of other articles, so anything in the lead must be something the reader absolutely must know to have a general understanding of the issue of global warming. While I think that the original text that was removed from the lead is arguably appropriate (the existence of skeptics/deniers is a somewhat important part of the culture of GW discussioItalic textn, at least in the media), what you have presented is making an implicit argument about the unreliability of climatologists, their data, and the conclusions they have made, which is synthesis at best and giving grossly undue weight to a minority viewpoint in order to undermine the consensus position. You might also benefit from taking a look at WP:Words to avoid; using words like admitted. Also I am doubtful of the factual accuracy of the claim that the lack of cooling in the past ten years (which wasn't really a secret) isn't accounted for in climate models (FAQ#3?) but I don't know if that is something to discuss here. — DroEsperanto (talk) 20:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed the text cited by Mytwocents in his 1828 posting above partly because it contained screamingly obvious falsehoods and partly because this kind of nonsense doesn't belong in a sober discussion of the science of global warming in an encyclopedia. --TS 21:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is a headline from today;

Scientist 'Pressured' to Defend Climate Research

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/09/pressure-defend-climate-gate-scientists/

More than 1,700 scientists in Britain agree to sign a statement defending the "integrity and honesty" of global warming research, but at least one alleges he felt pressured to do so

One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change

My thoughts are; We should at least have the word climategate in the article. There is a political element of global warming that needs to be mentioned on the GW page. And come to think of it where is Nobel Prize recipient Al Gore, not one mention in the article. Talk about an 850 pound gorilla!-- Mytwocents (talk) 08:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I have read the lead very carefully and cannot find any balance at all - it is entirely slanted towards pro-AGW. There is no hint in the lead that the temperature record shows that the world has not warmed at all in the past decade. Nor is there any mention that the leading climate scientists are at a loss to explain it as their models don't "account for this lack of warming."

Instead any reader coming to Wikipedia for a balanced overview of Global Warming would finish reading the lead and believe that AGW is as proven a theory as Newton's Laws of Motion. Do you honestly believe Wikipedia is doing it's job responsibly by giving this erroneous one-sided view to people looking for a balanced understanding of Global Warming? = Brittainia (talk) 08:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Why would we introduce plain, unambiguously wrong information into the article? And I hope you do know that Newton's laws of motion are wrong (but still useful, just like most of science). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I did know that Newton's Laws of Motion are wrong - like most of science. However, since everyone here is convinced that the AGW theory is beyond question - it must not be a scientific theory. Only a religion can be beyond questioning. = Brittainia (talk) 09:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't even get me started on religion. Whenever faith gets brought up in scientific discourse or politics, I feel like killing everyone's firstborn. Religion should never be mixed with science or politics. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:33, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Stephan Schulz said:

Why would we introduce plain, unambiguously wrong information into the article?

How on earth can you possibly be trying to use that totally partisan statement as a way to exclude an entire side of an ongoing debate? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

What debate? KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 14:25, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
What's partisan about my statement? Remember - Own opinion=ok. Own facts=Cuckoo. Brittainia's statement contained several statements that are simply wrong (tm). Saying so is no more partisan that saying 1+1=2. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm open to modification of Brittainia's proposed sentence. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It is difficult to see how it could be modified without violating the neutral point of view, since the entire sentence represents a fringe view. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Section break

Climategate is not the first or only issue with GW. There's lots of problems with GW, and anyone who thinks GW is proven by reading the lead clearly didn't read all of it - it says right there "Political and public debate continues regarding climate change, and what actions (if any) to take in response." Newton's laws of motion doesn't mention any issues in the lead. If we include Climategate in this article, why not include all of the other open sores that the GW theory has which are listed on Global warming controversy - which itself has many child pages? This page doesn't need to list every single issue. Now, if and when anything materially changes in the science of GW as a result, then it will be time to change the page, but I think at that point hacked e-mails will be a small part of it. (And I realize the fallacy of only relying on scientific literature when the controversy is over the scientific literature itself - but if tampering was done, the evidence will eventually be found, and hacked e-mails alone aren't it.)

To the skeptics, don't use weak science and hurried conclusions to win arguments, lest you become a typical Climatologist. --Tjsynkral (talk) 21:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The fourth and last paragraph of the lead mentions, "Political and public debate continues regarding climate change, and what actions (if any) to take in response." However, it clearly and very specifically does not say that "Scientific debate continues regarding climate change." The omission of the word "scientific," implies that the science is settled. Further, all of the "available actions" listed in the next line implicitly accept AGW. So anyone reading the lead could be forgiven for thinking that the AGW theory is proven.

For years, the lead at least had a brief sentence giving some balance: "Some scientists dispute the consensus view." at the end of the first paragraph. However even this brief mention of scientific debate was removed without discussion or consensus on October 23, 2009 by Atmoz. [[20]] Given the Climategate revelations, it is high time Wikipedia restored some balance to the lead. There should be some mention of the ongoing scientific debate regarding climate change. The fact that 150 scientists have recently signed an open letter demanding hard evidence that mankind is primarily to blame for global warming at Copenhagen shows that there is still a scientific debate. This scientific debate should not be overlooked in the lead. = Brittainia (talk) 09:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I tried adding just one word "scientific" between "Political" and "public debate". However, as you can see it was deleted in just five minutes. According to Wikipedia, there is NO scientific debate.

(cur) (prev) 10:17, 11 December 2009 Stephan Schulz (talk | contribs) m (98,564 bytes) (Reverted edits by Brittainia (talk) to last version by ChyranandChloe) (undo)
(cur) (prev) 10:08, 11 December 2009 Brittainia (talk | contribs) (98,576 bytes) (Mentioned scientific debate) (undo)

You should consider the lesson of "The Emperor's New Clothes." Show them off as long as you want to, the public will see through this and start ridiculing soon. ~ Brittainia (talk) 10:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Didn't you get the memo? The IPCC is the end-all-be-all trump. If the IPCC said that Mars warmed because of American CO2 emissions, Wikipedia would be obligated by its neutral point of view policy to assert it as objective fact because it's considered a "scientific" organization by the United Nations. Macai (talk) 10:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a good time to point to Q16. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a good time to suggest addressing the argument made. Macai (talk) 10:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed it. What was the actual argument? --BozMo talk 11:01, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

That making an effort to exclude any source that disagrees with the IPCC, while asserting IPCC conclusions as objective fact despite the fact that it's a political organization is a violation of WP:NPOV and a blatant appeal to authority. Macai (talk) 11:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

OIC. (1) don't see "disagrees with IPCC" given as a reason to exclude any source above and (2) I don't see IPCC conclusions presented as objective facts, only as scienitific consensus which given almost every serious scientific body in the world endorses them looks ok (3) IPCC has political aspects just like say UNICEF does but characterising it as "political" is POV (4) don't see any appeal to authority. So where have I gone wrong? --BozMo talk 11:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, if you look carefully at the revert you will see that no reason was given at all for keeping the fact of scientific debate out of the lead. This is typical of the vast number of reverts and deletions made to this important article for many years now. Those controlling the Global Warming articles on Wikipedia^[1] clearly feel no need to explain themselves. In this they presumably look up to the shining example of those controlling the "Global Warming Science" who felt no obligation to provide the raw data requested even when they were legally required to. Instead they decided to shred it. No real scientist would ever destroy irreplaceable scientific data - only a propagandist would do that if it didn't support their propaganda. ~ Brittainia (talk) 12:24, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The real answer lies in Bozmo's reply:

I don't see IPCC conclusions presented as objective facts, only as scienitific consensus which given almost every serious scientific body in the world endorses them looks ok.

Because Bozmo and his faction deem their side to conform with worldwide scientific consensus, they can continually delete the legtimate edits of anyone here who has any different opinion. From their viewpoint, the ideas and opinions of other actual Wikipedia editors who show up here have no value and no validity; so they do not have to worry about Wp:consensus, or WP:Assume good faith. what does matter is that there is supposedly an abstract broad scientific consensus in the abstract scientific community; but obviously, the scientific community is not going to actually show up at this page to have its own debate, so they are secure with that pretense. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, in that case, you want FAQ 1 and FAQ 8. Don't forget to read the linked articles too. --Nigelj (talk) 15:16, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

To mention scientific debate in the lead, scientific debate needs to be mentioned and sourced in the body text. I see 6 prominent people there, but no organizations (6 people doesn't scientific debate make). If there's scientific debate, get it into the debate and skepticism section first, then talk about getting it in the lead. Be prepared to offer proof that an organization has a reputation for scientific research beyond disputing the claims of GW. I don't think there's scientific debate, to be honest - not because the science behind GW is good, per se (and it isn't), but because the scientific community as a whole is so politically entrenched that nobody would dare to say something against GW even if the research supports it. It's not how science should work, but there's no "science police" out there so we have to wait for the politics to catch up with the science. --Tjsynkral (talk) 16:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) There's a difference between the science and the politics. While the science is important, so is the politics, and this article does a poor job addressing it. Although Climategate is important, it's also not the only issue. Trying to briefly summarize your key points, is this correct Tjsynkral? If you're looking to improve the article, the last paragraph in "Debate and skepticism" has no references, is poorly written, and needs your love. The intent was to portray the opposition. However, since most discussions address the topic in a more general manner than specific, specific sections of text seem to be lost. The lead summarizes the body, and if the body is good, so will the lead. I don't know about you, but a proposal would be good. Post the replacement text and references in the discussion so that we can cleanup the grammar and prose, when that's done, post the replacement text for the lead. What do you think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:37, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you should try to fix any problems you see yourself. Be prepared to have any change you make immediately reverted by WP:OWNers Stephan Schulz, Count Iblis, WMC, Kim D. Petersen, and the other POV pushers who spend their entire day on the GW articles waiting to revert edits that don't make GW look 100% uncontested. --Tjsynkral (talk) 06:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Then why do you try? ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

ChyranandChloe, Tjsynkral tries because he is doing edits which he believes to be correct. he is also pointing out in his comment that many edits which he considers to be legitimate and useful are often overturned for reasons which he finds to be unwarranted and unjustified. I hope that answers your question? thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, there you go. It's no good trying to alter WP in accord with your 'beliefs'. You have to rely on reliable published sources. This is an overview article about the science of GW, and the science hasn't changed. There are other articles about the CRU e-mails, the Copenhagen conference, and the politics of GW, as it unfolds in individual countries. --Nigelj (talk) 15:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Nigel, that comment seems a bit excessive. please do not use semantics aginst other editors. Ok, i used the word "believe." Ok, I can change the phrasing to "holds the opinion," or "believes based on evidence." please, let's not make ridiculous criticisms like this based on individual words. that seems a bit excessive. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 18:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not commenting on your one word, but on the whole argument put forward by you, Tjsynkral and other now-blocked editors in this thread. In particular you were defending Tjsynkral's beliefs (or opinions if you'd prefer) and his/her right to express them in the article. I was thinking of where s/he said, for example, "not because the science behind GW is good, per se (and it isn't), but because the scientific community as a whole is so politically entrenched". And where he described a named list of very experienced and hard-working people here as 'owners' and POV-pushers. What evidence are you going to provide to support those attacks on the whole scientific community and on individual editors here? Please don't; trying to answer a rhetorical question literally will just make you look silly. While we're talking about personal behaviour, there is no need to re-start discussions here on my Talk page. Taking me outside for a 'quiet word in my ear' won't help me change my mind about evidence and neutrality. --Nigelj (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, your penchant for making light of other editor's opinions and judgments does not help this discussion. your mixing of policy-based points and references to my personal phrasings makes it hard to respond constructively. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I wasn't trying to "Take you outside for a 'quiet word in your ear' ". I was trying to camp out on your front lawn with a large megaphone and a crudely-handwritten poster-board enumerating my demands. In cyberspace, any comment's perceived tone can be viewed differently based on the mindset of both sender and recipient. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Images, removal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removed graph of sea level rise in the lead, this belongs in the section "Attributed and expected effects". There are two graphs on global temperatures, the first I believe are the mean temperature of each year with a step-wise (Dragonsflight? help me man) regression on it. The second compares the monthly average land-based and satellite based measurements with a linear regression through it all. I think we should cut the second, since it only goes back to 1975, where in the section "Temperature change" we start the regression in 1906. What do you guys think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Too many pix is bad William M. Connolley (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Removing the sea level was a good idea, but I think we need to keep the 2nd temp graph, because it clears up the some of the confusion about the "cooling trend" or "lack of warming" of the past 10 years.--CurtisSwain (talk) 23:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

“

Earth has experienced warming and cooling many times in the past. The recent Antarctic EPICA ice core spans 800,000 years, including eight glacial cycles timed by orbital variations with interglacial warm periods comparable to present temperatures.^[2]

A rapid buildup of greenhouse gases caused warming in the early Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago), with average temperatures rising by 5 °C (9.0 °F). Research by the Open University indicates that the warming caused the rate of rock weathering to increase by 400%. As such weathering locks away carbon in calcite and dolomite, CO₂ levels dropped back to normal over roughly the next 150,000 years.^[3]^[4]

Sudden releases of methane from clathrate compounds (the clathrate gun hypothesis) have been hypothesized as a cause for other warming events in the distant past, including the Permian-Triassic extinction event (about 251 million years ago) and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (about 55 million years ago).

”

I guess? I can see the spike in the first one, and the dip thereafter. Anyways here's what I've got: we've concluded above to added "Pre-human GW" into the article. The reconstructed temperature record can go in the "Pre-human GW" and the second with the sat measurements can go in the new subsection "Currently GW". Both would be subsectioned in "Temperature changes". There are some minor format changes since now and then, I can bridge the gap. How does that sound? Above is the text from when this article was reviewed as an FA. ChyranandChloe (talk) 02:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thank you for all your hard work.--CurtisSwain (talk) 08:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

No for obvious reasons. This article is about present warming. There is no need for 3 paragraphs on past warming. If you want to add a sentence about past warming, that is more than enough. There should be no mention in this article of any hypotheses. This includes clathate gun, iris, cosmic rays, and all the others too. Research shouldn't be attributed to anyone. If it's not generally understood, then it doesn't belong in an overview article such as this. In general, this edit is way to detailed. Trim it down. Remove the unnecessary bits. Milankovitch could possibly be mentioned, perhaps at the end of the current first paragraph of that section. I see nothing else that needs to be in this article. It is way too long as it is and needs to be shortened. "Pre-human global warming" (whatever you've defined that as) is outside the scope of this article. Just as dogs are outside the scope of the dinosaur article. There is no need to re-add material from when this article passed as a featured article. If featured articles were actually quality encyclopedia articles, they would get protected and nobody would need to edit them ever again. This section was removed for good reason. -Atmoz (talk) 04:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Verification helps. You've got two errors. (1) The addition had one paragraph, not three.[21] (2) "way too long" is subjective, we have objective limits defined by WP:SIZE, and using the same method as another FA under Dr pda's tool: the article has 27kB readable prose, 28kB if you include the addition—which is below the 30kB for readable prose, refs can be reduced with cite doi.[22] On relevance, false analogy, dogs and dinos are different from past and current climate change; furthermore, past warmings is worth mentioning, without it there's no context for the reader to compare the current warming to. No basis for you inferences on FA. Half your reasons are purely subjective or wrong. No comment on the research: waiting for Curtis, Boris, or WMC to reply. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There are clearly 3 paragraphs above. The fact that you combined 3 separate ideas into one paragraph while inserting it into the article is bad writing. You don't need to know anything about past climate change to understand current climate change. Dogs/dinos are not a false analogy. Dinosaurs are a previous form of life on Earth. By your reasoning, in order to understand present life on Earth we would need to understand previous life on Earth. This is not true. The size guideline may offer a quantitative number for article that are too big, but how was such a number decided upon. I'd guess it was by subjective means. An article is too long if a reasonable reader is not going to read the entire thing. This article fits that criteria. None of my objections were wrong. I'll be perfectly clear. I don't give a flying fuck about FA. I view it as mutual masturbation for those needing to stroke their egos. -Atmoz (talk) 07:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we're arguing about this diff [23]. Whilst I don't care a lot about FA, I know some people do, and I wouldn't discount it entirely. It looks to me as though this argument has got heated, which is regrettable between two good contributors. I'd suggest reverting to the pre-change version (which I think means A's preferred version) and talk over what to do. But there is no hurry over this William M. Connolley (talk) 08:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree we don't need any of that kind of detail about past climate changes here in this overview of the current warming. That's what we have Climate change, paleoclimatology and geologic temperature record (etc) for. I'm aware of past discussions regarding the fact that the word "current" is not explicit in this article's title, but I think that was settled in terms of WP:COMMONNAME, that what most people think of when you say "global warming" is the current episode, not collective ends of the last eight glacial cycles considered together. In order to discuss them, of course you have to talk about global cooling as well. By that point (i.e. the first added sentence in the diff above) you are already way off topic. --Nigelj (talk) 12:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good WMC and Atmoz, I'll look into getting a breif sentence made. Right now it seems to me that the trolls are too taxing on good faith and time. ChyranandChloe (talk) 18:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Recent Scafetta papers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This article presents a summary of climate change science. New references about specific aspects are probably better discussed as possible additions to the specialized articles on particular branches of climatology, and if accepted they may then be suitable, if significant enough to global warming, for use as references in this article.

There are some more recent articles (2009) by Scafetta, et. al, that should be included in the solar variation portion of the radiative forcing section, e.g. Nicola Scafetta and Richard Willson, “ACRIM-gap and Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy model”, Geophysical Research Letter 36, L05701, doi:10.1029/2008GL036307 (2009)) by someone who understands the science better than I do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TruthOutThere (talk • contribs) 18:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion - I'll add itDikstr (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, the paper has been cited a total of 4 times in other peer-reviewed papers - one of which is by the author himself. Of the remaining three papers the two of them disagree with it, and the third uses it in a reference list with no inline citation (so there is no telling where it is used), and is in a journal that isn't focused on solar-research. Has nothing to do on this article, and i'm rather doubtful whether it would belong on a sub-article. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim; Sorry, what are you basing your comment on? I easily found a reference to that paper here: http://www.leif.org/research/2008GL036307-pip.pdf. and : http://www.livescience.com/environment/050930_sun_effect.html there are a number of other references as well. --22:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you are referring to the wrong paper. Note that this particular Scafetta paper is from 2009. The first link is to a pre-print of the paper, and the second is about an old Scafetta paper (note the date please). Use scholar, check "cited by". --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, those article prove he is a credible source. A recent paper would not yet have a lot of media coverage. what standards are you people using here? there is no consensus that a paper which is already academically credible has to be further confirmed through refernce by other credible scholarly sources, who themselves need to be peer-reviewed journals subject to review by officially appointed accreditation agencies...phew, hard to even type that. --23:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There are thousands upon thousands of "credible," peer-reviewed papers published every year. We can't cite all of them. Let's wait and see if this paper makes a large impact on the field (so far, it has not). Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ditto Boris above. The relevant issue here is one of weight. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This is getting a bit excessive. Wikipedia operates on the principles of all editors having some legitimate role in an article. there is nothing in Wikipedia guidelines which says that a single credible, legitimate source, has to have a wide-ranging impact before it can even be used here. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 02:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm. In the past year there have been about 240 articles published in Journal of Climate, maybe 500 in Geophysical Research Letters, and 300 in JGR-Atmospheres, to name but three journals among a dozen or so relevant to the field. Is it your view that we can just shove 'm all in, as long as at least one editor wants it there? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:13, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

No; we can include the few which summarize some of the important points of this topic and its related issues. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but that's not what I gathered from your previous response (maybe I misunderstood). So we've come full circle: we should wait and see if the Scafetta and Dikstr article becomes "an important point of this topic," as you say. I support that. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with you. the question is not whether the source article itself is important, but rather whether it covers any important details of the topic itself. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 02:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Can we have a FAQ on this? Papers like this should *first* go into the solar variation article (ditto GHG for papers about GHG's). Fight about them there, decide their worth, and don't clog up the GW talk page or article with this stuff. Yes I know: you won't get the fame or fortune from trubble making here, but it is the appropriate path William M. Connolley (talk) 08:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a great idea.--CurtisSwain (talk) 22:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

WMC's point is a good one.--SPhilbrick T 13:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

^ [24]
^ Hansen, James (2006-09-26). "Global temperature change" (PDF). PNAS. 103 (39): 14288–14293. Retrieved 2007-04-20. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Text "doi:10.1073/pnas.060291103" ignored (help)
^ "The Open University Provides Answers on Global Warming" (PDF) (Press release). Open University. 2004-01-30. Retrieved 2007-03-04. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Cohen, Anthony S. (2004). "Osmium isotope evidence for the regulation of atmospheric CO₂ by continental weathering" (PDF). Geology. 32 (2): 157–160. doi:10.1130/G20158.1. Retrieved 2007-03-04. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

[1] [24]

[2] Hansen, James (2006-09-26). "Global temperature change" (PDF). PNAS. 103 (39): 14288–14293. Retrieved 2007-04-20. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Text "doi:10.1073/pnas.060291103" ignored (help)

[3] "The Open University Provides Answers on Global Warming" (PDF) (Press release). Open University. 2004-01-30. Retrieved 2007-03-04. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[4] Cohen, Anthony S. (2004). "Osmium isotope evidence for the regulation of atmospheric CO₂ by continental weathering" (PDF). Geology. 32 (2): 157–160. doi:10.1130/G20158.1. Retrieved 2007-03-04. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

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