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Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8Archive 9

Renaming this article to solve confusion

After months of preparation, I'd like to propose a title change to this article. Informal discussions so far indicate there is a clear consensus for having climate change redirect to global warming (with some suggestions even that it might replace the title). The discussions have not yet led to a best alternative name. Tagging users that have provided feedback on the sandbox that helped this proposal along: @NewsAndEventsGuy, NightHeron, Efbrazil, and EMsmile.

Currently, our global warming article deals with current global climate change, while our climate change article deals with climatic changes in general. Over the last couple of months, a few calls to rediscuss this have been put forward, and here at last I'd like to start the discussion for real with a concrete set of proposals. I've prepared the overview arguments for why I believe the current situation is untenable and what policies and guidelines are applicable. I also put forward a solution to solve this issue. The main reason for not calling an article about general climate change, simply climate change is that most people associate it with current climate change. Applicable guideline: WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:

I think that the first criterion is most important here. In Q1.1 (specifically point 4) I've laid out evidence that the term climate change is only used to refer to climate change in general about 0.5 to 2% of the time, both in lay literature and in scientific literature. In previous discussion, we've focused on definitions of global warming and climate change to determine this distinction. I think that misses the point of PRIMARYTOPIC, as this disregards how the terms are actually used. Climate change and global warming are both used in common speech to refer to the current warming. I suspect that the readers of climate change, over a million per year, are mostly interested in what is typically meant by climate change and the hatnote is insufficient to lead all of them to our page about current climate change: global warming. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Two possible ways forward and my argumentation for renaming
Considering the current practice leads to confusion (see entirety of Q1.1) and is at odds with Wikipedia guidelines, there are two courses of action for the current text at climate change that I consider to be in line with policy&guidelines:

  1. Merge the page into other pages that deal with climate change in general (mostly climate system)
  2. Rename the page. Criteria for good names are found under WP:CRITERIA.

My renaming proposal
Credit for this proposal goes to User:Colin M.

(PROPA) Rename climate change to climatic changes. The plural here provides a natural disambiguation from current climate change.

  1. Advantage 1: the scope can be completely retained.
  2. Advantage 2: we stop confusion (I think). There are two types of confusion that can happen due to an article title. One is with internal links breaking, and the other one with typing climate into search box and getting the wrong page. I'd say the former is worst, in the sense that people believe their on the right page
    1. Climatic changes is currently a redirect with only 1 link. So wrong internal links are set to not become a big problem here.
    2. By making the page into climatic changes, there is an 'early' point where people that search climate change break off.

(PROPB) Rename climate change to climate change (general concept) Thanks to discussion below I came up with a name I think might suit our needs even better.

  1. Advantage 1: impossible to blue-link on accident
  2. Advantage 2: The name is specific. A possible disadvantage of climatic changes might be that 90% of people associate it with climate change in general, and 10% with of climate change now. This specification makes clear it's not an issue/problem but a concept. It's also scientifically accurate.
  3. People actively looking for the concept of climate change can still find it.


Alternative names
Other possible names that I came up with, that I think fall short of meeting title criteria.

  1. Attempts at finding synonym for climate change which is not primarily associated with current climate change: Climate variation, Climatic fluctuation, Climatic variation and climate variability. Climate variability is not the same as climate change. It's typically used for short-term climate fluctuations. The other three terms are also used, informally, to describe either climate variability, climate change or both and are not precise.
  2. Option that does restrict scope: Natural climate change (restricted scope). Although the term is immediately clear, it might lead people to think current climate change is natural.
  3. Putting qualification after title, such as general: Climate change (general). It's not really clear what the world general means. It could for instance refer to the human, animal and physical aspects of climate change. Other option is climate change (past, present and future). Again unclear whether past only refers to last 200 years of further back.

List of names that came up during discussion (see discussion for discussion)

  • Climate change (general concept)
  • Climate change (general phenomenon)
  • Climate variation (long time scale)

Merging into other pages
Information has already been copied to our new climate system article (much of it was changed as it violated verifiability and summary style guidelines). About a third/half of that article is about climate change and it provides a basic overview. The new climate variability article also has a slight overlap.

Background information

Q1.1: How do we know the current naming leads to confusion?
A1.1: We have five clear indications the current naming practice leads to widespread confusion, and the hat note is insufficient to mitigate this confusion:
  1. Look at Pages that link to climate change (Special:WhatLinksHere/Climate_change minus the navboxes). Only ~10% are linked correctly, with 90% of them referring to ongoing climate change!
  2. Climate change is read disproportionately often for a page about the general theory of climate change. It's at 3000 views a day, compared to 1500 for the GA article on climate. Peaks in climate change readership often coincide with peaks in global warming, further suggesting people are actually looking for information about current warming (Comparison of last year's viewership)
  3. A large portion of comments and edits on climate change from new and older editors is about current climate change.
  4. Our climate change article is the odd one out in Google's search engine. Only on the 4th page of unbiased Google results is there another page about climate change in general, instead of current warming. For Google scholar (possibly biased towards my search history), the first mention of non-current climate change was on page 6. With a bit of rough statistics, this implies that climate change refers to the ongoing climate change about 97-99.5% of the time.
  5. There have been complaints and debates on the talk pages for years, and the number and passion of these has increased the last two years.
Q1.2: Why was the distinction established
A1.2: Multiple reasons were given to make the distinction as it is now (it started in April 2002. See Talk:Global warming/Archive 1):
  1. First of all, back around 2005 global warming was the most-used term to refer to current warming on Google. In books and in the UK parliament the switch to climate change came earlier.
  2. The editors active then asserted that while the distinction climate change/global warming was not made properly by lay people, scientists typically used climate change in the general sense, while global warming was used only to refer to current warming (see for instance the first few edits 1, 2 of the climate change article). While there may have been some truth in it in the past, this is certainly not the case anymore now, as can be seen by the names of the most prominent climate research sources (IPCC and National Climate Assessment) and a comparison of Google Scholar's results.
  3. In a recent discussion, it was proposed that renaming the global warming article into climate change would play into the hands of those that want to downplay the human role in the current warming. Note that the article title policy explicitly states that "In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense".
Q1.3: What has changed since previous discussions?
A1.3: Common usage of the terms has changed, as well as the context on Wikipedia:
  1. The usage of the terminology global warming and climate change has shifted. Google keeps track of the frequency of use for both terms and from about 2015 climate change has become the more dominant term for the current warming+effects. In books and in the UK parliament the switch to climate change came earlier.
  2. We've made a new article: climate system that covers the basics of the general concept of climate change, so that a separate article is not needed as much as before.
  3. Starting with Talk:Global warming/Archive 1, the first three archives have been rebuilt and formatted with dates and threading to extent possible. It is much easier now to see the denial/skeptic arguments that led to the dubious bifurcation we have inherited.

Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Alternative - Merge this content to Climate system

If you arrived here from a targeted link elsewhere, please bubble up one level to see the concurrent rename proposal NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:13, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

NAEG says the ADVANTAGES to merging instead of renaming are

  • Climate science communicators advocate for "systems thinking" when trying to talk about climate change. (E.g.,"Systems thinking can support public understanding of climate change". Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  • That's about as general as you can get
  • Its a simple mid-teens level English
  • Avoids a new form of befuddlement.... What we have now regularly gives readers a bad WP:EGG experience and I don't want to shift this to a new flavor via a new article title. EXAMPLE - Imagine our lay reader searching on "climate change" to read about Human-caused global warming and climate change (or whatever we call that topic). Our lay reader only knows the most basic info on this subject and after searching on "climate change" they run into into articles called
- Climatic changes and the reader says "What? Is THAT what I want?" (But like the current article, it isn't)
- Climate change (general) and the reader starts in on that but ends up saying "Where's the GLOBAL WARMING shit?"
etc
By putting the general discussion of climate change (and all the navigation links to sub articles) under Climate system#Changes within the climate system, this sort of ongoing befuddlement and consternation never happens during article title searching
  • When the reader does arrive at the subsection #Changes within the climate system, fact that the article gift-wrapper is "SYSTEM" there will already be an unconscious mindset that imagines all sorts of changes in that system, and doing it this way is consistent with current thinking among climate communication researchers (see ref above)
  • In the end, "climate change" and "global warming" will still land on the same page, just like the renaming approach

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:07, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion and surveying of opinions

My proposal is to rename climate change to climatic changes. The current name leads to a lot of confusion. Climate change will become a redirect to global warming (which is the guideline when we determine the primary topic of climate change is current climate change).Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Please add NotVotes and Discussion in the subsections below'

Survey (not voting)

In this section, please say "Support", "Opposed", or propose a different article title, but remember this is a guide, not a binding vote. If you don't agree with the premise of this renaming proposal (climate change has current climate change as primary topic) explicitly state this as well.

Question 1 - Should "climate change" and "global warming" both go to the same article (whatever its called)?
Question 2a - Should climate change be renamed to "Climatic changes"?
Question 2b - Should climate change be renamed to "Climate change (general concept)"?

Restatement of Femke's original two questions added NAEG NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Question 3 - Should Climate change be merged to Climate system#Changes within the climate system?

Please try to answer all the questions in bold Answer-1/Answer-2/Answer-3 etc, possible answers include "support", "Opposed", "Don'tCare", "Also Works","See alternative" etc. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:07, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

  1. ... Q1: Support the proposal that climate change should redirect to global warming. Q2a/2b Support renaming this article to climactic change or to climate change (general concept). Q3 Oppose merge. Vision Insider (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
  2. Support the proposal that climate change should redirect to global warming. (and maybe some time in future the article on "global warming" to be renamed to "climate change"; but that could be a second step much later). Support renaming this article to climactic change or anything else that is similar & overarching (I don't think it matters that much what it is renamed to). EMsmile (talk) 01:17, 10 October 2019 (UTC) - Update: Q1 - strong support / Q2a- oppose / Q2b - weak support / Q3 - no opinion, don't know enough about that article EMsmile (talk) 14:23, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  3. Support redirecting climate change to global warming (and in the near future changing the title of Global warming to climate change). Also renaming this article to something like Climate variation (large time scales). NightHeron (talk) 01:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC) - Update: Q1-Support/Q2a-Oppose/Q2b-Oppose/Q3-Weak oppose NightHeron (talk) 14:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC). Changing my vote on Q3 to Q3-Unsure NightHeron (talk) 11:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  4. Q1-Support / Q2a-Oppose /Q2b-weak opposeQ2b-Support / Q3-Support NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC) Updated by NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:28, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
  5. Strong support redirecting climate change to global warming. I'd also be in favor of changing the title of Global warming to climate change at some point. Will write more later. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC) Update: Q1 Strong support, Q2a: No opinion. Q2b:Oppose - "General" to me in this context implies the article will give general coverage of a given topic, not that the topic itself has a more general scope than another topic. Q3: No opinion. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC) Update: Struck my oppose to Q2b. Q2b: No strong opinion While Climate change (general concept) has some problems, I also don't want to be opposing something without supporting an alternative. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:26, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  6. Q1-Strong Support/Q2a-Support/Q2b-Strong Support/Q3-Oppose Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  7. Q1:Strong support "GW & CC" — Q2a:(Prefer 2b)--> — Q2b:Support — Q3:Would also support —RCraig09 (talk) 17:04, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  8. Q1- Strong Support/Q2a-Oppose/Q2b-Support/Q3-Strong Support Efbrazil (talk) 18:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  9. Q1-Strong oppose: CC is the general topic and isn't the same as GW, which is much more specific /
    Q2a-Oppose introduces uncommon and unnecessary term /
    Q2b-oppose – it's not necessary to rename climate change to "Climate change (general concept)" as that's the common meaning /
    Q3-oppose merging Climate change to Climate system#Changes within the climate system as that's an unexpected easter egg leading away from a common and general term, though the two may be synonymous. dave souza, talk 10:54, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

In this section, please explain your answers above, referencing reliable sources and policies and guidelines, specifically WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:ARTICLETITLE. Beware of making irrelevant arguments like these.

  • Explanation of Support for Q1, Q2a/2b The topic of this article is not suited to how the term is used in common parlance. A title really does need to reflect how a user will expect the term to be used. Since climate change and global warming are generally used interchangeably, it is confusing to the average reader not to reach a page discussing global warming if they have searched for climate change. A central part of a title is the need for it to be readily recognised. While I know that this is only anecdotal, when I first visited this page I was actually seeking for a page on global warming specifically, not the general climate trends. Part of me thinks that renaming this piece would be a violation the idea that the title must also be a neutral term (and climate change, strictly speaking, is term referring to long-term trends and not the current situation), but I also think that, realistically, the battle has long been lost on this splitting of hairs. Therefore, making this page have a different name would be more useful to those using this page for what they expected the title told them it would. Vision Insider (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2019 (UTC) ETA: Opposition to Q3 the distinction seems esoteric to anyone (like me) who would be unlikely to use such terms that specifically. I think that a title needs to match what a user is expecting to find. It's also notable enough, I think, to warrant its own page.Vision Insider (talk)
In terms of neutrality: there are two definitions used by our highest quality reliable sources for climate change. One refers to climate change (general concept) the other to human-caused climate change. Both definitions are mentioned in the IPCC SR1.5 report: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/glossary/. So I would argue, there is no 'strictly speaking' here. In typing this, I think I may have though of a name candidate for our current article: climate change (general concept).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Femkemilene (talk • contribs) 06:39, October 10, 2019 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable. I think Global warming (General Concept) Climate Change (General Concept) (Thanks Femke Nijsse!) is a suitable title for this article. Since you are defs more of an expert than I am, is there a difference in meaning between "climactic change" and "climate change" that means the former isn't suitable? It could be a moot point, anyway, because now you've mentioned it, "global warming (general concept)" works well as a name anyway. Vision Insider (talk) 21:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for comment. Am I right in assuming your 'global warming (general concept)' was a typo and you meant 'climate change (general concept)'? The former doesn't really work, as you would arbitrarily only look at global warming events and mechanisms, instead of the full phenomenon. Climate change has two definitions: one of them human-caused climate change, and one of them climate changes in general, also before humans were around. I hope that when I say climatic changes, people will mostly associate that with the general definition of climate change. (In another comment 'climate change (general phenomenon)' was preferred over 'clmate change (general concept)'. Would you agree with that?). Femke Nijsse(talk) 06:54, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Oops. Yes, I did mean that. Fixed! As to the second idea, I prefer 'climate change (general concept)' and 'climate change (general phenomenon)' in equal measure to the current title with no particular preference.Vision Insider (talk) 01:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Explanation of Support - for the same reasons as listed in this proposal. It is long overdue and I am so glad we are finally having a structured, well-laid out discussion about this; hopefully we can finally make progress on this question that has been lingering for several years now (I remember my own confusion when I got to this page and read completely different stuff to what I was expecting. Naturally I was expecting to read about the current topic of climate change, not an academic article on how the climate has changed since earth was created etc.). EMsmile (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Re your comment in the survey that you don't know much about the Climate system article, you had a hand in bringing that about. Efbrazil, you, and others made a hard push for some renaming late 2017-early 2019. In response, I started brainstorming a solution. As I envisioned things, creating Climate system was key to the longterm solution. Femkemilene and I started talking and she ran with the ball creating that article, just because it was an important article to have. And that's how that article came to be, thanks for stirring the pot many months ago that led to these efforts! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment I think it's most important to get clarity in the title of the article that readers are most searching for, concerning human-caused modern climate change. It appears that climate change is the most commonly used term for that. Concerning a new title for the present Climate change article, I see two problems with "climatic changes" as a title. First, it sounds to me as if it's referring to changes over a small time scale, which is not what we intend. Secondly, the distinction between human-caused recent climate change and climate change over longer time scales is not that the second is more "plural" (multidimensional) than the first; in fact, one reason for replacing "global warming" with "climate change" for the article on current anthropogenic climate change is that it is a complex process producing many changes whereas "global warming" suggests a one-dimensional process. For another possible title for the Climate change article, how about "Climate variation (large time scales)"? NightHeron (talk) 00:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for coming up with an alternative name! I think we typically speak of long time scales, so I'm going to comment on the name climate variation (long time scales). I'm not immediately enthusiastic. There are two drawbacks of the name. The first one is that it's rather long. If at all possible, we should avoid long names. (Of course, avoiding plural is also commendable). The second one is that is quite a roundabout way of describing climate change as general concept. Which brings me to a new idea: what about the title climate change (general concept)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Femkemilene (talk • contribs) 06:39, October 10, 2019 (UTC)
I think either Climate variation (large time scales) or Climate variation (long time scales) is okay. The title isn't any longer than many titles of BLP articles where a few words in parentheses distinguish the subject of the article from other people with the same name. The trouble with (general concept) is that it implies a theoretical discussion of principles of climate variation rather than an article with a lot of specific information about concrete climate changes through the ages. NightHeron (talk) 12:29, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
@NightHeron: Please see WP:ONEDOWN at Make technical articles understandable. If we target freshman year college and per ONEDOWN write for highschool, do those titles make this basic top level summary article more or less comprehensible to your average 16yr old? In case it isn't clear, I think the techy titles make things worse, not better. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:44, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy: Yes, I very much agree with your general point. Elsewhere I suggested that the Global warming article needs to be reorganized so as to frontload the easily understandable material and put the more technical content toward the end; this would be in line with WP:Make technical articles understandable#Put the least obscure parts of the article up front. Global warming is the article that's of tremendous popular interest, especially among young people, whereas the topic of climate variation over the ages would not be of interest to nearly as many high school or college students. But in any case, I don't see any words in the title I suggested that would be unclear to high school students (even in the U.S., where vocabulary development is not a strong point of the educational system). NightHeron (talk) 13:12, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
FYI, re the offpoint tangent, Global warming evolved that way during frequent "Its not actually warming" battles and reform is long overdue.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:32, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
But this article currently is about general climate change and not a history of climate changes. The historic events are used as examples. I don't agree with NEAG's assessment that the title is too techy, instead it's not precise enough to me. (NEAG: also note the word college is US-specific. In the UK, college freshers are 16)) Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:50, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
The first sentence of the article mentions "extended period of time" as a characteristic of the topic. From a popular standpoint, the main difference between the Global warming article and the Climate change article is that the former deals with a current issue with impacts in the near future -- a few years or a few decades, whereas the latter deals with changes over time periods that are between a few decades and a few million years (as stated in the second sentence of the lead). NightHeron (talk) 13:23, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Re current warming & "decades".... Science says... sea levels will continue to rise for thousands of years, and under a status quo response it will take millions of years to reset the biodiversity from the mass extinction now underway. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
The current climate change instance is not distinguishable from other climatic changes in terms of how long the event is. It's not (that?) controversial to say that this event will cause the next (few?) glaciation(s) to not occur, the first one which would have been expected ten thousands of years from now. Agree that either of climate variation or climate change (general concept) will be read far less (and even more so, far less by 16-yr olds) than climate change. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I thought there's a scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is occurring much more rapidly than natural climate change normally occurs. If this is correct, then there really is a difference in time scale. NightHeron (talk) 14:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Arguing for a difference is speed is something else than what your title implies I feel. There is consensus it's faster than the last thousands of years. But tipping points have caused rapid change in the past as well. I'm not a paleoclimatologist, but I wouldn't say that there is consensus that now is the fastest change ever. You are right that normally natural climate change is slower. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
@NightHeron... sounds like you may be confusing "timescale" and "rate". The first is just time, i.e., number of years. The second is change per unit of years. You're right though... the science does say the rate of climate change is very fast compared to past events in the geo record. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:37, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Another point to consider: "what is long time scales". For geologists/geology undergraduates, thousands or even hundred of thousands of years are considered short time scales. For this group, which might be one of the major groups interested in this article, your proposed title isn't sufficiently precise. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
@Femkemilene: The second sentence in the article establishes what is meant: "This length of time can be as short as a few decades to as long as millions of years." @NewsAndEventsGuy: I'm only a layperson and have read little of the scientific literature. But as I understand it, the main point about time scale -- or the rate, if you prefer that term -- is that in the past climate change usually occurred over long enough periods so that most animals and/or humans could adapt, for example, by migrating or changing diet and (in the case of humans) the basis for their economy. But the current anthropogenic climate change is occurring so fast that many fear that we won't be able to adapt. This means that the rate and time scale are a central issue in distinguishing anthropogenic climate change from the typical climate changes that have occurred in the past. NightHeron (talk) 21:29, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the article itself is clear, but we want people to be able to find the article, which is one of the main functions of a title. In WP:CRITERIA there are five criteria listed that make up a good title, and one of them is preciseness, which I don't think your title meets. I think the longness of the title (conciseness is another criterion), can be compromised on, but since we're out to dispel confusion, preciseness is quite important. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:46, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@Femkemilene: Okay, you're right that the article makes the timescale clear at the beginning of the lead. So I'm happy to vote for Clayoquot's suggested title Climate change (general phenomenon), which seems to have a chance of achieving consensus. NightHeron (talk) 11:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
NightHeron, To give credit where it's due, that was Femke's suggestion :) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:53, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Clayoquot, sorry about the misattribution. Because of NAEG's criticism below, perhaps it should be plural: Climate change (general phenomena). NightHeron (talk) 23:39, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  • NewAndEventsGuy
(A) Malformed discussion headings the bolded "explanation of support" in this discussion section appears to recreate the survey and inflate the level of support across the board, but that's misleading. The survey itself has multiple questions; its very hard to tell which things each ed actually supports, and which they don't care about, etc.
(B) Question 1 = YES", climate change" and "global warming" should land on the same page because in the common tongue they mean the same thing. These phrases became assigned to articles with different scope for a really lame reason in 2002-2004
(C) Q2a = NO and Q3 = YES for reasons stated above, in section #Alternative_-_Merge_this_content_to_Climate_system
(D) Q2b = support In the midst of this discussion as a compromise, I agreed that viewed very narrowly, the rename to Climate change (general concept) would be an incremental improvement. I'm not sure if it will be a sufficient improvement, but it will move the needle a little bit in the right direction. Then we can two things. (A) Talk about other tangentially related ideas and (B) find out if the rename helps reduce confusion. So for the sake of progress, I've switched to "Support" for this less ambiguous new title, but like most others here, I really want to make other changes too. Q2b = weak oppose... Although I made basically the same proposal in June 2014 now I think this is merely a Plan-B. Merging to CLimate system is still better. So far, I only see Femkemiline's comments of 12:43, 10 October opposing the merge alternative. Femke and I are both guessing what the future reader's experience will be, kinda like CRYSTALBALL and IJUSTLIKE sort of thinking. There aren't any clear policy reasons to prefer one over the other. However, there IS an RS-based reason, which I have already provided. Systems-based thinking is an important element in clear communication about this topic. Therefore, I'd talk about general change in the context of workings of the climate system, rather than as a stand alone article. Femke, observe that we had a "climate change" article for 16 or 17 years and how astonished you were when I pointed out we had no CLIMATE SYSTEM article!! Now we have RSs supporting science communication that says Systems-thinking is the way to do it. So I weakly oppose Climate change (general concept) on basis of my guessing about future reader experience and because science communication RSs say presenting it in systems-based thinking is the way to go. I think Climate system#Changes within the climate system is preferable, but I can reluctantly accept Climate change (general concept) as a Plan-B worth taking for a test drive, if all else fails.
(E) Q2b (Part 2) If we call this Climate change (general concept), then after the expected rename effort at Global warming (which I think is on hold until the present dust settles) we could end up with... just for example....
Outcome in future rename discussion What articles would readers contend with
If Global warming is not renamed) Climate change (general concept) and Global warming
If Global warming moves to "Climate change" Climate change (general concept) and Climate change
If Global warming moves to "Global warming and climate change" Climate change (general concept) and Global warming and climate change
If instead Climate change is merged as proposed above Climate system and Global warming-possibly renamed
The table shows that using "Climate change (general concept)", while proposed in very good faith, it will accidentally make some options for renaming "global warming" far less appealing before we even have that discussion. If we simply merge to Climate system, we really won't have to deal with similar titles anymore.
(F) To answer one of Femkemilines guesses about the future, if anyone tries to make a generic climate change article or complains that we're hiding stuff, we answer, "Sure we have an article, its at Climate system especially under headnig 3. Did you READ the hatnote at Global warming (which says this)? Did you READ the invisible comment we added to the various redirects (which say this)?
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:21, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Note that I'm against calling the article climate change (in general) per, among other things, reasoning above and under User:Clayoquet's comment. I think that we need to specify better by saying WHAT is general. Hence climate change (general concept). Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I changed all the (in general)s in my comment to (general concept)s NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Femkemilene (discussion proposal NEAG)
(a) The main reason to oppose for me is that we invite a new perennial discussion with this proposal. There will always and always be people that want to have a general article about climate change.
(b) Furthermore, some of our readers might start complaining that we 'hide away' information about climatic change by not even having a page about it.
(c) Request to talk about ages, instead of talking about a US-specific grades Having thought about it a bit more, I now prefer climate change (general concept) to climatic changes because it's perfectly specific for TWO groups of people that might have interest in it: the general public and the specialists. I'm going to complicate the discussion a bit further my introducing this option as well. If a 14-yr old were to search in our search box and come across two options: climate change & climate change (general concept), I think most of them will go for the simplest option before thinking. The majority of that small group that does start thinking will, even if they hadn't thought about climate change as having occurred before, connect the dots SOLELY from article titles. Then, the last portion will be able to be lead to the correct page by a hatnote.
(d) With this longer name climate change (general concept) I think the two types of EGG confusion (via blue links definitely and via search 99% of time) will be solved.
(e) People actively searching for climate change in general will have some difficulty finding it. From the search box, many might go go to global warming first (some might quit because they KNOW that's the wrong page), then some will miss the hat-note (I assume we'll refer to a section in a hat-note? That's quite uncommon, right?). Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:43, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
RE(A) that's easily preventable. This reform will convert "climate change" into a redirect. Your fear is that people will constantly try to turn it back into an article. Any editor who tries has to hit the "edit" button. In edit mode, they will find this invisible comment
Climate change content as a redirect as seen in edit mode
<!-- EDITORS Per prior consensus [[Found here]], please do not turn this redirect into an article without first proposing this change and getting consensus at [[Talk:(new place)]]. Be sure to notify interested editors at [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change]]. Thanks. -->
#REDIRECT [[Climate change (general concept)]] or
#REDIRECT [[Climate system#Changes within the climate system]] or
(other place as we decide in this thread)
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
My experience is that people often ignore these warnings :(. But maybe it'll work this time. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:24, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
(f) And almost forgot this reason: I think we want to cover more about this important topic that can fit into a climate system article. We can't skew climate system to mostly talk about climate change, so to keep WP:UNDUE in mind, we'd have to add to the two other major parts of that article everytime we want to expand about climate change. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:24, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
We try to do way too much in the top articles. The best top article, IMO, is written in WP:SUMMARY style, and quickly provides links to the main sub-articles. If we make efficient use of the sub-article system, this won't be a problem. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  • dave souza opposition to these options.
    This is a worthy effort to overcome the common use of CC and GW as equivalent terms, though sources cited in the current first paragraph of Global warming show their different meanings. However, it introduces more complications and unexpected redirects: The answer, in my opinion, is to treat climate change as a high level overview, with summary style outlines of the various sub-topics. These would include global warming, to avoid overlap that article can be specifically confined to long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system, and the broader topic of the effects of current climate change moved to a new main article – suggested title post-industrial climate change. Each sub-article would be linked from summary-style outlines in relevant main articles.
    Having said that, it could make good sense for climate system to be treated as the top level article, incorporating a summary style section outlining the main points of the climate change article. The point remains that 'climate change is so commonly used (as in IPCC) to cover the wide topic area that it's needed as an article title to meet MOS:EGG. Similarly, global warming is needed as a title, there should be no problem with that specifically discussing warming, with the wider climate change effects of the warming being outlined in summary style. . . dave souza, talk 11:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanation. I think we want roughly the same, but have different routes at getting there in mind.
Note that the IPCC usage of climate change is typically different from its definition. In determining PRIMARYTOPIC, we don't generally look at definitions, but instead at usage of the term. They use it, as do ~99% of scientific sources, in the sense of current climate change. See for instance, their 'goal statement' of AR5. Those people using climate change in its technical sense will be aware of its primary use, and I see little chance or wrong internal linking.
If you want to talk definitions, you are probably aware (since you did a lot of work on this, thanks!) of the two definitions of climate change by highly reliable RSs: one general definition and one specific:

Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.’ The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition and climate variability attributable to natural causes.

— IPCC SR1.5
Do you agree there is not a 'single' definition of climate change, but two?
Do you recognize that most internal links to this page, are about ongoing climate change? And that MOS:EGG is (also?) applicable to the current status quo?
Could you detail how your suggestion for the content of climate change differs from the current article? In my view, it's already a high-level overview of the technical definition of climate change
I'm happy you want to have a top-level article about post-industrial climate change. I think we already have it, but it's misnamed: global warming. I'm happy for an article about post-industrial near-surface temperature increase aka global warming to exist alongside that. Maybe global warming could even be a disambiguation page, as I'm not sure whether it has a primary topic (either only surface warming or the whole topic of current climate change). Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:49, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! Sorry if I put this in the wrong section.
Think we've already discussed the UNFCC definition using "climate variability" for natural changes, it's not general usage so the more general use of CC to include natural changes works better for us.
CC includes current and continuing changes, so links to this page aren't an inherent problem: a brief summary-style statement with a more prominent link to the relevant sub-article should overcome any surprise.
Thanks for all the changes to this article, much improved. I think a more prominent and defined statement about current CC / GW would help clarify the relationship, as above.
Am in agreement that the GW article is misnamed, as it attempts to cover both GW (narrowly defined) and the current CC effects of GW. To some extent that's inevitable, as these effects provide evidence of GW, but narrowing the focus could clarify the relationship. Hence my idea of a post-industrial climate change detailed article which would be briefly summarised in both global warming and climate change. Taken to an extreme both these articles could be thought of as disambiguation pages, but with enough detail to outline the basics and links to sub-articles. . . dave souza, talk 12:25, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your quick reply!
I'm glad we (now or maybe before?) agree that we should look at usage, and not at definitions to determine the primary topic for climate change.
You state that the UNFCCC definition is not the general usage. I think you base that on your extensive overview and analysis of definitions of scientific sources, right? I don't think that definitions are the way to go to determine general usage, as they are usually made by a group of technically-minded people that are all experts in their topic, not 'general' people and often just defer to IPCC's definition. I think there are two methods that are valid to determine general usage. 1. The studying of various corpera of books, websites and scientific articles/reports. Using Google, Google Scholar and Google Books, I've done this and came to the conclusion people use climate change to mean the current episode of climate change about 97-99.5% of the time. 2. The studying of internal links to this page. About 90% of links to this page are explicitly about current climate change (for instance, in the context of combating climate change. you cannot combat the general phenomenon). I think this 90% is smaller than the 97-99% because many of us have corrected internal links of the last 15 years to point to global warming.
One of the major ways in which the current naming practice leads to confusion is the wrong internal links to it. Even if we make climate change a perfect article about climate change in the IPCC's first definition, this problem won't be solved. Those pages should link to post-industrial climate change now called global warming. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:42, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Agree both about usage and links to this page – ideally they should all be directed to the correct page: a prominent section in this page summarising a sub-article (which could be headed current climate change, or post-industrial climate change) would give the 99% some clarification in context, and make it clear where the links should go.
Talk:Global warming/Archive 75#Sources: global warming definitions, relation to climate change was about a year ago, includes Talk:Global warming/Archive 75#UNFCCC which emphasises the UNFCCC definitions being explicitly "For the purposes of this Convention". Climate variability is a rather useless stub. . . dave souza, talk 13:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
What is your idea of how people decide on putting a link to an article? I think it's quite rare that people read the page they are linking to. So even if we make some perfect page, people will still link to 'this' climate change instead of post-industrial climate change now called global warming.
About UNFCCC: you're looking at a (clarification of a) definition instead of at usage. They state they only want to use it for this convention, but other sources (books, websites and scientific articles) are using this definition as well, and in very very high numbers. Do you agree that looking at actual textual corpora is the way to determine usage? Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:36, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
(Trying to return to the essential issue) Replying to dave souza's reasoning re Q1: GW and CC are used interchangeably, both commonly and in RSs, so that GW is not "much more specific than" CC. And re Q2b: CC (general concept) is not "the common meaning" that is used commonly or by RSs. Any attempt to "overcome the common use of CC and GW as equivalent terms" is not only against WP policy, but would not succeed in changing readers' usage even if attempted. It seems clear that moving CC-->CC(GenConcept) and making CC a redirect to GW conforms to actual usage, however imprecise that usage may be. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Common use doesn't equal always used – you seem to be proposing that all climate change is global warming, which is clearly against the multiple reliable sources discussed above. GW has a much more specific meaning, as used by multiple sources. The more general term CC includes GW (as well as regional changes and global cooling), so in a particular context it may be reasonable to use the terms interchangeably, but not in all contexts. Conflating the terms and redirecting CC to GW would serve to amplify confusion. If that's your aim, I can't be of much assistance. . . dave souza, talk 20:07, 22 October 2019 (UTC) strike comments made when tired and emotional, dave souza, talk 09:12, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
>gack< I expect more AGF from you Dave, so that was probably a slip of the keyboard. Femke, yourself, and myself (I think) have a long record of trying to follow the sources. In this case, I believe you are wedded to technical definitions, and your definitive statements about meanings are offered in the context of defending the technical definitions. This is contrary to our P&G when it comes to ambiguous phrases such as "climate change", and its clear we'll have to break this specific debate out into a zeroed-in thread all by itself, probably with an RFC to the whole community, so I won't go into it here. I just want to express my dismay that you are suggesting anyone here has an "aim" other than serving our readers by neutrally reporting the subjects based on RSs. Good faithed editors such as the three of us, and others in this discussion, may have different views on how we accomplish that goal, but please be careful about accidentally suggesting any other agenda. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
@ds: Don't worry. It is not my aim to conflate the two. I will want the article content to discuss the two terms with all the precision of the RSs that you so kindly collected. I think we can actually decrease the conflation of our readers by aiming CC and GW to the same page (which title should contain the word climate change). That way people, who 'use' the terms interchangeably will immediately learn their difference by reading the first sentence of the article. The criteria of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT are not based on definitions though, and we should consider the usage of the terms. I havent done a quantitative analysis of the term global warming (strict vs synonym of CC), but it's very very clear for this discussion that the general usage of the term CC is modern CC. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:02, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
@Dave_souza: I never proposed that "all CC is GW"; it's just that, unlike formal technical definitions that you recognize, in practice CC and GW have the same usage that governs WP's naming P&G. Along lines Femke suggests, after this move, redirecting "CC" to a new "GW and CC" article would be a central location to de-conflate and remove confusion. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks @ RCraig09, that helps – both NASA and NOAA articles confirm the usage (as does an EPA article), and emphasise that, as NASA has it, "Climate change' encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet." On that basis I don't see a problem with CC being the target main article, covering GW prominently in the first paragraph of the lead and in a summary section with a link to the detailed global warming article {or articles). If you think there's confusion with people going to GW when they want CC, then GW could be merged into CC, with detailed sub-articles on warming of the climate system and of surfaces temp, etc. . . . dave souza, talk 09:45, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

FYI, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#new_stub_Global_surface_temperature NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:29, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@Dave_Souza: Granted, one can find NASA/NOAA/EPA articles with technically more "proper" definitions, but, again, as Femke's research (and to some extent, your linked archives) demonstrate, the usage that governs WP's naming guidelines indicates that "GW" and "CC" are used interchangeably, reinforcing the conclusion to have a single destination article (I prefer "GW&CC") that would provide a single location that authoritatively explains the technical distinction. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:49, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
As above, they're commonly used interchangeably in the context of public discussion of change since the 1980s, but continue to be used with distinct meanings, both in that context and in literature aimed at informing the public. Having said that, "GW&CC" could work as a single destination explicitly discussing changes following the industrial revolution – a modification of the GW article, kept in the broader context of CC (general concept) or whatever it's eventually named. So I can see that as a way forward, and am coming round to that option on NAEG's table. . . . . dave souza, talk 11:58, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Hooray! It would be fun doing a bit of a contest for interested eds to try writing a paragraph or two of possible lead text, assuming phrases "global warming" and "climate change" point at the same page. I've already tried and found there are many ways to approach such an article, making me really interested to see what each of us would come up with. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:21, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

  • Explanation of support: When people say they are concerned about climate change, or when other people say climate change is a hoax, they are talking about global warming. If I recall, many years ago the media usually called it global warming and shifted to calling it "climate change", but Wikipedia hasn't caught up. I sympathize with how hard it's historically been to get consensus on the naming issue, but it's an ongoing problem for both readers (as described with excellent evidence in the proposal) and for writers who have to justify (and sometimes argue) over and over why they are converting [[climate change]] to [[global warming|climate change]]. A huge thank-you to Femke for putting this proposal together. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:23, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your input :). Let me reply to your comment above: "General" to me in this context implies the article will give general coverage of a given topic, not that the topic itself has a more general scope than another topic.. When I was debating different options before the proposal, I came to the same conclusion for the possible article title climate change (general). To me, the article title climate change (general concept) or possibly even climate change (general phenomemon) do make it clear WHAT is general, namely the concept. Do you see that otherwise? (I know that this move is more motivated by push-factors than pull-factors, but if you could formulate what way forward you'd like to see, that would be very useful). Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I think climate change (general phenomenon) could work. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:55, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
So to confirm, you prefer 'climate change (general phenomenon)' over 'climate change (general concept)'. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:28, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Femkemilene, Yes, I prefer 'climate change (general phenomenon)' over 'climate change (general concept)'. As NightHeron describes below, the former is clearer. Worth a few extra cents. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:10, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@Clayoquot, to borrow a US expression, why use a twenty-five cent word when a five-cent word will do? Why use general fen... Fenoh.... oh, you know, that word, instead of just the simple general concept? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
The two words have different meanings. Earlier I objected to general concept because it suggests a vague or theoretical discussion; in contrast, phenomenon suggests something concrete and specific. It's not really a 25-cent word. Maybe 10 cents. NightHeron (talk) 12:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
The earlier objection was about in general, where you raised good points and the idea evolved to general concept. I have not heard a good reason for prefering "phenomemna" instead of "concept". I don't like phenommenmma (never could spell that) for two reasons. First its high-falutin' nerd speak. Second its ambiguous. Climate change phenomenon... might lead a person to ask "well which one? Sea level rise? Desertification? migration of climate refugees? Which "climate change phenomenon" are we talking about? In contrast "general concept" avoids both of those problems, and that's my second choice, if we don't merge. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:52, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
To meet your second objection, how about making it plural, that is, Climate change (general phenomena)? Concerning your first objection, we're not expecting readers to be able to spell the word, only read it. The word phenomena is not shunned in Wikipedia titles, see e.g. Electrical phenomena. NightHeron (talk) 13:39, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
From the dictionary: Phenomena: perceptible by the senses or through immediate experience. I don't think that describes this article, this article is covering Earth's climate system over geologic time. I prefer stuffing the content in "climate system" as I think that's the best home for it, but I won't vote against anything that moves the ball forwards on the article merge. Efbrazil (talk) 22:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
That's a bizarre definition. What about an astronomical phenomenon related to distant galaxies? Not exactly "perceptible by the senses or through immediate experience." Dictionary.com gives a better definition: "a fact, occurrence, or circumstance observed or observable." NightHeron (talk) 22:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
As I see it, the first 2 sections of the article are about climate as a system- forcing mechanisms and study of past climates. Only section 4 (Change in different elements climate system) is really about phenomena, which also fit under the system umbrella. Efbrazil (talk) 23:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@NightHeron: in terms of making it plural. I don't think that will work. The article would have climate change (the broad definition of IPCC) as its topic. The text in brackets would be to distinguish between the two common definitions of climate change that are in use:

Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.’ The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition and climate variability attributable to natural causes.

— IPCC SR1.5


  • Chidgk1: I did not read all the above as I found it confusing and don't really enjoy these discussions, but I support merging this article into climate system then renaming global warming to "climate change". Because I suspect the vast majority of people mean current climate change when they talk about "climate change". And also probably when they want to talk about current climate change or current global warming they say "climate change".Chidgk1 (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
  • My only concern about merging (and why I voted weak oppose to Q3 above) is that the topic is a very broad, multifaceted one with great popular interest internationally, and is likely to become more so as climatic conditions worsen. As such it merits multiple articles, none of which should be too long, per WP:LENGTH. NightHeron (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
That broad multifaceted topic is reported at global warming and its sub-articles, so I think this isn't really about this article. I mean, this article is also applicable to the cooling during the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, and every other climate change throughout time. Most folks want to read about the CURRENT climtae change, so go to Global warming NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, but there'll be a spillover into the more scientific articles. Colleges and universities are likely to be giving high-enrollment courses on climate, and the scientifically educated public (that is, people working in other scientific and technical fields) will want to understand the issue on a deeper level. I don't think we're in danger of over-saturating Wikipedia with too many articles on climate. After all, Wikipedia has a detailed article on Jabba the Hutt, and nobody seems bothered that there are so many spin-off articles on the Star Wars franchise. NightHeron (talk) 21:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Again, no worries... that's what sub articles are for... Whether we have a stand alone or a merged, since its a TOP article it should be an OVERVIEW and send people off to Main Article (Whatever) in each section. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Sorry if I'm missing something obvious. My understanding (perhaps incorrect) is that a merging means that there will be no separate article on climate change (general phenomena), but rather it will be a section in the more general article "climate system" that covers the components of a climate system; and that in this case there would be no sub-article on climate change phenomena (which would be a stand-alone article that is linked to from a section of the general article). I might be confused about the Wikipedia terminology. Can you clarify this? Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 00:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I'll be glad try, thanks for asking! By way of analogy most universities I know teach A*P together... anatomy (the parts) and physiology (the system) are best understood together. We would have an article about the system, which is a living dynamic changing system.... so an article about the Climate system +++++++++++ is +++++++++ an article about "climate change". How could it not be? Compare the table of contents for the two. They have many of the same sections already. The subsection of variabilty? There's too much for either approach, so either way we will point to [{Climate variability]]. Same with Climate change feedback. (Sub article status for external forcing is less clear and this thread is already too long to go into that, but we need to talk about sometime, just not now). The subarticles are a whole other work project once we have the top layer figured out. But that's the gist.... science communication researchers are saying, more or less, that climate change is about the system. Whichever way we do it, we should strive for well-organized sub-articles. And if we have them, I favor eliminating the overhead redundancy created by these articles overlap, keeping the top article pretty simple, and letting readers drill down to sub articles for increasing levels of technical detail. In other words, I think the lay reader will best understand "climate change" if we present it as an element of the "climate system", kinda like cardiac anatomy is best understood when you also talk about cardiac function and common dysfunction. Does that help? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:32, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, that does help. I changed my vote on Q3 from weak oppose to unsure. I still am not visualizing how this will all look. Climate variability at present is just a stub. NightHeron (talk) 11:32, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
NEAG: you are right: the table of contents are/were quite similar. I think that is because of flaws in the articles, not because there is as much overlap in the topic as you might fear. Some sources describing the climate system only describe climatic changes as 1/10th of the book, while dedicating half the book to atmospheric circulation and ocean circulation. I've made some modifications to the climate system article reflecting those sources (which previously were mentioned in a single sentence). Note also that while the section titles might be the same, the content can be quite different. El Nino is an important mode of internal variability, but has a time scale under 30 years, so should only be mentioned under climate system's section on internal variability, and not under climate change's section. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:30, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I wonder how those source's preface or first chapter breakdown between parts and interactions? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:21, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your question. The source I largely ignored before because it had a different structure of describing climate system than I had in mind, has this as its table on content: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/climatology-and-climate-change/essentials-earths-climate-system?format=HB&isbn=9781107037250. It doesn't even talk explicitly about the five climate system components in a separate section. (I'm using Google books to access most books here, so you should be able to trace all of my tracks). Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Summary and points that need resolving still

  • There is a strong consensus the current situation is untenable
  • There are clear indications that climate change (general concept/general phenomenon) is preferred over climatic changes
  • There is not yet full agreement on the text between brackets, with three options mentioned (general concept/general phenomenon/general phenomena)
  • While merging does not have a lot of opposition, there are quite a few people that have not formed an opinion on this.

I'd like to move forward with the discussion about the exact name by summarizing some points named in the text.

General concept General phenomenon General phenomena
Difficulty Easy Moderate difficult Moderate difficult
Precision Objection was that this implies theoretical discussion. Other editors state that this is indeed what the title should imply. Two interpretations of this title are possible: (the phenomenon of) climate change as defined by IPCC OR all of the phenomena that are observable during climate change (e.g. sea level rise) This would mean all the phenomena observable during climate change (e.g. sea level rise) and not be precisely in line with IPCC's definition.

I think the key thing here is to choose a name so we can move forward with the merge. I know consensus is the wikipedia way, but in this case I'd rather just see us proceed on the basis of a vote. How about using Instant-runoff voting to choose between the 3 choices? I would vote "1. general concept 2. general phenomenon 3. general phenomena". A condition of voting would be that you can live with whatever choice is made. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 18:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As most people have already indicated that they don't really mind, I think the consensus process is actually going to be faster. (my timeline now is have to have a "formal" proposal on Thursday with the outcome of this discussion, which will hopefully have a clear outcome in a few days).
@NightHeron: you seem to last person to have stated a preference for general phenomenon over general concept. Do you agree with my analysis of the three last similar terms? Specifically, (A) that we want to have an article about the (first) climate change definition of the IPCC (which is singular), (B) and that by using the word phenomenon there is possibly confusing about which phenomenon (climate change as a whole, or its constituent parts), and that (C) by pluralizing we move away further from the IPCC's definition of climate change as a whole and instead talk about constituent parts? If you're on board, I'd like to go to the next phase of the renaming process and propose climate change (general concept). Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@Femkemilene: I really think that "Climate change (general phenomena)" in common English usage exactly conveys what we want to include, namely, what's in the first two sentences of your displayed quote from the IPCC. Those two sentences are not "theoretical" as the average person understands the term, but rather they refer to concrete phenomena. (So I don't agree that "theoretical" is "indeed what the title should imply.") However, if the majority of participating editors prefer "concept" to "phenomena", that's okay. I definitely wouldn't want to delay your schedule for moving on to the next steps. NightHeron (talk) 23:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm annoyed that the summary presumes rename wins and the only issue is what name? So I'd like to add a fourth column to the summary

Merging to Climate system
Difficulty Easy
Precision It's argued that discussion of the "general concept" of climate change -- from any cause -- of any duration -- at any time in Earth's history -- is best introduced as a "general concept" under the introductory top level article about the parts of the Climate system and how they interact.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Right now, we have some hatnotes that explain matters. Many readers have no problem with these articles because they read and understand the hatnotes. Sadly, the hatnotes just bounce off other readers. The latter have been the source of complaints the last couple of years. In my view, merely tweaking the name with some additional nuance is unlikely to matter to this latter group. For the latter group, although the current hatnotes use several words to explain the status quo, those hatnotes just don't work. Why would this latter group suddenly undestand the nuanced differences based on just two words of a new title? I fear they are likely to look at any of the new titles and assume it is a about the current climate change known as global warming but in "general" terms, i.e., as a basic-level overview. So I still favor merging, to help everyone understand upon first reading. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
The omission of climate system merge in the summary was because it's clear what the status is of that plan, whereas it wasn't yet clear if we had complete consensus for the best alternative name. Sorry for not being clear, omitting climate system and the annoyance that caused. Let me list why I think renaming will be sufficient
When you make assertions about confusion, please indicate WHEN they will happen. We now have confusion via bluelinks, via Google and via inwiki search option. Only after the initial confusion, there is the fact that people don't read the hatnote. There will be waaaay less confusion because
A) Traffic to this page will plummet. Google is smart and already shows this page quite low when people search climate change. That will decrease massively once we've decreased inwiki links from ~5000 to ~500. The wikilinks themselves will lead to less traffic and the fact that people who simply type climate change in the search box will not come here either will decrease it further.
B) I completely disagree with your assertion that the title doesn't raise big RED FLAGS for those people that have somehow come here by accident (let's say via search box). They will have consciously chosen this article over just climate change, leading to the natural curiosity of what these two words mean
C) If we had the article climate change (general) that could mean current climate change from a general perspective. With the addition of the word concept that final unclarity is completely gone.
Climate change (general concept) is such a huuuge topic that it really doesn't make sense to not have an article about it. If we write a good article about the climate system, it's only 1/3 about climate change, with the rest of the article dedicated to description of components, discription of general circulation, biochemical cycles, hydrological cycle and short-term variability. For each of these aspects of the climate system we have separate articles, and to me, the more I think about it, it's inconceivable that we have no article about the climate change aspect. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

An alternative: disambiguation

I have not followed the details of all the past discussion, but I gather the principal problem being tackled here is the common use of "climate change" as a general search term for what is covered at Global warming, with some readers being confused arriving at Climate change.

I wonder if instead of redirecting Climate change to Global warming (which would also confuse some readers), it should be a disambiguation page. The reader could not skate over the hatnotes and plunge straight into material not quite what they really wanted (because it isn't there!), s/he would have to select what they want. And more description could be given than hatnotes can accommodate. What I have in mind is something like the following:

Climate change covers a range of overlapping topics such as:

Related topics include:

For additional articles see Index of climate change articles.

Wouldn't this be better than dumping dumping readers who don't read the hatnotes into a different article with hatnotes they won't read there, either? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:57, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Disambig was discussed in the months-long prior discussion and rejected. When "climate change" and "global warming" both land on the same article, the text at that article can be revised accordingly. There's agreement that page should be about the "global warming and climate change" happening now, in our time. With the text updated it's doubtful anyone arriving at that page will be confused, and if anyone is savvy enough to be looking for generic climate change, they'll find their way to that article(s) easily enough. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Where was this discussion, and just when was it rejected? In trawling the archives I found just two mentions of "disambiguation" (in Archive_5), without any mention (let alone serious discussion) of rejection. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 06:16, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Discussion was at various user talk pages, but let's bring it out in the open.
Disambiguation pages are used when it's impossible to determine a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. If a primary topic for a terms has been determined, the guidelines say that we should redirect: WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT. I think it's surprisingly easy to show climate change has current climate change as primary topic. Under Q1.4 I've estimated that about 97-99.5% of all webpages AND all google Scholar results use climate change to refer to current climate change. According to This talk page discussion about the guidelines, people would argue that the grey area is between 66% and 90%. I don't think there is any doubt left about the primary topic.
Furthermore, people searching explicitly for a general article about climate change will be familiar with the fact that it normally means the current climate change and will therefore think a bit more what they can type to get at the page they want.
Further note: that "climate change (general)" has been rejected in the discussion above as well. This could possibly lead to confusion where people interpret this as general issue/general problem, instead of general phenomenon/topic/concept. The alternative name with most support is "climate change (general concept)"
And lastly note: your suggested disambiguation page is not in line with what a disambiguation page should be, specifically WP:DABRELATED and WP:PARTIAL. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:56, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
@Femke, thanks that's a good summary. @JJ, as Femke mentioned it was mostly in userspace, in a number of threads which link and cross link to each other. It was sprawling and its understandable you didn't try to wade through it all. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:29, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Which shows why discussions bearing on articles should be on the article's Talk page.
So yes, let's bring out those considerations. Perhaps one of the involved parties (how many?) could work up a recapitulation of the points addressed in those considerations, so everyone else can know what was, or wasn't, considered. And can then be ratified across a broader swath of editors. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:33, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
See the above discussion for the considerations of what we consider(ed) to be a set of viable proposals, including a list of alternative names which we considered and decided not to go for. I think the problems with a disambiguation page was the only (major) thing left out of the above recapitulation. I left it out on purpose because (A) making a disambiguation page here seems at odds with guidelines and (B) we have enough proposals already that are in line with guidelines and it makes more sense to avoid discussion even more proposals. There is merit in discussing things in private before posting to a busy page. It gives a safe working space in which ideas can be tested out without tiring all the other editors. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:09, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Thinking about the future in practical terms, I agree with Femke, and this is probably the (or at least one of the) rationale(s) underlying PRIMARYTOPIC. Going forward, people are going to keep linking "climate change" in articles and discussions when what they really mean is the content now under the title "Global warming". If we turn this into a disambig, all those links will arrive at a disambig page instead of being passed through a redirect to the right article (climate change >> Global warming). If we had a reason to think half the incoming links to "climate change" were looking for this generic information instead of the global warming info specifically, I might agree disambig makes sense. But it doesn't take long browsing in "What links here" to realize almost all the incoming links actually mean global warming specifically. And that's why all the other eds (so far) have agreed that a search for "climate change" or "global warming" should land on the same page, which for now is called "global warming" but may be subjected to a future rename discussion after the dust settles here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:27, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
PS... This effort started in my sandbox before migrating to Femke's. At that time I too wanted to make this a disambig page (to satisfy expected status quo IJUSTLIKE arguments). Femke's research in the P&G convinced me that rename or merge are vastly superior, so I changed my mind. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
I am still digesting all this. As Femke is a pretty good "arguer" (?) I reckon it is likely my view on this may take a trajectory similar to yours. I can hardly wait to see where I will end up at. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
No worries, the whole point of the user talk threads, and now these threads, is to generate a concise distillation for a formal proposal. To be clear the only thing we're really trying to decide right now is what to ask when we make a by-god proposal for change. That will be a brand new thread, do you agree Femkemilene? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:25, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Was planning to put forward formal proposal (with the two options) tonight, but alas tiredness has prevented me from doing this. I won't have time till Sunday. NEAG, if you want, can you make the proposal before then. I was thinking to have people answer two questions. 1: do we want to move away from current situation and 2. which of the two solutions (rename to 'climate change (general concept)' or merge) do you prefer. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:40, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Even better, I will withdraw the merge option (reserving it for possible revisit later) and tomorrow (Friday) will just start the formal process for "climate change (general concept)". Anyone object to that plan? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:40, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! No objections here. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not on the wrong page. I simply noted an incorrect and misleading definition of climate on a page about climate change. Pretty important I'd say PaulusPigus (talk) 12:21, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

So who will edit this? PaulusPigus (talk) 12:22, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Hat this thread?

With the formal rename proposal pending in the next thread, can we mark this whole thing with {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}} ? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I think we might want to continue the discussion about disambiguation later. The rest can be hatted? Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:56, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

FYI: While NEAG is requesting help do to this project efficiently, I've done one step already: fixing redirects. Looked at all redirects to climate change and made them into redirects here, redirects to climate variability, redirects to global warming or disambiguation pages, as appropriate. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Awesome! I'm not sure how these two things effect "what links here" count (I didn't think to do do before/after stat harvesting) but I at least updated Template:Global warming that's on a ton of articles, and Category:climate change's main article link. Let's move further mechanics discussion to the WikiProject talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Tracking table

Around 10-15% of the links in the attached excel sheet now point towards GW (as redirect from CC), but should point to CC(GenCon). If we do this together, we can swiftly fix all of these internal links. The excel sheet contains only pages that directly point towards CC (not via template) and provides a text snippet making the GW vs CC(GenCon) decision a matter of seconds for most entries. I've done most of the first 200, who will help me with the rest. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@J. Johnson: and @Dave souza:. Iirc, you two indicated that this would need to be solved rapidly. I made a good start. Would you be willing to help? Even volunteering to do a hundred (so ~12 edits), would help immensely. Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:05, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

A noble effort! I'll look at it in upcoming days. But is it wise to revise incoming links, if there is another Move Request pending, and the "dust hasn't settled" on the last one? Work may have to be duplicated. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
A noble effort indeed, but, sorry, I'm pretty much overloaded at present. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
The current move request doesn't seem to go anywhere. Fixing the links will still be very useful even if we decide to rename in 6 months. The problem of wrong links will remain fixed and since basically all links are of the form [[climate change (general concept)|X/Y/Z]], replacement after a second move can very easily be automated. In the renaming discussion on GW linking by Google has been mentioned. As links from and to a page are what determines Google ranking, we might want to fix this to get a stable picture of what search engines think. (I'm in favour of disregarding that argument in its entirety tfb). Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

@Mu301: thanks for helping! I think this table here requires less admin/overhead as we don't have to put a comment behind every checked link. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:55, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@Femkemilene: Hmmm... As I understand it now, we should only change [ [ climate change ] ] links that intend "CC(gencon)", but should not change [ [ CC ] ] links that intend Global warming, even though GW will probably be renamed? We can assume a double redirect CC-->GW-->(Newname) is OK? —RCraig09 (talk) 03:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

That's right. And thanks for working on this too! Double redirect are automatically fixed within a few days of a page move, so we don't need to worry about those. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:25, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@UnitedStatesian: I see you've fixed a few links already. Would you maybe like to join us and get this done systematically with this table? Every small bit helps. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:10, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Good effort. I'll help. FrankP (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Link audit using this excel sheet
Article indices Volunteer Finished
1- 100 Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:22, 31 October 2019 (UTC)  Done
101 - 200 Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:22, 31 October 2019 (UTC)  Done
201 - 300 Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:57, 7 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
301 - 400 Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
401 - 500 Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:01, 20 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
501 - 600 RCraig09 (talk) 03:11, 24 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
601 - 700 RCraig09 (talk) 04:22, 26 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
701 - 800 RCraig09 (talk) 04:12, 28 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
801 - 900 RCraig09 (talk) 03:49, 29 November 2019 (UTC)  Done
901 - 1000 RCraig09 (talk) 05:51, 2 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1001 - 1100 Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:41, 2 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1101 - 1200 RCraig09 (talk) 05:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1201 - 1300 Femke Nijsse (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1301 - 1400 RCraig09 (talk) 05:39, 7 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1401 - 1500 Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1501 - 1600 RCraig09 (talk) 01:41, 9 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1601 - 1700 RCraig09 (talk) 22:05, 9 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1701 - 1800 Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:36, 10 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1801 - 1900 RCraig09 (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
1901 - 2000 RCraig09 (talk) 04:19, 14 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2001 - 2100 RCraig09 (talk) 05:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2101 - 2200 FrankP (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2201 - 2300 Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:16, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2301 - 2400 FrankP (talk) 10:20, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2401 - 2500 FrankP (talk) 13:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2501 - 2600 FrankP (talk) 16:45, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2601 - 2700 FrankP (talk) 23:37, 16 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2701 - 2800 FrankP (talk) 12:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2801 - 2900 Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:40, 21 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
2901 - 3000 FrankP (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3001 - 3100 RCraig09 (talk) 04:19, 31 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3101 - 3200 RCraig09 (talk) 01:08, 31 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3201 - 3300 RCraig09 (talk) 19:41, 30 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3301 - 3400 RCraig09 (talk) 05:25, 30 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3401 - 3500 RCraig09 (talk) 02:59, 30 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3501 - 3600 RCraig09 (talk) 23:53, 29 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3601 - 3700 RCraig09 (talk) 04:51, 29 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3701 - 3800 RCraig09 (talk) 01:50, 28 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3801 - 3900 RCraig09 (talk) 05:55, 27 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
3901 - 4000 RCraig09 (talk) 18:05, 26 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4001 - 4100 RCraig09 (talk) 05:12, 26 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4101 - 4200 RCraig09 (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4201 - 4300 RCraig09 (talk) 05:53, 24 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4301 - 4400 RCraig09 (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4401 - 4500 RCraig09 (talk) 17:23, 21 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4501 - 4600 RCraig09 (talk) 05:12, 16 December 2019 (UTC)  Done
4601 - 4659 RCraig09 (talk) 20:54, 15 December 2019 (UTC)  Done

Requested move 1 April 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved - consensus against, WP:SNOW (closed by non-admin page mover) UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)


Climate change (general concept) → Climate change – Climate change currently redirects to Global warming, but that is only an example of climate change, not a synonym. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:13, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Oppose When people are searching on climate change on wikipedia they expect one thing- details on modern climate change. The real question at this point is whether the "global warming" article should be renamed to "climate change" or forked to "climate change" instead of taking a redirect from "climate change" as it does now. For details on that issue, see the long discussion on the talk page of global warming, the most recent version being here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming#Second_discussion_on_titles_for_potential_move_request Efbrazil (talk) 00:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now. I have searched fairly diligently for evidence as to whether the phrase, "climate change" has a longstanding historical pedigree as the primary term used to describe broad periods of variation in temperatures and consequent weather patterns, and this history is lacking. I would need to see evidence of such primacy. Specifically, what phrases have been used to describe this phenomenon (some others may be "climate variation" and "climate epochs", which seems to have been popular in the 1800s), and what is the relative degree of use of this phrase to describe the general concept versus degree of use to describe the anthropogenic phenomenon. BD2412 T 01:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose I do not agree that "climate change" should be the primary name over "global warming", as the latter more accurately describes the phenomenon. I do agree that it is the primary topic for climate change, so the current arrangement works fine.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 01:03, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was to execute the merge. Some content will be used to create a climate variability section in the climate article, which will point towards this combined article for more information. Efbrazil (talk) 23:17, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I propose to merge Climate variability with Climate change (general concept), creating a new article entitled "Climate variability and change".

Rationale: "Climate variability" is a major subset of the "Climate change (general concept)" article. Right now, it's not clear where to make edits or where to go for more information.

I think "Climate variability and change" makes sense for the merged article title since it covers more than short term oscillations (which "climate variability" can indicate), while also indicating that the article is not focused on anthropogenic climate change / global warming (which is what led to "(general concept)" being tacked onto the "Climate change" article).

In terms of content mechanics, the shorter "Climate variability" article will be moved into the "Climate change (general concept)" article, for instance the "Modes of variability" section will merge in under "Internal variability". It'll require a good deal of editing after the fact though, since there's a lot of redundant content approached from different angles.

Please consider this proposal on its merits, in isolation from the larger discussion about global warming / climate change naming. If you agree with the merge, then I would appreciate any assistance with edits as I make the move.

Pinging all participants of the previous lengthy discussion that ended in the move of "Climate change" to "Climate change (general concept)": @NewsAndEventsGuy, Femkemilene, NightHeron, EMsmile, RCraig09, Efbrazil, Clayoquot, William M. Connolley, Zxcvbnm, Colin M, SmokeyJoe, BD2412, J. Johnson, ArnoldReinhold, Levivich, François Robere, UaMaol, Dave souza, NightHeron, Mu301, Jusdafax, and Red Slash:.

Also pinging anyone that touched "Climate variability" after 2015: @Ismoholtto, Mu301, Fa suisse, Chidgk1, Femkemilene, Polyamorph, and NewsAndEventsGuy:

--Efbrazil (talk) 20:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the merge would be into a new article named "Climate variability and change", which both of the current article titles would redirect to. Efbrazil (talk) 23:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
I thought about that alternative as well, but I think the climate article is already sufficiently large and complex that this is better as a sub article NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@François Robere: It's a good thought. The climate topic should be covering climate variability more, but I think stuffing the whole variability article in would be too much coverage. How about when I merge the two articles in this proposal I pull out enough information to create a climate variability section in the climate article, then point that section towards the new article for more information? Efbrazil (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Support as a way of getting the overall topic of climate change covered without confusing it with global warming, and useful to show the context of climate variability in the same article – seem to recall the meaning overlapping to some extent. Better than "Climate change (general concept)". It's a distinct topic from climate, which essentially was a static concept up to the late 20th century. . . dave souza, talk 12:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Support: The two terms seem to have become intertwined so I think it's best to merge. I would defer, however, to subject matter experts on the issue. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Support wholeheartedly the merge, but think the simple Climate variability is a much better title for the location of coverage of this concept; we should continue to try very hard to avoid "X and Y" article titles. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:43, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the brevity goal, but variability doesn't cover the scope of content. See http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/ccl/faqs.php#q3. Variability is limited to changes typically lasting a few years, so climate change is needed as a term to cover things like glacial cycles and snowball earth. I think "Climate variability and change" errs on the side of inclusivity and is at least less confusing than the current state of things. Efbrazil (talk) 20:19, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks all for the helpful input and encouragement! I'm planning to start work on this tomorrow unless somebody has thoughts to the contrary. Efbrazil (talk) 18:26, 29 April 2020 (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.

Merge done as described, with more cleanup to do. I had to make a lot of edits because the articles overlapped a good deal. If you are able to take time to go through the article and add edits or make cuts that would be appreciated. A lot of the content in Climate variability was either out of date or unsourced. About half of the content made it over to the merged article because I didn't want to lose it, and a bit was forked into the new Climate variability section in the Climate article. Here's my todo list:

  1. Look for everywhere that "Climate change (general concept)" is used and change it to the new title.
  2. Look for everywhere that "Climate variability" is used and change it to the new title.
  3. Read through the new article again, look for more redundancies and cuts

This is my first merge / rename, so I may be missing stuff. Other todo thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 23:56, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Items 1 and 2 above are done. The double redirects to "Climate variability" and "Climate change (general concept)" are all fixed. I mistakenly started fixing links to "Climate change (general concept)", but there's a lot of them, and I think a bot will take care of that automatically, as per instructions here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Moving_a_page#Post-move_cleanup Efbrazil (talk) 19:54, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

First sentence

The first sentence now reads Climate variability and change occurs when changes in Earth's climate system result in new weather patterns. This troubles me in two ways. First it sounds too circular because it sounds like (paraphrasing) "Climate change is change in climate". Second, I've never understood climate variability be about changes in Earth's climate system. That's because in a stable system there is still noise... the variability... which results (I thought) from changes in the interactions in the system, but not a change in the system overall, such as happens with an external forcing. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

The IPCC has effectively stuffed all natural climate change under the umbrella of climate variability to help distinguish from human caused climate change. While some sources limit variability to short term fluctuations and climate change to longer term, but that's not how the IPCC defines it. See the terminology section of the article for more. As for the first sentence, feel free to take a crack at it, it's just a straight adaptation of the old first sentence, but I trimmed out the "extended period of time" qualifier because climate variability can be shorter term. It is good to distinguish between weather and climate up front. --Efbrazil (talk) 14:32, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Different slants on climate variability

I'm not sure if a comparison of temperature variability in two different regions is appropriate, or too detailed, for this WP article. However I found the comparison of tropical to extra-tropical graphs at Ed Hawkins' "From the familiar to the unknown" to be relevant (and CC by SA 4 licensed!). It opens the door to other comparisons, such as Northern-vs-Southern hemispheres, land-vs-ocean, low-vs-high-altitude, etc. I didn't want to invest time in making a graphic if such comparisons wouldn't meet consensus here. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, go for it, it's good content, I see no problem with adding that all in here. Could even be a gallery if you create a bunch of graphs that are all regional comparisons. Efbrazil (talk) 17:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I was mainly worried that there might be a more appropriate article than this one. My first thought is that a new sub-section, Regional variability, would be inserted indented under Internal variability which is unfortunately indented under Causes. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a section devoted to a bare exposition of the different types of variability, without reference to causes. Editors, enter your thoughts below! —RCraig09 (talk) 20:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
• I've just added a new section, /* Contemporaneous regional variability */ which includes a gallery of graphs six graphs arranged in two galleries. I think it fills a need to supplement the (understandable) "global" emphasis of the article. It didn't "fit" into any existing section, so I birthed a new section altogether.
• There was no truly exceptional multi-platform way to represent these images (six graphs in two galleries), but the present version displays best on desktops, anyway. Much of the accompanying text is directed to supporting the usefulness of the graphed data, and I predict there will be more textual content to come so that the images no longer spill over into the ensuing section.
• FYI: The images that are newly uploaded have a 4x3 aspect ratio.
• Comments and suggestions are invited. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:43, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Apparently conflicting images

Carbon Dioxide 800 kyr
Vostok Petit data

I'm confused by the comparison between the two accompanying plots.

If I'm reading correctly the "Carbon Dioxide 800 kyr" plot, the CO2 levels for the 800,000 years prior to 1750 ranged between roughly 160 and 300 ppm. They exceeded 300 ppm around 1925 +/- 30 years and have continued to climb with the most recent data being roughly 440 ppm.

However, the peaks in the "Vostok Petit data" plot seem to match the latter 56% of the "Carbon Dioxide 800 kyr" plot EXCEPT for the unprecedented excursions above 300 ppm.

What's year = 0 in "Vostok Petit data"? If that's around 1900 or 1925, then the two match. Otherwise, there seems to be a discrepancy.

What am I missing? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Contemp.. variability

RCraig09: I'm possibly preparing this article for GA, and I thought it would immensely improve if the contem.. section

  1. Got rid of the word contemporary. It's unnecessary complicated for article like this.
  2. Had all six images placed in one of those templates we use on global warming, so that they don't take up as much space. Would you be willing to do that
  3. Gets summarized a bit?

Would you be willing to do that? Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Femkemilene: I don't think the public understands the important difference between global average temperatures versus regional temperatures. The difference extends beyond modern times, and (though the graphs are all modern) I think it is important enough that it should not be a sub-topic under "Modern climate change and global warming". It's almost 0300 here, so I'll have to think about it later!:
  1. "Contemporaneous" (= "at the same time") is different from "contemporary" (= "modern). I think contemporaneous is important.
  2. I will investigate #2, modeling after Efbrazil's programming in the GW article.
  3. Yes. —RCraig09 (talk) 07:00, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
    Thanks for the quick response, and good night :). It's about regional variation within the current warming, so unless we change the section to be more general in tone, I think it will have to be there. I'm not against making it more general, but I'm not sure what that would like like.
    1. It's a very difficult word, so synonyms? It's now about modern spatial variability so contemporary would be better, right? If not, the word can simply be dropped
    2. Great
    3. Great. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

(A) In general, in this article I cast a dubious eye on the usefulness of any word with more than three syllables.

(B) I think this section should have zero subheadings and be about as long as the intro paragraph, m-a-y-b-e very reluctantly with two paragraphs of that length. But super duper triple dipple high level summarization immediately comprehensible to a 12 year old A student and of course include {{Main|Global warming}} (or whatever that article is retitled if the pending umpteenth RM is successful). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

En-au-cry for help
Hi! Sorry for missing the mention, the ping did the job! You can do a slideshow without transclusion, but for the sidebar I think it's necessary to use transclusion, if I remember correctly. For some reason you need to use the gallery tag to create a slideshow- the gallery template doesn't support it. Sizing is based on screen resolution, but you can slap on styles to change stuff if you want. Here's both your galleries stuffed together in slideshow form (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Gallery_tag for more info):
  • Examples of regional climate variability
  • Land-ocean. Surface air temperatures over land masses have been increasing faster than those over the ocean,[1] the ocean absorbing about 90% of excess heat.[2]
    Land-ocean. Surface air temperatures over land masses have been increasing faster than those over the ocean,[1] the ocean absorbing about 90% of excess heat.[2]
  • Hemispheres. The Hemispheres' average temperature changes[3] have diverged because of the North's greater percentage of landmass, and due to global ocean currents.[4]
    Hemispheres. The Hemispheres' average temperature changes[3] have diverged because of the North's greater percentage of landmass, and due to global ocean currents.[4]
  • Latitude bands. Three latitude bands that respectively cover 30, 40 and 30 percent of the global surface area show mutually distinct temperature growth patterns in recent decades.[5]
    Latitude bands. Three latitude bands that respectively cover 30, 40 and 30 percent of the global surface area show mutually distinct temperature growth patterns in recent decades.[5]
  • Altitude. A warming stripes graphic (blues denote cool, reds denote warm) shows how the greenhouse effect traps heat in the lower atmosphere so that the upper atmosphere, receiving less reflected energy, cools. Volcanos cause upper-atmosphere temperature spikes.[6]
    Altitude. A warming stripes graphic (blues denote cool, reds denote warm) shows how the greenhouse effect traps heat in the lower atmosphere so that the upper atmosphere, receiving less reflected energy, cools. Volcanos cause upper-atmosphere temperature spikes.[6]
  • Global versus regional. For geographical and statistical reasons, larger year-to-year variations are expected[7] for localized geographic regions (e.g., the Caribbean) than for global averages.[8]
    Global versus regional. For geographical and statistical reasons, larger year-to-year variations are expected[7] for localized geographic regions (e.g., the Caribbean) than for global averages.[8]
  • Relative deviation. Though northern America has warmed more than its tropics, the tropics have more clearly departed from normal historical variability (colored bands: 1σ, 2σ standard deviations).[9]
    Relative deviation. Though northern America has warmed more than its tropics, the tropics have more clearly departed from normal historical variability (colored bands: 1σ, 2σ standard deviations).[9]

Efbrazil (talk) 22:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I should add that my personal preference is for "packed", like this, with heights bumped a bit so the captions aren't wrapped so much:

  • Examples of regional climate variability
  • Land-ocean. Surface air temperatures over land masses have been increasing faster than those over the ocean,[1] the ocean absorbing about 90% of excess heat.[2]
    Land-ocean. Surface air temperatures over land masses have been increasing faster than those over the ocean,[1] the ocean absorbing about 90% of excess heat.[2]
  • Hemispheres. The Hemispheres' average temperature changes[3] have diverged because of the North's greater percentage of landmass, and due to global ocean currents.[4]
    Hemispheres. The Hemispheres' average temperature changes[3] have diverged because of the North's greater percentage of landmass, and due to global ocean currents.[4]
  • Latitude bands. Three latitude bands that respectively cover 30, 40 and 30 percent of the global surface area show mutually distinct temperature growth patterns in recent decades.[5]
    Latitude bands. Three latitude bands that respectively cover 30, 40 and 30 percent of the global surface area show mutually distinct temperature growth patterns in recent decades.[5]
  • Altitude. A warming stripes graphic (blues denote cool, reds denote warm) shows how the greenhouse effect traps heat in the lower atmosphere so that the upper atmosphere, receiving less reflected energy, cools. Volcanos cause upper-atmosphere temperature spikes.[6]
    Altitude. A warming stripes graphic (blues denote cool, reds denote warm) shows how the greenhouse effect traps heat in the lower atmosphere so that the upper atmosphere, receiving less reflected energy, cools. Volcanos cause upper-atmosphere temperature spikes.[6]
  • Global versus regional. For geographical and statistical reasons, larger year-to-year variations are expected[7] for localized geographic regions (e.g., the Caribbean) than for global averages.[8]
    Global versus regional. For geographical and statistical reasons, larger year-to-year variations are expected[7] for localized geographic regions (e.g., the Caribbean) than for global averages.[8]
  • Relative deviation. Though northern America has warmed more than its tropics, the tropics have more clearly departed from normal historical variability (colored bands: 1σ, 2σ standard deviations).[9]
    Relative deviation. Though northern America has warmed more than its tropics, the tropics have more clearly departed from normal historical variability (colored bands: 1σ, 2σ standard deviations).[9]

Efbrazil (talk) 22:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Click at right to show/hide references

References

  1. ^ a b "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (v4) / Annual Mean Temperature Change over Land and over Ocean". NASA GISS. Archived from the original on April 16, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Harvey, Chelsea (November 1, 2018). "The Oceans Are Heating Up Faster Than Expected". Scientific American. Archived from the original on March 3, 2020. Data from NASA GISS.
  3. ^ a b "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (v4) / Annual Mean Temperature Change for Hemispheres". NASA GISS. Archived from the original on April 16, 2020.
  4. ^ a b Freedman, Andrew (April 9, 2013). "In Warming, Northern Hemisphere is Outpacing the South". Climate Central. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019.
  5. ^ a b "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (v4) / Temperature Change for Three Latitude Bands". NASA GISS. Archived from the original on April 16, 2020.
  6. ^ a b Hawkins, Ed (12 September 2019). "Atmospheric temperature trends". Climate Lab Book. Archived from the original on 12 September 2019. (Higher-altitude cooling differences attributed to ozone depletion and greenhouse gas increases; spikes occurred with volcanic eruptions of 1982-83 (El Chichón) and 1991-92 (Pinatubo).)
  7. ^ a b Meduna, Veronika (17 September 2018). "The climate visualisations that leave no room for doubt or denial". The Spinoff. New Zealand. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019.
  8. ^ a b "Climate at a Glance / Global Time Series". NCDC / NOAA. Archived from the original on February 23, 2020.
  9. ^ a b Hawkins, Ed Hawkins, Ed (March 10, 2020). "From the familiar to the unknown". Climate Lab Book (professional blog). Archived from the original on April 23, 2020. (Direct link to image; Hawkins credits Berkeley Earth for data.) "The emergence of observed temperature changes over both land and ocean is clearest in tropical regions, in contrast to the regions of largest change which are in the northern extra-tropics. As an illustration, northern America has warmed more than tropical America, but the changes in the tropics are more apparent and have more clearly emerged from the range of historical variability. The year-to-year variations in the higher latitudes have made it harder to distinguish the long-term changes."
Thanks for all your work, Efbrazil.
  1. I think that having the bottom gallery is a generally undesirable duplication of content (OK in the GW article since it's so large anyway).
  2. If transclusion is needed here, then having a second gallery in the article defeats Femke's original goal: reducing space.
  3. Using heights="___px" (as I've tentatively done above) works in the dumb (bottom) gallery, but that specification has no effect in a slideshow--and being smaller is part of the original goal.
  4. For my display at least, the captions in the slideshow gallery extend far beyond the sides of the centered image to occupy full page width--also against the original goal of saving space.
Stepping back from these "presentation" issues, substantively I think that it's an extremely important to show lay readers how regional climate may vary while global average temperature marches upward (a classic denier misunderstanding). In other words, I actually think this content should be quite prominent, and that saving space is much less important. And from the above list of presentation issues, maybe it's not possible to save space over the status quo anyway. Ideas? —RCraig09 (talk) 00:59, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks RCraig09! Yeah, taking a step back makes sense here- I confess I hadn't even looked at the graph content when I was monkeying with gallery code yesterday. Resizing the slideshow view or stuffing it in a sidebar might be possible, but it would take a good deal of time to get right.
In my view, the globe map at the top of the global warming article already does a good job of showing regional differences in warming. It's showing historical data that can't be denied, and it captures most of the regional issues shown in the graphs here (land / ocean, latitude bands, etc). The only thing it misses on is the altitude differences, and that's a bit on the wonky side (more related to evidence for climate change). So I guess I don't see a strong need to add these graphs. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 17:59, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
The red+orange map—which indeed is in the Global warming article and not here—does not articulate the half-dozen+ separate dimensions of variability. Such articulation adds to reader understanding and supports credibility of the science. Variability between regions is as essential to the concept of this article as variability over time, and soundly refutes denialist misunderstandings with a specificity that red and orange blobs cannot do convincingly or explicitly. I think the graphed concepts deserve greater prominence, not less. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:25, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
@Efbrazil: Note that the GW article has evolved to feature "Regional variation" prominently, as the second section, so important is the concept. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
P.S. I remain in awe of your slideshow solution in the GW article. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:27, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
@RCraig09: Thanks Craig! Glad you like the slideshow in the GW article! Note that I added Fahrenheit to the graphs used on the main global warming page a couple weeks back.
I monkeyed a bit more with both of the image galleries above. The slideshow view I shrunk the images using styles. It's too bad the gallery includes the thumbnail button and that goofy large font for the title (both are thankfully missing from the transclusion view). The packed view I switched to packed-hover, which saves the space used for captions.
If your goal is to have a sidebar slideshow like the one in the global warming article, one way to do that would be to have all the graphs laid out in an article like Regional effects of global warming, then transclude the images from there into this article. Efbrazil (talk) 23:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'll test that kind of "remote" transclusion tomorrow (#BrainIsTired). Maybe the source files for the transclusion can be even further out of the way, in a "fake article" that's not even in the article space, like a user sub-page. —RCraig09 (talk) 06:14, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Eek! I just realized you Efbrazil had already solved the 'remote' transclusion issue; the slideshow stands on its own! The only issue I see is that the slideshow isn't justified so text doesn't wrap around the slideshow, wasting space and subverting the goal of this entire task. (It ignores my align=right and align:right; attempts to even justify.) I'm still murky on the formats and strategies of styles and classes ..., and templates versus tags, ... and other programmerish concepts. In my experimentation, none of the examples at Help:Gallery tag text to wrap, so... I'm stumped (<-- starting to become a way of life). —RCraig09 (talk) 21:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
  • FYI: The bottom (non-slideshow) gallery's 'hover' function only shows the full caption if you hover over the lower part of the image. Hovering over the center part of the image would leave readers confused. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@RCraig09: Yeah, transclusion works remotely by default- it's used for portals mostly. Regarding making it so captions wrap the slideshow, there's not much you can do since you can only style the gallery container, not the items inside. The way I reduced the size of the images was to reduce the size of the gallery container via display:block (which allows you to use width) width:400px (the size), and margin: auto (to center it). If you want to step into developer world the easiest way is to open the page in chrome, right click on the Web page where you want more info, then say "inspect". Prepare to be overwhelmed! Regarding the hover behavior only showing 1 line of text until you hover on it, that's what the gallery designer thought was a good idea so that's how it works. It's the "wikipedia standard" for what that's worth. It's too bad that all the wikipedia solutions for galleries are a bit janky. Efbrazil (talk) 23:22, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Femkemilene Per the above discussion and valiant efforts of Efbrazil, it seems there is no technical solution to having a slideshow with text that wraps around it (to save space). So, having a slideshow would not save space. I continue to strongly believe that variability between regions is just as important as variability over time in this Climate variability... article. Actually, The topic deserves more prominence, not less, especially since deniers have used relative regional cooling as "evidence/proof" that GW is a hoax. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 30 August 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Number 57 20:14, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Climate variability and change → Climate variability – WP:CONCISE. 'Variability' and 'Change' are more or less synonymous. Recent move of "Global warming" to "climate change" makes the latter no longer a redirect here. This takes care of the loose end. Hyperbolick (talk) 19:55, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Withdrawn. I don't have enough knowledge of the history of this article and where this article fits in the general corpus of climate-related articles. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 10:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • No. This article covers the topic of its former title, Climate change (general concept). The newly-named Climate change article only covers recent (predominantly human-caused) global warming and climate change. Finally, after massive effort, these articles are organized; don't mess with 'em! —01:15, 31 August 2020 (UTC) with minor revisions RCraig09 (talk) 03:53, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This article covers two different topics, and the article title should reflect that. The only other acceptable alternative is to split the article out into two different articles again. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:27, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose the two topics may overlap strongly, but they're not the same. If we remove the change from this article title, people will complain about us not having a general article about climatic change. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:04, 31 August 2020 (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.

Semi-protected edit request on 19 December 2020

Please insert a comma in the lead, for readability:

From: 

In the time since the industrial revolution the climate has increasingly been affected by human activities that are causing global warming and climate change.

to: 

In the time since the industrial revolution, the climate has increasingly been affected by human activities that are causing global warming and climate change.

Thanks. 78.149.76.158 (talk) 09:56, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Done, thanks for your request! Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:05, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
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