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Global Temperature graph

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

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Answered in FAQ: Image X needs updating

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Perhaps this has been discussed before. Regarding the global temperature graph, how about including NCDC and GISTEMP temperature trends along with the HadCRUT data currently displayed?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gmb92 (talk • contribs) 06:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The graphs produced by any of the the global data sets are almost identical. So it doesn't make much sense to show more than one. -Atmoz (talk) 14:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course they would be better if they actually showed the cooling in 2008! 88.109.43.47 (talk) 18:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Great morality! Since you think a bunch of different things look alike, let's just only go with the one you choose! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.104.25.11 (talk) 04:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, first of all the nasa.gov graphs do indeed show the 2008 cooling, but frankly a single year of relative cooling is completely irrelevant. Second, 208.104.25.11, your position on this is absurd. There are thousands of potential graphs that the page could use, but any legal, accurate, and useful graph from an accredited source will do. These graphs observed temperature changes; they aren't biased or debatable. Seeing as how the graphs are nearly the same, there is no reason to display both. Eebster the Great (talk) 04:56, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Why isn't the cooling in 2008 being shown?88.109.75.55 (talk) 14:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

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

The Hadley Centre Albatross

As many people know, I have made many graphics related to global warming, including the introductory chart in this article which is based on data from the Hadley Centre. As some of you know, I also sometimes make imagery for commercial publishers (books and things). A while ago, in relation to a different project, I had an extended discussion with the Hadley Centre regarding their position on commercial use.

The Hadley Centre position, in a nutshell, is that their data is free for private and scientific use but that the commercial use of their data may entitle them to royalties. [1] [2] (page 2)

Their documentation leaves something to be desired. In particular, they distinguish raw data (by which they basically mean weather reports and unfiltered measurements) from "added value products" (which includes basically everything where Hadley Centre resources were used to collate, condense, and interpret the data). But the gist of it is that they believe Crown Copyright gives them control over how the data in "added value products" are used.

This is an unusual position from my point of view. US law does not allow one to control scientific data through copyright. However, the UK is generally amongst the most permissive of nations when extending copyright to all works. Quoting from UK copyright law: "The UK copyright distinctively emphasizes the labour and skill that has gone into the work, which is why some of its basic principles are referred to as the 'Sweat of the Brow' doctrine. This stands in contrast to the usual emphasis on creativity..." Not being an expert on UK law, I can't claim to know if the Hadley Centre position is correct, though I will concede that "labour and skill" is involved in creating a global temperature record. In my discussion with them, they clearly believe they are entitled to financial compensation for the use of their data in commercial imagery. (As an aside, their licensing fees are reasonable and non-discriminatory, so it isn't much of a hardship for real commercial projects.)

However, if one accepts their position, then one is basically forced to conclude that plots using their data are necessarily non-commercial (at least within the jurisdiction of UK law), and hence not "free" in the sense Wikipedia intends.

As a result of this, I have basically decided not to use Hadley Centre data in any future imagery I create for Wikipedia. I hope to provide replacements for all the major images using Hadley Centre data before too much time passes.

However, I am somewhat disappointed with this conclusion since there are several reasons for preferring the Hadley Center temperature series to the major alternatives (e.g. GISTEMP and NCDC), namely a somewhat longer record and better track record at avoiding embarrassing errors. Dragons flight (talk) 16:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I see the potential problem. But by that same reasoning, we could not freely quote the King James Bible (still under crown copyright), or its many derivatives. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

What "we" do is yet to be determined. What "I" intend to do is to stop releasing imagery under my name that has an ambiguous status in the UK. Dragons flight (talk) 18:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I fully understand, and of course it's entirely your decision. But HadCrut is the best data set we have, and you are the best visualizer. It's sad that we loose this great resource due to an unfortunate and unclear legal situation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

IANAL. But to me the last part of the PDF (on scientific cooperation) reads like the GPL copy-left. As long as its for a scientific purpose, and that the results of the scientific purpose (ie. enriching (such as making a graph)) is available under the same copyright. (ie. can't be commercialized) Then we can use it. That would be compatible with the GPL requirements for Wikipedia - but again IANAL. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if Stephan's legal interpretation is correct, but if it is, then it certainly is not Wikipedia compatible. Specifically, you are not allowed to limit what you can do with Wikipedia content to certain endeavors (like science) while prohibiting it from being used in others. That simply isn't free enough for our purposes. It's an extremely unfortunate situation with no good choices (except to get them to change their policies). Raul654 (talk) 22:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia, as far as I understand it, applies copyright according to Florida law, where non-creative collections of data are not protected (to my knowledge). So legally we might be in the clear. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point - I forgot that. But it's (arguably?) not true for Commons, where the picture currently resides. Raul654 (talk) 23:06, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this also applies to the commons - "free" as per Florida law. Notice [3]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

See this lovely little discussion. Raul654 (talk) 14:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Enwiki requires that content be free in the US. Commons requires that it be free in the US and in the country of origin. Dragons flight (talk) 14:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Which means that we are good, as far as I can tell. The country of origin of the images is the US (or is it?), where you prepared them from data that is free in the US. Of course this gets lawyerly ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The Met Office have always been a bit cr*p like that; its the govts fault; they want them to look nice and commercial, and try to earn money, even in situations where there is no possible hope of earning money, and it costs more to try to earn the money that it would to just give the data away. They do (or did) similarly dumb things with their climate model. So it goes William M. Connolley (talk) 19:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no doubt the Hadley centre data would be covered by "information of a public interest" under the freedom of information act. There is no way on earth that the Hadley centre could claim copyrighjt on material of such a public nature and still get public funding. 88.109.75.55 (talk) 14:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The Hadley Center is under British law not US law. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes the freedom of information act is British law! 88.109.75.55 (talk) 22:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Organization of article

While looking at the general organization of the article for editing the lead, I realized that I think a different order makes more sense. Our current organizational scheme is

1 Greenhouse effect

2 Solar variation

3 Forcing and feedback

3.1 Climate variability

3.2 Feedback

4 Temperature changes

4.1 Recent

4.2 Pre-human climate variations

5 Climate models

6 Attributed and expected effects

6.1 Environmental

6.2 Economic

7 Adaptation and mitigation

7.1 Mitigation

7.2 Geoengineering

8 Economic and political debate

9 Related climatic issues

How about

1 Greenhouse effect

2 Temperature changes

2.1 Recent

2.2 Pre-human climate variations

3 Climate models

4 Forcing and feedback

4.1 Climate variability

4.2 Feedback

4.3 Solar variation

5 Attributed and expected effects

5.1 Environmental

5.2 Economic

6 Adaptation and mitigation

6.1 Mitigation

6.2 Geoengineering

7 Economic and political debate

8 Related climatic issues

I think that temperature changes and climate models should be on top (as important, and helpful for understanding the other sections) and that solar variation should be tucked into "forcing and feedback" (as it's a forcing). What do you all think? - Enuja (talk) 06:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I see what your point is. My issue in thinking about this is that the solar-greenhouse forcing is what I find as the good first-order way of thinking about the problem, and so it seems intuitive that it goes first. I wouldn't mind temperature changes to be discussed without causality first, though, but I think forcing and feedback should be before climate models, as (shoot, repeating myself) they are the good basic backbone details of climate models. Just my 2 cents. Awickert (talk) 07:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Awickert. I would think the "Adaptation and mitigation" section should have a section on adaptation and a section on mitigation, but maybe that's just me... Geoengineering would then be mentioned under mitigation and not as a separate section. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

User:Andrewjlockley's proposed changes are below. I undid them because he changed them above, which took Enuja's work out of context. Awickert (talk) 18:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

He said:

1 Greenhouse effect

2 Temperature changes

2.1 Recent

2.2 Pre-human climate variations

3 Climate models

4 Forcing and feedback

4.1 Climate variability

4.2 Feedback

4.3 Solar variation

5 Attributed and expected effects

5.1 Environmental

5.2 Economic

6 Responses to global warming

6.1 Mitigation

6.2 Geoengineering

6.3 Adaptation

7 Economic and political debate

8 Related climatic issues

Geoengineering isn't considered mitigation by most commentators. I've changed the structure above.Andrewjlockley (talk) 16:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

IPCC Working Group III and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program think that geoengineering is an aspect of mitigation. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I will do further work on that point BorisAndrewjlockley (talk) 22:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have any kind of consensus to change any of the rest of it (Adaptation/Mitigation/Geoengineering or the order of Forcing and feedback, Temperature changes, and Climate models) but I don't see any disagreement about putting the Solar variation section under Forcing and feedback as a subsection. I'm going to integrate the "Climate variation" paragraph with into the section of "Forcing and feedback" before subsections (getting rid of "Climate variation" as a titled subsection). "Solar variation" will be the first subsection, followed by "Feedback" as the second subsection. I will do this after one or two days unless someone has another comment here. - Enuja (talk) 04:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, and makes sense: climate variation as main theme, then 2 sections about it. I'm not totally sure, though, what is mentioned under "feedback": is it only the permafrost? Because if that's it, then we could re-title the section. Awickert (talk) 04:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I've checked. Technically, geoeng by greenhouse gas remediation is mitigation, geoeng by solar radiation management is adaptation. So really it makes sense to keep geoeng separate, which is how it's usually considered. I've clarified this point on the adaptation to global warming and mitigation of global warming pages. You can't lump all of geoeng into either, as that's just plain wrong. Can we get the structure into the sandbox, as I can't keep track of what people are meaning about it.Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I've edited the article to move Solar variation under "Forcing and feedback" and to put the "Climate variability" subsection as part of the paragraphs before subsections in the "Forcing and feedback" section, with attendant wording tweaking (including adding a sentence). I think that Adaptation/Mitigation/Geoengineering needs to be discussed further on this talk page, but I don't have a strong opinion about how it should be organized. Otherwise, I'm happy with the current organization. - Enuja (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

First Graph

The first graph in this article should be updated to show the 0.325C temperature anomaly from Hadley Center for 2008. Dan Pangburn (talk) 14:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, now that the data is finally in we should do that. But see Talk:Global_warming/FAQ#Image_X_needs_updating and Talk:Global_warming#The_Hadley_Centre_Albatross on this page. Our preferred volunteer has pointed out that the Hadley data is not free (in the GFDL sense) in the UK (although we believe it is free in Florida, where the Wikipedia servers are located), and thus has unvolunteered. We need to find someone with similar skill for this year's update. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I am willing to create the same graphic with GISS data this weekend (I need to do that for my own website anyway). I'll let others decide whether they prefer that approach, or if someone else wants to take responsibility for making Hadley based graphics going forward. Dragons flight (talk) 15:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

It may be possible to pack the jury with global warmists so that the only "peer reviewed" literature that ever gets into this article is from the global warmers, but it is a lot harder to dismiss the raw data on global temperature on such spurious requirments to be "peer reviewed". So how long will you stall? How will you try to hide the latest year by adding in spurious data? Or will you just go to a new dataset which is more alarming? I will watch with interest to see just how long or even if, the 2008 results ever get into this article which is a disgrace to the otherwise good name of wikipedia. 88.109.75.55 (talk) 14:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Stop whining and generate a suitable plot, then. The data is freely available, if not necessarily PD. There is an updated version (with some problems discussed here) at File:Instrumental-Temperature-Record.svg. It's not good enough for the article because the running average treats the borderline cases wrongly, but you can get a first impression. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Last time I created a graph it was immediately removed without any good reason. You can stop there being a neutral point of view by stopping people like me with a neutral point of view from editing the article, but you can't force us to stop complaining that if you want to prevent anyone else editing the article, then you have to keep it up to date yourselves. 88.109.75.55 (talk) 22:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I made the image. I'm also updating the second image as well and plan to upload both tonight. Dragons flight (talk) 16:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It's appreciated! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:58, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I have now updated Image:Instrumental Temperature Record.png and Image:Global Warming Map.jpg. As I warned in the thread farther up the page, I have discontinued using Hadley Centre data due to commercial use issues, so this time the Instrumental record is using GISS data.

I also created a new version of Image:Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide.png, but this article currently uses Image:Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide-en.svg, and I have long since learned to let other people decide whether a PNG or an SVG is of better quality. (The PNG is currently used in 7 other articles.) Dragons flight (talk) 04:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Continuing warming for a thousand years

I have to admit that this one really bugs me. The statement occurs in the 2nd to last paragraph of the lead section and refrs to the result of a very recent study (published Jan 2009) that suggests that global warming could continue for 1,000yrs even after greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. The study has not yet had corroberating studies published, but has been placed in this article as fact as if it's part of the "Global Warming Scripture". This, IMHO, constitutes not only a significant bias towards a worst case scenario viewpoint and is absolutely preschool level as far as reliable scientific reporting.

I have edited this line in several ways to try and improve this reference in the article, but my edits have been removed each time, sometimes with ridiculous summaries given ie, "it's bleeding obvious". Science is science and should be represented in a non-biased manner. I propose a change to this line which retains this important study outcome, but reflects that it is only the outcome of one recent study which needs fleshing out.doviel (talk) 22:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I've told you this before in the edit comments, but I'll say it here too: its not a recent study. Its a commonplace. It was in the IPCC TAR [4] William M. Connolley (talk) 22:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What I think we need to do is come up with language that makes clear that the warming from already emitted anthropogenic greenhouse gases isn't predicted to stop warming the Earth until I long time past 2100. I suggest the language "Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming is expected to continue even in the absence of new emissions[7][8] because of the large heat capacity of the oceans, and the lifespan of CO2 in the atmosphere.[1]" What do you think about that, Doviel? - Enuja (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

That version has excellent flow Enuja, but I would like it to have slightly more uncertainty to the possibility of 1,000yrs of warming as the article (no matter what Mr Connolley reckons) referenced is a very recent study. More time for discussion by the scientific community on this point would seem to be required before it is given the same weight as other more supported predictions.doviel (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I seem to have taken credit for that language: it's a result of collaborative editing here. If you look at this [5] version, what do you think of the two sources? Would you be happier with different sources? Could you suggest some? The 1,000 years are not mentioned in that version of the lead, so why would we need to analyze the certainty of that date? - Enuja (talk) 00:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

My mistake Enuja, I think I read it in without thinking. Eisegesis on my part. That version is excellent. I have no problems at all with it. It avoids bias or misrepresentation of scientific consensus very well. I will support it. Thank you very much for your efforts in this.doviel (talk) 00:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

If there are no objections or improvements in a day or so I'll make the edit. - Enuja (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/irreversible-does-not-mean-unstoppable William M. Connolley (talk) 23:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Mr Connelley, that does make mention of the Solomon study. Are you objecting to the wording that Anuja has proposed? I think that it is a good compromise that reflects the research done. I hope that you will support it with us as it has the support of other writers (it was written as a group effort without my being involved) and does read very well, being much clearer in meaning than some former versions (including my own!).doviel (talk) 01:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've made the edit. I, personally, don't like to see so many sources on a single sentence, but if everybody else thinks that's the way to go, then I'm fine with it. Do we really need the NOAA summary link, especially as we don't currently have a link to the new paper? Maybe we should put a link to the new paper in the same references as the NOAA summary link? - Enuja (talk) 17:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Feedbacks subsection

I reverted this addition by [6] Andrewjlockley to the Feedbacks subsection. Some of this might be excellent for this section, but the section is already too long (see summary style for the guidelines about writing summaries of detailed subjects on top-level articles). Also, see the manual of style, specifically Manual_of_Style#Bulleted and numbered lists and Wikipedia:Embedded list and please make additions in paragraph instead of bullet format, and, ideally, integrate new additions into existing paragraphs. Also, why would we want to mention what James Hansen thinks in this top level article? That and some of the other details don't seem appropriate to me. One issue with this section might be the linked main article: are there other articles we could link to as well, where all of the appropriate details about feedbacks could be found so that we can simply summarize the contents of those articles as the contents of this section? - Enuja (talk) 22:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I've worked this back in, taking on board the criticisms you've raised. There are several articles you could use for expanded discussion of feedbacks: Runaway climate change, tipping point (climatology) and abrupt climate change are all possible candidates.Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

There are a bunch of figures of how much methane might be released but they add little information if there is no timescale to indicate over what time period. They also seem a bit speculative? Maybe it would be better to reduce that section somehow?
—Apis (talk) 08:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

They give 'order of magnitude' information, vital at this stage. I think there's a case for a new article which expands this section.Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The timescale for Buffet&Archer is on the kilo-year scale. Not the imminent future. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

See Archer (2007) (full paper is online) for details into the time-scale that the abstract lacks and Kim describes. Your response on "order of magnitude information" and insistence to keep including this indicates that you haven't bothered to look at a single "fact" tag I've put up or the message I left on your page with reference to this paper that gives order of magnitude time-scales. By continuing to improperly use good references, and use unreliable references, even after we try to tell you about proper citation, you do nothing but create an edit war in which your additions are rapidly reverted, wasting everyone's valuable time. Awickert (talk) 16:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm NOT edit warring, I'm working. I'm really cross about my (unjustified) 3RR warning from WMC. I'm trying really hard to take on board every tiny criticism I get and I would be very grateful if people would edit my work, fact tag it, improve references etc. - rather than just reverting whole sections and then giving me abuse on talk pages!Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

All of these problems could have been avoided had you listened to what I and others told you about appropriate sources. Instead, you chose to continue making sweeping statements that use unprofessional sources, sources that contradict you, and biased sources. This results in reverts and more reverts. Sure, I'm happy you're trying to clean up. I know you must be frustrated too. But I will not stand to see you mass-editing pages with misrepresented science. I will say it one last time: make edits that you don't think will be controversial, or bring them up on the talk page first. Always have peer-reviewed journal sources, and make sure that the sources match what you are saying and are representative of the knowledge of the topic. Please. Awickert (talk) 23:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, only one of the reverts was for sourcing. One was for formatting, so I changed the formatting. Then I got reverted for writing too much - so I cut it down. Then I got reverted for writing that was too dense and hard to read, so if I did it again I'd have to make it longer. Then, doubtless, I'd get reverted for being too wordy. Despite my ridiculous 3rr warning, it's actually not me that's been doing any of the reverts. I'm trying to please everyone and all I'm getting is abuse.Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Be bold Narssarssuaq (talk) 15:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Poor advice. AJL has been far too bold already, and is now developing persecution complex William M. Connolley (talk) 16:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Right. Fresh start. I want to get the scientific consensus view on methane feedbacks into the article (including credible worst-case scenario). How to do so, without the shouting?Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change is the most recent and most-cited I've seen. Awickert (talk) 02:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

OK I will use that. I'm using them to support the volume, and will make the following simple disclaimer on speed. 'However, their prediction is that the release will be on a timescale of thousands of years'Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

One paper is not a consensus. If you want what the consensus is, look at the IPCC. -Atmoz (talk) 15:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

No, but this one paper is a start, and is better than the smattering of abstract, unrelated article, contradicting article, and newspapers that were used before. I'd suggest to Andrewjlockley that he take a few days and perform a good scientific review of the literature (I offered to make papers available to him if he wants them), but I was just trying to get him to look at the paper I've been poking him with for the last 5 days! Awickert (talk) 16:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

And to the disclaimer: personally, I think that disclaimers typically hurt clarity that can be done in one sentence. You can talk about methane release from terrestrial permafrost and that problem (lots of support for it being an issue). Then you can add a sentence like "Global warming is also expected to destabilize methane clathrates on the seabed, resulting in their slow release over time-scales of [insert-time-scale: thousands, tens of thousands of years]." And if you wish, another sentence, like, "Although this effect is not likely to be significant in the coming century, it could result in long-term methane addition to the atmosphere," though I think that's somewhat redundant on the first sentence. The idea is, make it clear right away, instead of "omg guys! clathrates! no, wait, j/k". Awickert (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree, as much clathrate is stored in shallow waters and it can be destabilised quickly by warming or by slumping of permafrost.Andrewjlockley (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

All I did was make a sentence paraphrasing the relevant bit of the Archer (2007) paper. If you disagree with it, you would need to find and cite research on shallow clathrates that backs you up. And you still would need to qualify the issues from shallow clathrates versus all. Otherwise, your agreement or disagreement is entirely beside the point. Awickert (talk) 00:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I want to get the scientific consensus view on methane feedbacks into the article (including credible worst-case scenario). How to do so, without the shouting? - um, well, have you noticed that adding in worst-case without adding in best-case is biased? Current methane growth is well *under* IPCC scenario levels William M. Connolley (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree. High-impact, low probability events are more important to the subject than low-impact, low probability events. Extreme impact, low probability are extremely much more important. Narssarssuaq (talk) 15:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thats a different POV, a what-the-papers-say one. But its not the sci cons that AJL said he wanted to get in William M. Connolley (talk) 16:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's forget about AJL for a few seconds. I think that this could be a point where the format of a Wikipedia article and the format of a scientific article need to differ. A Wikipedia article cannot be infinitely long, so it must include what has the highest weight and relevance. A scientific paper can go to lengths discussing every aspect of a case, while this article cannot. In a few instances where a Wikipedia article needs to make the choice between 1. omitting mention to something and 2. summarizing only the aspects that have the greatest weight and relevance (because discussing in length is too space-consuming), mentioning only the high-impact (here: worst-case) scenario would be rational. (Sorry for taking up your time with this rather worthless and far too general rant). Narssarssuaq (talk) 17:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

As long as it's supported and adequately cited, and doesn't mis-quote (i.e., catastrophic CH4 clathrate release without mentioning the multi-millenial time-scale or having any papers that support short time-scale), That sounds fine by me. So like: "worst case: cause, effect," with some quantification? Any studies in mind? Awickert (talk) 19:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. To take a concrete example: if we say "the consensus is that the Arctic might be ice free in summer by 2100" then we *don't* just add "and some people say by 2020"; we have to add "and some people say by 2020; others not till 2150" or whatver William M. Connolley (talk) 20:28, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh - I guess I was thinking about this in a completely different context, like "If all glaciers melt, sea level rises 80 meters". Something that is a fact, but qualifies itself with an if-statement. I'd definitely be opposed to giving extremes weight next to consensus or listing everyone's opinion; as Narssarssuaq says, articles shouldn't be that long. Awickert (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

this can be dismissed immediately, of course. Agreed?

I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss The Register Jan. 28, 2009

Dr John Theon, the retired scientist formerly in charge of key NASA climate programs who supervised James Hansen -- the activist-scientist who helped give the manmade global warming hypothesis centre prominent media attention -- has come out as a skeptic about man-made global warming. "My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is... http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=10044&m=12472 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.36.207 (talk) 14:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --Seba5618 (talk) 14:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Er, why? (Original article) Given the man's credentials maybe a little more engagement is called for. Am I missing something? Rd232 ^talk 15:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Has he published his findings in a peer-reviewed journal? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean has he published his findings in a global warmers journal? 88.109.43.47 (talk) 18:31, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "a global warmer's journal". 'Boris' is talking about a peer reviewed scientific journal - you know, the place scientists publish science. Guettarda (talk) 20:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, if you track it back further, it boils down to two fairly innocent if slightly sceptical email blown out of proportion by Inhofe's media machine[7]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Was he actually "in charge of NASA" or is that BS? what was he "in charge" of? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.36.207 (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Dissent among scientists is normal. If all other climatologists completely agreed with Hansen (and most do not) then this would be a significant news story. It wouldn't be something to put into this article, but it would be a story. --TS 07:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

However, this isn't a case of disagreement amongst scientists. Theon stopped being a scienitst ages ago, and is retired even from his admin role William M. Connolley (talk) 08:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that he's no longer publishing research. It's not as if this was somebody with a new dataset or an improved model, just a guy who has "kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles." Incidentally the site in the above link seems to be borked, so here is the original Register article, which I now see simply parrots some nonsense from Senator Inhofe. --TS 12:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

So this guy was a scientist but is not now ... was he actually "in charge of NASA" or is that crap? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.36.207 (talk) 21:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Hard to know. Certainly many climate-folk he claims to have been in charge of have never heard of him. I wrote more here [8] William M. Connolley (talk) 21:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Why are we linking to an off-site blog and then removing comments related to the post? If the subject matter there is unsuitable for Wikipedia why are we linking to it at all? --GoRight (talk) 19:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You mean... as opposed to an on-site blog? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a reliable source and any article that adhered to NPOV would accept points of view from both sides of the argument. 88.109.75.55 (talk) 14:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is apparently in the eye of the beholder. --GoRight (talk) 19:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

NPOV means a Neutral Point of View. It means what an neutral, unbiased viewer would wish to know about the subject as a whole, not the little bit that a small minority of self-appointed experts have decided that they will allow other people to read. 88.109.75.55 (talk) 22:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

See the Neutral point of view policy for a complete elaboration of what that policy entails. --TS 23:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Beginning of second paragraph of lead

We've been doing some collaborative editing on my sandbox for the lead of this article. I was looking at the article organization, and the physical basis of earth's temperature (Greenhouse effect, but maybe we should include albedo as well?) didn't seem to me to have as much emphasis in the lead as it does in the article. What do you all think of adding a new first sentence to the second paragraph of the lead? Awickert and I have edited it a bit, and I think I like this version, but I'm not so sure I like the grammar of "This Earth's average temperature".

The Earth's global surface temperature is determined by the amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed by the Earth and the retention of that heat by greenhouse gases.[1][2] This Earth's average temperature has increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005.[1]

So, what do you all think about this proposed language? Also, in the current version of the article, IPCC 4's Executive Summary reference includes a quote for of the increase in temperature during the 100 years ending in 2005. I think that that quote is superfluous, and I'd like to have just one reference at the bottom of the page for the IPCC 4 Executive Summary. Again, what do you all think? - Enuja (talk) 02:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The lead is already too long. We should be looking for ways to make it more concise, rather than adding more stuff. If people really think there is essential info that must be added then it should be compensated by trimming elsewhere in the lead. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that the lead does need to be shorter, I don't think that, in of itself, is an argument that we should start the second paragraph with the change in temperature instead of with an introduction to the basic concepts. - Enuja (talk) 03:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC) Here [9] is my current sandbox suggestion, including a fair number of cuts. - Enuja (talk) 04:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the figures in the lead make the article off-putting for laypeople. I also think that the IPCC report 4 is so out of date that it's more notable for it's inadequacies than its predictions.Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess adding my language is dead, but I did just remove the quote (and therefore the repeated citation of the IPCC 4th Report executive summary). - Enuja (talk) 00:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Odd wording in the lede

As a new account, I don't have permission to edit semi-protected articles, but the first sentence in the last paragraph of the lede has a rather awkward grammatical structure. "Political and public debate continues regarding what, if any, responses to global warming are made." seems like it would read much more smoothly as "Political and public debate continues regarding the optimal responses to global warming." The "if any" seems a tad redundant, as the absence of action is in itself a type of response. If we want to leave "if any" in that sentence, perhaps we should go with "Political and public debate continues regarding the optimal responses, if any, to global warming." -Zeke Hausfather (talk) 21:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I've changed it to:

Political and public debate continues regarding the appropriate response to global warming.

--TS 22:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It was reasonably grammatical up until about 28 January; see e.g.,this version. I prefer the wording in the version just linked but it's not a big deal either way. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I call BS on that five year trend line

The latest point on the five year trend line is roughly equal to the yearly average for 2006. If you take a look at the surrounding years, 2004 is moderately below this point, 2005 is moderately above, 2007 is slightly above, and 2008 is *way* below. Obviously the five year trend is not putting proper weight on 2008. 18.111.28.205 (talk) 00:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

How about looking at the actual data instead of eye-balling it? Its nicely linked on the image page. [10] - be our guest and recalculate the 5 year means yourself. If you find an error, make sure to tell us. :) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually if you find an error, please enroll in a remedial arithmetic course and don't waste our time. -Atmoz (talk) 00:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for the rude tone of my previous post. However, there clearly is an error in the chart. I plotted the data (linked from the chart) and the five year trend has a distinct downward tick (of 0.02) between the next-to-last and last points. This does not show up in the chart. It looks to me like the five year trend plotted on the chart stops one year early. Could someone please fix this? (I would do it myself, but don't know how). Thanks 76.19.65.163 (talk) 06:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't it be that the last point represents the average for 2006 and not 2008 as you presume? How did you calculate the five year average for 2007 and 2008? I see no errors...
—Apis (talk) 06:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't calculate anything myself. I just plotted these data (which are supposed to be the basis for the chart) in excel: (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt). The chart in the article is clearly missing the last point. 76.19.65.163 (talk) 07:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

All the data is in the figure. Find the point for the year 2000, there are 8 points after that. The end of the 5-year average ends 2 points before that. The problem is that the dependent axis appears to be off by an additive constant. I don't know if that was on purpose or not. But it doesn't really matter. -Atmoz (talk) 07:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The y-axis is shifted to match the definition of 0 used by the IPCC and Hadley Centre. For some reason GISS uses a different zero than everyone else, which seemed silly. Dragons flight (talk) 07:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I figured that, but it should probably be noted in the description. -Atmoz (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The definition of 0 always has been in the image page description. Dragons flight (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this is somewhat complicated. When one wants to draw a curve through a set of points, the simplest thing one can do is connect the dots with line segments. That works but tends to gives a jagged appearance. In many cases it is preferable to instead plot a smooth curve of some sort through the data. In general, I think smooth curves are particularly suitable when the intent is to display some form of average trend. There are many choices for how to generate such a curve. In making the smooth curve in this plot, I used a tapered moving average with an effective width of 5 years. (The concept of the "effective width" has a specific and rigorous statistical meaning that would be a diversion to explain.) This same averaging technique has been used in every version of this figure since its inception four years ago.

The problem at the moment is two-fold. First, people read average and immediately assume arithmetic mean, when the two really aren't the same. The filter used in this case was a kind of weighted mean that operates on the same timescale (i.e. 5 years) but smoothly suppresses the high frequency jumps that an arithmetic mean can suffer from when using on a small number of points. The result is a curve that stays very close to the points generated by a moving arithmetic mean, but also can be easily drawn as smoothly varying. However, if the record jumps abruptly the difference between this average and an arithmetic mean may become noticeable. This is especially true if the jump occurs right at the end of the record, which results in a larger apparent difference than at other times. The actual difference of 0.015 C (less than the width of blue dot) is not huge, but apparently it is noticeable. I assume that since there was never a comment like this in prior years, the difference was never enough to matter, but this year someone noticed in a matter of days after posting. That someone noticed suggests the chart should be "fixed" to better conform with people's expectations of what "average" means. (I use "fixed" in quotations, because the tapered average is a perfectly reasonable approach from a statistics point of view, and for many applications is actually a better indicator of trend behavior than an arithmetic mean.) Dragons flight (talk) 07:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it would be enough to mention that on the image page then?
—Apis (talk) 09:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

No filer has been used in the past. Why should we apply a filter now that the five year trend shows a small decline? Why not just plot the data and let people decide for themselves? This "smoothing" looks like an attempt to hide the small decrease in the trend. 76.19.65.163 (talk) 13:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• I made the image the last four years, and as I said above, the exact same averaging method was used the whole time. Dragons flight (talk) 13:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
• (ec)The plot has always used the raw data (not the arithmetic means provided by NASA) and applied a polynomial(?) filter to obtain the 5 year average plot. You can see that the curve was always smooth, never jagged, in any version of the graph. If you plot the graph without a smoothing filter, any plot of discrete data will look jagged. And you might want to see how well the current plot "hides" the decreases around the early and the late 80s... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I guess the problem is I don't understand the filtering method. How many years does the temperature have to drop before the polynomial you fit starts to drop? 76.19.65.163 (talk) 14:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I am going to looking at ways of doing this that will clip a little less at the end (we are still talking about less than the width of circle though). It is probably best to avoid plotting methods that readily surprise people. Any changes won't be made immediately though. Dragons flight (talk) 14:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Less than the width of a circle? My eyes aren't good enough to pick that up. My opinion—the solution is to label the curves as Annual Temperature and Smoothed Temperature. -Atmoz (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

A drop of 0.02 degrees is clearly visible. The problem with the current method is the last point puts more weight on 2005 than on 2008. This makes no sense. 76.19.65.163 (talk) 17:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

If the drop you write of is part of trend, it will show up in the next five years or so. If it isn't, it'll smooth out. Either way this discussion smacks of recentism. --TS 17:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to channel my last statistics course, but I think Atmoz is right that it may be more accurate to call the red line a smoothed line rather than a five-year average? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oren0 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 6 February 2009 GMT

It might be easiest just to go with a simple 5-year arithmetic mean. Comparing the two side-by-side, its really not that different .Zeke Hausfather (talk) 01:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that we have people accusing us of changing the way we drew the graph, even though we didn't and when this was pointed out, they started to ask us to change the way it is drawn, even though this is precisely the thing they were complaining about earlier and they never complained about it before? Not that I'm saying we shouldn't take a look at whether the graph is the best possible representation of the data Nil Einne (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

You're not alone in appreciating the irony : ). Awickert (talk) 17:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Solomon PNAS article in lead

This edit [11] put the Solomon PNAS article back in the lead, but this time in the 4th instead of the 3rd paragraph. The sentence about long-term effects of carbon dioxide (Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming is expected to continue, even in the absence of new emissions, because of the large heat capacity of the oceans and the lifespan of CO2 in the atmosphere.[13][14][15]) is still at the end of the 3rd paragraph. It is cited with Archer 2005, Caldeira and Wickett 2005 and a NOAA press release about the Solomon article. Should we add the actual Solomon article to the nest of references for that sentence? Should we just put the NOAA press release and Solomon article into one reference, and use it both in the 3rd paragraph of the lead and where Smith609 put the sentence about the Solomon article in the body of the article? Is the sentence inserted by Smith609 (in the first paragraph of the Environmental subsection) supported by the Solomon article? - Enuja (talk) 20:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's especially objectionable. The tense is wrong - should be "would be" not "are" irreversible. And the needs qualifying with something like "in the absence of geoeng" or something (I presume Solomon does so qualify; I haven't read it) William M. Connolley (talk) 20:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Might just be best to replace the weakest citation in the sentence at the end of the third paragraph with Soloman et al if we really want to cite it. Having two separate sentences that effectively make the same arguement in the lead seems like a bit of a waste of space. -Zeke Hausfather (talk)

Credibility of statement

"A 2001 report by the IPCC suggests that glacier retreat, ice shelf disruption such as that of the Larsen Ice Shelf, sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, and increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are attributable in part to global warming." I think the last part of this is downright wrong. In short because there HASN'T been any increase in extreme weather events. The number of hurricanes (both small and large) has been going down over the past many years. It is true that the number of OBSERVED hurricanes has been going up but this is only because of the recent development of weather satellites. If you narrow the data to just analyzing hurricanes that have made landfall (which there are accurate long-term records of) then you see that the number of hurricanes making landfall has decreased a noticeable amount. The only thing I don't have is a source for this yet, besides a lecture by Professor Muller from University of California Berkeley and although I haven't looked through the whole report yet, the IPCC I think says this same thing, so saying that they are saying the opposite is downright wrong. Ergzay (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe "extreme weather events" in this case is a reference to droughts, floods, heat waves, and the like, and not specifically to tropical cyclones. You are right that the records related to cyclones are in many ways problematic (observational biases) and/or ambiguous (unclear trends). Dragons flight (talk) 18:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"Social and economic effects of global warming may be exacerbated by growing population densities in affected areas. Temperate regions are projected to experience some benefits, such as fewer deaths due to cold exposure.[88] A summary of probable effects and recent understanding can be found in the report made for the IPCC Third Assessment Report by Working Group II.[86] The newer IPCC Fourth Assessment Report summary reports that there is observational evidence for an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic Ocean since about 1970, in correlation with the increase in sea surface temperature (see Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), but that the detection of long-term trends is complicated by the quality of records prior to routine satellite observations. The summary also states that there is no clear trend in the annual worldwide number of tropical cyclones.[1]" I should add this paragraph is full of cherry-picking of data. Hurricanes increasing in JUST the north atlantic is not evidence, especcially when it says, "The summary also states that there is no clear trend in the annual worldwide number of tropical cyclones." In short this means that the hurricane activity in the rest of the world has decreased during this same period to account for the worldwide number not increasing.Ergzay (talk) 18:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The point you may be missing is that we report what credible sources say. If the article is misrepresenting IPCC, then it should be re-written. If all that is wrong is that you disagree with what IPCC wrote, then tough William M. Connolley (talk) 20:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The point you may be missing is that the reason for an encyclopedic entry on the issue is not to merely parrot political reports like the IPCC but to provide a layman's introduction with references. Under the circumstances, scientific reports are being questioned for dodgy reasons and political postures are being promoted for dodgier reasons, imho. DDB (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Contribution of livestock flatulence to global warming

Since there is no real discussion in the article, I have added a section highlighting the role of livestock flatulence to global warming:

A recent UN report indicates livestock generate more greenhouse gases on a global scale than the entire transportation sector. A senior UN official and co-author of the report Henning Steinfeld said "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems."

Recent NASA research has confirmed the vital role of livestock flatulence in global warming. "We understand that other greenhouse gases apart from carbon dioxide are important for climate change today," said Gavin Schmidt, the lead author of the study and a researcher at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, NY and Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research.

President of the National Academy of Sciences Ralph Cicerone (an atmospheric scientist), has indicated the contribution of methane by livestock flatulence and eructation to global warming is a “serious topic.” Cicerone states “Methane is the second-most-important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere now. The population of beef cattle and dairy cattle has grown so much that methane from cows now is big. This is not a trivial issue." Approximately 5% of the methane is released via the flatus, whereas the other 95% is released via eructation. Vaccines are under development to reduce the amount introduced through eructation. Publixx (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Not about the content, but for the references: please look at the other references in the article and format them accordingly. See Wikipedia:Citation templates for details. Also, for verifiability on a high-profile article, it is important to have the original source of the information; press releases can be included as useful digests.

What you have is well-written: my worry is that it uses quotes as support for the initial statement; I think more quantitative information would be preferred here.

Awickert (talk) 22:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm all up for adding something about this. It's an oft-overlooked contribution. I think we should talk about farting and burping, so people actually understand it.Andrewjlockley (talk) 23:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

This is scibaby come again William M. Connolley (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to address the merit of the contribution in addition to addressing the suspected identity of the contributor. We currently have a little bit about livestock and greenhouse gases in Attribution of recent climate change, although the current source has a broken link. I think it makes sense to add more sources and more information to that section of that article, but I think it would be highly inappropriate to have an entire section about livestock and greenhouse gases on this top-level article. - Enuja (talk) 01:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

OK maybe we can come up with something a bit shorter?

The Deniers

I am not really able to devote much time to climate change topics, but I note that edits are being made to the article on The Deniers, by Lawrence Solomon, that appear to be to be broadly promotional in nature. The status of critical and favorable reviewers alike is being obfuscated, and one entire section read like a book blurb, consisting solely of a large block quote from the author. The article would benefit from a little attention that I myself cannot afford to devote to it. --TS 18:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The article itself is all for global warming with a section called the deniers? As it is a subject that many experts cannot agree on the article itself is very biased. --UnTrooper (talk) 17:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It is an article about the global warming religion written by the high priests of global warming. You will have as much luck trying to discuss religion with a mormon and discuss climate with a global warmer! 81.170.15.198 (talk) 01:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Straight from the horse's mouth

There's been an ongoing struggle to get the truth about expected GW into this article. There's been a gross over-reliance on the widely-discredited IPCC 4th report. Now a senior IPCC scientist has gone on record and basically said what's been patently obvious all along: the 4th report was dangerously complacent. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/su-ccl021009.php We can no longer pretend that the current article represents anything like current scientific consensus. I hope very much that people can now agree that the time has come to get this article into line with the science, both in the lead and generally. I'll start adding the edits soon. If people dislike them, I hope they could improve rather than revert them.Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I hope you would rely more on peer-reviewed science and not on press-releases. Chris Field has not left the consensus position, he just pointed out that the emission scenarios have been overoptimistic. The actual science is the same, but the social and economical predictions seem to be off. I agree that we might want to mention this if we find a better source than the popular press. But we should mention it in the appropriate manner, not by dumping a lot of unrelated issues blindly into the article. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I was going to use peer reviewed science to back up all the points made. However, there's been a pattern of 'stripping' from this article of anything that doesn't repeat IPCC mantrasAndrewjlockley (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The PR was cited as it had a direct quote from a lead IPCC scientist. I didn't make any scientific claims in my edit, and it was not included as news. Why was it stripped?Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Ummm. The source is a press release, which is rarely a good source. As far as I can see, the press release is not by Chris Field, although you claim it is. The press release does not say what you wrote. It does not even say that Field expects future IPCC report "to show that 'climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with' than previously thought". And it represents only a single unreviewed opinion (though a plausible one). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It quoted Chris Field, and it was given as an expectation of the IPCC position, not as a scientific fact. I'll take the alternative route of including the papers directly79.65.169.132 (talk) 17:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

There may well be a number of peer reviewed papers post-AR4 that address the match of SRES scenarios to projections. Perhaps it might be worth including more discussion regarding SRES and post-SRES scenarios, the debate about their accuracy, and the ongoing work to revise them in preparation for the AR5. That said, uncertainty within socioeconomic projections doesn't necessarily mean that warming will be "worse than projected". After all, few people realistically expects that warming will exceed the upper bound A1F scenario. On an unrelated note, it is interesting to see someone complaining that the article is too conservative (though Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, is inherently conservative) -Zeke Hausfather (talk) 21:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

AR4 is twaddle, it doesn't include the biggest feedbacks, and it underestimated emissions growth. Please let me know any links and studies you'd like to include in stating the truth, Zeke.Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Instead of finding studies that state the truth, we get the truth from studies. I reverted your edit. It was out of place (the emissions scenario paragraph is the next paragraph) and there is already uncertainty mentioned in that next paragraph. If you'd like to suggest an edit to that paragraph or that sentence (not adding a new sentence, but editing what we've got now, to increase accuracy without increasing length or losing organization), please suggest that edit here. - Enuja (talk) 10:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It was clear what I meant (above). I've done that edit the way you asked, but it didn't work without a new sentence. Feel free to edit if you can find a better way of writing it. You might want to clarify whether the current emissions exceed ALL of the ranges used in the models of the earlier sentence. That's why I originally put this info in the p/graph above.Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Emissions

Not to encourage Andrew, but he does have a good source in [12]. Of course, it does not quite say what he writes (it actually says "The emissions growth rate since 2000 was greater than for the most fossil-fuel intensive of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenarios developed in the late 1990s"). The emissions themselves seem to be barely within or insignificantly above the A1Fl scenario, depending on the data source. Of course, this is only a very short-term snapshot, and I suspect the effects of the financial crisis will drop us down a bit again in the next year or two. But still, should we mention this paper? Where? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It is what I wrote. I specifically mentioned growth. I will undo WMC's most recent gung-ho reversion, and add the word 'rate' to ensure that there's no ambiguity.Andrewjlockley (talk) 22:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I've edited the sentence you inserted to fit better in the paragraph. I really wish we could come up with a shorter way to say it, but I haven't found one. If anyone can get the idea in more concisely and clearly, that would be great. Also, if other people think that this should be covered in the article text but not in the lead, please remove the sentence: we don't have a clear consensus yet about whether this should be in the lead. I don't have a strong opinion about whether this should be in the lead, but I do think more important things are still out of the lead for length considerations. - Enuja (talk) 02:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Because the source actually says "IPCC" and because some models use much higher rates, I think you should fix your edit. However, I agree that there is too much information in the lead and that this should be elsewhere. Q Science (talk) 03:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The sentence isn't currently in the article, but ... This isn't generally about the IPCC: it's about the emissions scenarios from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios which is linked as "estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions" in the second sentence of that paragraph. Therefore, alluding to those specific emissions scenarios is more useful and specific than saying "IPCC". - Enuja (talk) 19:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Hopefully we won't suffer another arbitrary revert again. Could someone check if the range of scenarios given were the IPCC AR4 ranges? This is not clear in the lead, and should be.Andrewjlockley (talk) 19:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

IPCC 4th report still used the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios devised for the third report, which the IPCC 4th report, this Wikipedia article and the wikipedia article on the special report on emissions scenarios all state. Comprehending this is a necessary prerequisite to editing these facts. The reverts are not arbitrary: so far you (Andrewjlockley) are the only person who clearly stated that Raupach et al 2007 should be mentioned in the lead. Stephan Schulz wanted conversation about where we should put it, Q Science thinks that it should be in the body and not in the lead, I think it might be good in the lead but am leaning towards just putting it in the body, and William M. Connolley (reverts are stating opinions) thinks that it should not be in the lead, and has not addressed an opinion about putting it in the body. Removing the sentence is certainly more consistent with apparent opinions on this issue than putting the sentence in. Personally, I think that reverts in either direction at this point are unproductive edit warring, and that we should discuss it here and come to consensus before reverting in either direction. Obviously, my opinion is patently non-binding towards Andrewjlockley and William M. Connolley's behavior. - Enuja (talk) 19:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

About 40 articles have cited the Raupach et al 2007 article that Andrewjlockley put in this Wikipedia article. I found one editorial (van Vuuren and Riahi, 2008) I particularly like, and am willing to email it to anyone who wants to study it. Even if it doesn't end up going into any of the articles, it has some good references and some editorializing that useful for someone like me, who is not an expert in this field. The take-home message for me is that we should not have a "current emissions growth is outside of SRES envelope" sentence in the lead. I'm going to edit Special Report on Emissions Scenarios with at least a citation or two, but I'm not convinced that the information even makes sense to put on this article page, much less in the lead. - Enuja (talk) 21:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

van Vurren, Detlef P. and Riahi, Keywan. 2008. Do recent emission trends imply higher emissions forever? Climatic Change 91:237-248. DOI 10.1007/s10584-008-9485-y

I don't want to edit war, but I think this info is REALLY important. It shows we are on a trend which is 'worse than worst case'. We cannot omit peer reviewed evidence that states something that important from the lead and still have an accurate article.Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:23, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but just like the deniers cannot validly extrapolate from 2 years of "cooling", we cannot validly claim "worse than the worst case" based on a 2 or 3 year trend. Data in Raupach et al. goes up to 2004/2005, depending on the source. Emissions in 2004/2005 are essentially the same as in the A1Fl scenario. Accumulated emissions are probably below A1Fl, since we were below A1Fl around 2000 and have only now caught on. This is not good, but it does not put us outside the IPCC prediction envelope. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Andrewjlockley, there are two Raupach et al. articles in the same PNAS issue in 2007. The one you put in the article (Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions) has, according to ISI Web of science, been cited 61 times, the other (Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks) has been cited 48 times, and four papers cited one or the other with a typo or two. To say that your interpretation of this one article MUST go in the lead is not really being beholden to the peer reviewed literature. Honestly, the right way to do this is to carefully read at least half of those articles (making sure you read the abstracts of all of them), pick out ones that other papers are mentioning positively and that fit with the general consensus from the literature, and then add that to the appropriate sub-articles, then the appropriate section in this article, and THEN bring it up here on the talk page and see if others agree with you that it should go on the lead. I've done a half-assed version of those best practices, by glancing over four papers (three plus the one you cited) and adding a section to Special Report on Emissions Scenarios and a sentence to the Climate models section of this article, both cited to an editorial from "Climatic Change". Yes, the IPCC is a conservative institution, and so is Wikipedia (being an encyclopedia, meaning a tertiary source, so, even though it can be updated quickly, unlike other encyclopedias, someone else has to say what some fact before we can), and if you can't handle that, maybe you shouldn't be editing Wikipedia or doing any writing for public consumption about global warming (which will inevitably include the IPCC as a source). Also, the Raupach et al 2007 article does not include the phrase "worst case" (I searched) so it seems a bit unrepresentative to insist on using the phrase "worse than worst case" in this wikipedia article, based on this source. - Enuja (talk) 01:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The phrase "worse than worst case" is not used in the article currently, so that point is redundant. I could expand the current point to explain the carbon intensity of energy and several other sources etc etc. but I don't think the lead is the right place for that. I'm certainly not averse to seeing something in the main article. However, unless anyone can find a source which CONTRADICTS the statement made in the lead at present, then I suggest it stands as a valid comment on worrying current emissions trends. It's based on a well-cited article published in a gold-standard journal, and makes a very pertinent point. We can expand the body shortly. In future I'll try and get the body done first.Andrewjlockley (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I have put the current emissions into the main body of the article, while actually making that section shorter. We need to avoid expanding the body of the article. Update it, yes. Expand it, no. Feel free to edit the section (or sections: the SRES is mentioned in two places: the "Greenhouse effect" section and the "Climate models" section, and I only put the recent emissions vs. SRES into the "Climate models" section).

Most importantly: does anyone reading this think that this sentence "The recent emissions growth rate exceeds the highest estimate used in the IPCC's modelling.[9]", which is currently in the lead, belongs in the lead? So far, only Andrewjlockley supports putting this sentence in the lead. If no-one else supports having this sentence in the lead, we should delete this sentence. I will not do it myself because I have a personal one-revert rule and I've already deleted one version of this sentence: I suggest that Andrewjlockley remove the sentence if he cannot convince other people that it is at the appropriate level of detail for the lead. - Enuja (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yet again WMC has removed it without waiting for consensus, claiming it's 'misleading' without giving any reason. I think it's important: it shows that, should current trends continue, warming will likely be towards or beyond the upper end of the IPCC's projections.Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The fact that you've been the only person to insert this language into the lead, several different people have reverted you, and no-one has yet agreed on this talk page that this language should be in the lead does not suggest that a consensus for putting this language into the article is likely to occur. In other words: if someone is acting against consensus, it's you. Even the language I put in the body of the article has now been removed (by Stephan Shulz), so, right, now, the current view of editors here appears to be that this shouldn't be mentioned at all in this article. - Enuja (talk) 01:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Stephen actually endorsed the source - it's the first discussion on this thread. Maybe he can suggest how he'd like it included. I am happy to go with consensus, but I'm not happy with editors ignoring the ongoing TP discussion.Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the source is good. The problem is if what it says is significant enough. If it would say "warming is above IPCC predictions", that would be worth mentioning. But it does not say that. It does not say CO2 is above IPCC A1Fl, it does not even say CO2 emissions are above A1Fl. What it does say is that the slope of emission growths has been steeper (for a few years) than the A1Fl scenario. And, as Enuja has shown, there are equally reliable sources that take this to be an abnormal short-term effect, and not indicative for the future. That's why it boiled down to the "may/may not" sentence that I found a) very ugly and b) essentially without useful information. I think as long as actual CO2 is within the SRES envelope, discussing every bit of detail in this article is too much. I don't think its possible to transport the basic idea without giving it a lot of space (see how long this is ;-). Instead, we could have something in the SRES article directly. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:04, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I put a section in the SRES article. I also put citations for four sources I looked over on the SRES talk page, and I'm willing to email those articles to anyone who wants them. Anyone who is interested in this subject: please go over there and improve the article! - Enuja (talk) 16:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

OK it's a bit anorak for the lead, shall we put it in the body?Andrewjlockley (talk) 23:44, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Sources

As none of the global warming sources are reliable and are unproven, is it safe to give another view on this article. I can provide many sources which throw out the global warming theory and are as reliable as the ones that show it as real. Sources such as Earth is not meant to have polar icecaps and only does when in an ice age and coming out of one, the majority of the earths life has had no icecaps. Don't want to edit without discussing it first, anymore warning and I won't be able to edit at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by UnTrooper (talk • contribs) 17:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, by definition the only sources that are reliable are those which support the theory. I know it's a bit like only accepting views from catholics on the pope, but those are the rules! 81.170.15.198 (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, I doubt that you have any such sources. Yes, over geological periods climate changes significantly, and there have been hothouse modes of the climate where the polar regions were ice-free. But that has nothing to do with the current episode of global warming - time scales and mechanisms are very different. If you can find a reliable source that claims otherwise, I'd be interested to see it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Not so much that the globe isnt getting warmer because it is, however there is alot of evidence to contradict our impact on the matter, alot does say we have increased the rate but it would have happened regardless.--UnTrooper (talk) 17:32, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

"As none of the global warming sources are reliable and unproven", well, I'm sorry you don't think that they're reliable, but at least you believe more than I do that they're proven!

I don't see why it would have happened without us; we're in the middle of a rapidly-repeating period of glacials and interglacials; geologically speaking, it should be getting colder in the next tens of thousands of years.

Awickert (talk) 17:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

there was an iceage only 10,000 years ago we're coming out of that, a whole climate cycle is around 250,000 years, its reasonable to say the earth should be getting warmer, but I guess we can't really be certain, relying on bubbles in ice does not sit well with me.--UnTrooper (talk) 17:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, strictly speaking, we are in an ice age. Glaciation cycles in the recent 400000 years seem to repeat about every 125000 years, not every 250000 years, and we currently are in an (unusually long) interglacial. But all this is somewhat moot. Your or mine opinion are not really relevant. If you have reliable sources, bring them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Modelling

I propose weadd 'IPCC' before 'climate models' in the 2nd lead para. My understanding is that that was the IPCC AR4 range, but other models predict other ranges. (especially abrupt climate change ones). I think we should mention any ACC separately to IPCC ones.Andrewjlockley (talk) 23:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

abrupt climate change in lead

Andrewjlockey's recent edit [13] added a sentence about abrupt climate change into the 4th paragraph of the lead. I don't think that this sentence is important enough to be in the lead of this article (which is already too long). However, if this sentence stays, it absolutely must be referenced. Why is does it internally mention the IPCC? Does this refer to the 4th IPCC report? If so, which chapter? If the insertion of the sentence is not justified, removed by someone else, or improved in the next few hours, I will remove it. - Enuja (talk) 23:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There are references if you follow the internal links to the uses of the terms 'climate surprise' and 'abrupt climate change'. This concept manifestly is important enough to add to the lead - as the potential effects are larger then the linear effects.Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added a reference. It's section 3.4 FYI. I couldn't find a DOI number so I just used a web link - maybe you can help me with this? I can of course add other refs if you think it necessary. If you don't like it, please MANUALLY revert, as I made some minor readability edits elsewhere in the lead which will be lost if you revert.Andrewjlockley (talk) 03:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

You know that having citations in articles that you link to doesn't count as citing a fact in an article. I don't understand your unwillingness to type in citation details in citation templates. Why do you expect other people to be more willing to type in citations than you are? The effects of a nuclear war, a large asteroid impact, and sheer energy pumped out by future fission reactors could all have larger effects on the future climate than CO2. The importance of parts of global warming science for the purposes of inclusion in this article is not the possible magnitude of non-linear effects, but the current importance that the peer-reviewed literature puts to non-linear effects. - Enuja (talk) 03:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

(My edit conflicted with Enuja's, so I haven't read what he wrote yet.) Thanks for taking the time to look for a DOI. The IPCC report doesn't have one, because it's not a journal article. There are many other IPCC report citations in this article; you can look at those as a template, and including the section would be nice. However, this is one example where, even if you have to type it manually, a proper citation is very much necessary - every 5 seconds, someone views this article.

The uncertainty I have with your addition is that you cite rapid climate change as a possibility because of uncertainties in climate modeling; I feel that one could make the same claim for uncertainties in modeling to mean that climate change won't really happen or will revert, and probably find an equally valid citation for that. I think the better route to take could be to take methane release and ice shrinkage mentioned in the previous sentence to state a worry about positive feedbacks, as (as far as I know) I haven't heard of any significant negative feedbacks on that quick of a time-scale.

Awickert (talk) 03:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

OK we can split the sentence into two parts. Let's get the abrupt/surprise bit in first, and I'll try and do the ref. on a template manually.Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The relevant quote from the synthesis report is as follows

3.4 Risk of abrupt or irreversible changes

Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change. {WGII 12.6, 19.3, 19.4, SPM}

Abrupt climate change on decadal time scales is normally thought of as involving ocean circulation changes. In addition on longer time scales, ice sheet and ecosystem changes may also play a role. If a large-scale abrupt climate change were to occur, its impact could be quite high (see Topic 5.2). {WGI 8.7, 10.3, 10.7; WGII 4.4, 19.3}

This does not support the wording in you just put in the lead, seeing as it doesn't mention "surprise" climate change at all, and does not blame the possibility of abrupt climate change on "complexities of the climate system and the consequential difficulties of modelling all its intricacies." I know you put the citation before that last clause that I just quoted, but you need a citation for all of the facts, interpretations and causes that you put in the article, not just for the fact that you go on to explain without citation. Also, this particular heading and paragraph do not, by themselves, provide evidence that abrupt climate change is considered important by current literature. You don't need to put the evidence of importance as a reference in the article, but you need to convince the editors here that it is considered important in the current literature. You keep saying that it is important, but, as of yet, you haven't convinced me that the literature agrees with you. - Enuja (talk) 03:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I won't be satisfied unless I see my questions above answered, specifically, why unspecified complications could have a specific result; otherwise, this approaches the logic of a conspiracy theory, and is something for which I shoot global warming deniers down regularly. Awickert (talk) 04:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC) Sorry - I thought Andrewjlockley had replied to something else; got my pages screwed up. Please disregard. Awickert (talk) 04:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've taken it out. It was rubbish. First, cl surp and ab cl ch are the same thing, so linking to them both is pointless. Second, the SPM doesn't mention surprise. Third, both cl surp and ab cl ch are rubbish articles. Fourth, the SPM does mention ab cl ch but the only quote about probablility I coud find was Risks of large-scale singularities.26 As discussed in Topic 3.4, during the current century, a large-scale abrupt change in the meridional overturning circulation is very unlikely. This is AJL pushing his POV yet again with rubbish references to prop him up, and my patience with him is exhausted William M. Connolley (talk) 09:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I like your change, so please don't take this wrong. The IPCC does use the word "surprise", it may not have been in the reference, but if you clicked the wiki link, it was there. Q Science (talk) 09:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll revert WMC's edit unless there's consensus that it should stay. The text given clearly shows the IPCC considered the risk. The edit was entirely neutrally worded, and simply stated there was a risk - which there is, as confirmed by the IPCC. Alternative/additional references are welcomed.Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't. As I've quoted, IPCC says the risk is very unlikely. That doesn't merit a mention in the lede William M. Connolley (talk) 13:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

"not in the ref". Well I've rather got used to that with AJL William M. Connolley (talk) 13:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Please give chapter and verse of where the IPCC says it's 'very unlikely'. We must be reading different versions of the same report.Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've quoted it, just above. It's in the SPM ref *you* supplied. Use the thing we call a "search button" to find it. Not difficult William M. Connolley (talk) 13:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

So Andrew, instead of bickering with William about a dubious reference to a fluff sentence, any thoughts on my idea of how to get the idea across? It won't say death and destrucion and the day after tomorrow, but it will say positive feedback. Awickert (talk) 17:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The IPCC does use the word "surprise", it may not have been in the reference, but if you clicked the wiki link, it was there. That's the glossary. It *doesn't* contain an entry for surprise. It does mention it under ab cl ch. Either way, as an attempt to reference "ipcc talks about surprises" its pretty desperate William M. Connolley (talk) 18:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The notion of "surprise" should be explicitly in there. It really highlights the uncertainty of the modeling underlying the IPCC conclusions. This is a key point. Let's make sure it is in there. Publixx (talk) 03:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah - not unless it is presented with a valid scientific basis. Awickert (talk) 03:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The lead currently does not actually say what greenhouse gases are (although it does link to the article), nor does it say that carbon dioxide is the major anthropogenic greenhouse gas. When we're talking about stuff that really, really must be in the lead (both the terms "surprise" and "abrupt" climate change?), we should keep in mind how short the lead is, and how much important information the current consensus argues shouldn't be in the lead. - Enuja (talk) 03:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

More should be devoted the effects of methane, which has a larger GWP. There should be some mention of the IPCC Working Group on methane. Publixx (talk) 04:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Methan should be included, but in the context of a more general mention of feedback effects. The article grossly misrepresents the issue presently, as it does not give proper prominence to runaway climate change. Before I get a ton of abuse, 'Runaway' is used in several climatology papers to describe climate change.Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I propose to add the following to the lead to deal with ACC/RACC 'The [[IPCC fourth assessment report|IPCC]] has warned that global warming "could lead to some effects that are [[abrupt climate change|abrupt]] or irreversible". Please reply within 24hrs if you don't like itAndrewjlockley (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The lead serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic. As this topic is not covered in the article, it is inappropriate for the lead. -Atmoz (talk) 02:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It's covered under feedback, just using different language.Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll do an edit if I don't see an objection posted here shortly.Andrewjlockley (talk) 19:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

external link suggestion

I am unsure where to suggest the addition of the following external link Palliative Care on a Dying Planet http://pastthetippingpoint.ca —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.108.248 (talk) 00:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion, but that site does not satisfy the requirements of being a reliable source. -Atmoz (talk) 02:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you can find journal sources that make similar points?Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Prose

Not be an contentious, in the lead it states "While a small minority have voiced disagreement with these findings, the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC's main conclusions." Are the modifiers "small" and "overwhelming" necessary? These two words lack the precise nature of the remainder of the article, and dropping them reduces padding (small and minority are essentially synonymous, and majority is simple enough). So far only one of the reliable sources uses this language, that is the Royal Society—since they appear to be the one interested in using this rather loaded language, we should accredit it to them than providing it as a simple fact. In short, I'm raising two separate arguments: the first is a leaning the prose, and the second parallels npov from which we accredit our opinions. What do you guys think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed at length quite a few times, and resolved in it's present state. Have a look over the archives and the debates there. If you've got new arguments or new evidence, then you're welcome to have a go at changing it, but otherwise I think the consensus is pretty strongly against it. Mostlyharmless (talk) 09:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course the article shouldn't just add in words to support one POV. The other obvious question is how many of those who stated, or were co-opted into this consensus would now support the same view given all the recent evidence contrary to the theory of manmade global warming. 81.170.15.198 (talk) 01:22, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

First off, the anon would need to provide peer-reviewed evidence to support their assertion. Second, I support what MostlyHarmless stated. --Skyemoor (talk) 01:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I would be OK with deleting the sentence, as long as it's the whole sentence and not just the first or last part. The preceding sentence about the academies of science is enough to tell the reader what the scientific community thinks about the issue. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I, too, would be happy if we deleted the whole sentence, but I'm skeptical that that would stand. However, I think it's important to add that the consensus from this talk page was that the first phrase being objected to here ("small minority") that is used a link to List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming was "individual scientists". It was recently altered by one user and no-one altered it back or discussed the change. - Enuja (talk) 01:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been through the past discussions. The essential arguments where the sense the sense of weasel words, my argumnnts are not. We have a fairly long lead, and the preceding sentence is enough to make the point about the scientific consensus. For example, being endorsed by "all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries" would imply that the opposing minority would essentially be small. Emphasizing a second time isn't necessary, and moving it to the body reduces the burden on the lead. There's also no information loss. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Well then, I removed it. If it's a capital offense they know where to track me down. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Where I live it is no longer called "global warming" but "climate change". —Mattisse (Talk) 04:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

“ While a small minority have voiced disagreement with these findings, the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC's main conclusions. ”

(outdent) I've added it to the discussion so that we'll remember not to forget it. In my second edit I believe I need a peer review on. These three statements: (1) global temperature increase, (2) due to human activity, and (3) past changes in had a cooling effect in 1950—are from the IPCC with the exception of National Academy of Sciences in the fourth citation. So when we assert in the last sentence that "these basic conclusions are..."—they are not as ambiguous as to what or whose conclusions. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:16, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Minority can mean 49.9%. That word is therefore not representative of the current situation. It's not currently a balance of views, it's an overwhelming scientific consensus with a few renegades, crackpots and wingnuts on the opposition. We need to reflect that in the article. As I've been tirelessly pointing out in the article, the main problems with the consensus is that it is too conservative to nail its colours to the mast on runaway effects, not that it has exaggerated the current threat of AGW.Andrewjlockley (talk) 10:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Did you look at the article? The sentence has just been removed by Boris... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:24, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the deletion is good, there's no need to debate the fringe deniers in the lead.Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

In the second clause of the third sentence is states that "as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950", "probably" was taken from Ammann, Caspar et al. Similarly, the preceding sentence which states 'is "very likely" due to the increase in' "very likely" was taken from Summary for policymakers. I believe we should enclose the "probably" in quotations for two reasons: (1) "very likely" was enclosed in quotations because the language conveys something around >95% probability and is used directly from the source, (2) "probably" should receive similar treatment as it too conveys a specific probability and is directly used in the source. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:30, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, suggest you amend the edit, but ONLY if it's exactly the same source. See discussion elsewhere on creating a notes section for this issue. Can you assist with this?Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I strenuously object to the quotes around very likely for the same reason that I strenuously object to the quotes around probably. Citations should support the facts we use, but the wording should be in our own words, crafted to communicate clearly, and not aping a source's words. However, I've been in the distinct minority with my objection, so I've given up fighting the battle about "very likely", but I'll continue to try to convince people not to add more of what look like scare quotes to the novice reader. If we think that the actual probabilities are important enough to put in the lead (which acts as a brief overview for novice readers as well as a summary of the article), we should put the probabilities in the lead, not code words that stand in for specific probabilities for people in the know. Personally, I think probabilities are out of place in the lead. - Enuja (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that IPCC probabilities are well worth putting in the lead, and I'd avoid using 'own words' when very specific meanings are attributed to the IPCC wordings.Andrewjlockley (talk) 18:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

But since the vast majority of the people reading the article don't know the specific meanings for IPCC wordings, what good do those specific words do? - Enuja (talk) 21:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I think we've been over it a bit in % probabilities. To put it in the lead would be a bit of a challenge since it would likely break the flow of the prose. I went over two possibilities, one is to have a list of definitions, like that in Introduction to viruses (they call it a glossary); and the other is what you guys are suggesting—that and that is a notes-list. I've got an example prepared of what it would look like in User:ChyranandChloe/Workshop 9. I'm hold off on italicizing "probably" until we have a note for it. Other than I can help create the notes list, just give me a list of which notes to convert. ChyranandChloe (talk) 10:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I like your notes, but they should be a lot more extensive and better referenced. I think you should also do 2 column notes, they are easier to read.Andrewjlockley (talk) 18:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

"1,000 years" versus "continue"

Andrewjlockley essentially reverted an edit [14] I made on February 4th with the edit summary "emergency repair to nonsensical sentence, new citation added to split down sentences." Essentially, Adrewjlockley modified the sentence that was designed to replace the 1,000 years sentence, and also added the 1,000 years sentence back in. The edit Andrewjlockley modified was based on this talk section discussion, where I suggested language, waited a day, and then made the edit. Since I don't see how this is an emergency, I've edited the sentence back, adding a few additional words in order to possibly address what Andrewjlockley thought didn't make sense, and replacing the NOAA press release about the PNAS 1,000 years article with Andrewjlockley's citation of the actual PNAS article (which was suggested, but not done, in linked talk section). Below I've put the language as I've just edited it: please discuss it here or make grammar related edits on the lead section. - Enuja (talk) 18:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming is expected to continue after 2100, even in the absence of new emissions, because of the large heat capacity of the oceans and the lifespan of CO2 in the atmosphere.[10][11][12]

I'd remove the entire sentence. It's too detailed for the lead. -Atmoz (talk) 19:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, you'd like to remove that sentence, and not put this sentence "Most studies focus on the period up to 2100, but the warming effects of current emissions will persist for at least 1,000 years[12]." in either, right? No mention of continued warming at all in the lead. - Enuja (talk) 19:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. However, I really think that entire paragraph is too detailed, and should be substantially trimmed. Everything but the first sentence is unnecessary. And the first sentence is a perfect lead-in to the first sentence in the next paragraph. The final single paragraph would be:

Climate model projections summarized by the IPCC indicate that average global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century.[3] Increasing global temperature is expected to cause sea levels to rise, an increase in the intensity of extreme weather events, and significant changes to the amount and pattern of precipitation, likely including an expanse of the subtropical desert regions.[13]. Other expected effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, modifications of trade routes, glacier retreat, mass species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.

IMO, this puts more emphasis on the points that are highlighted in the body of the article. -Atmoz (talk) 20:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I really like it. I think we should add in a sentence about the greenhouse effect and a sentence about what forcing and feedbacks are (these are whole sections currently absent from the lead), and that drastic cut makes this more possible. Because of a huge amount of individual insertions into the lead and subsequent back and forth about those insertions, the lead is quite focused on caveats and details instead of giving a clear, concise introduction and summary useful for a completely unfamiliar lay public. - Enuja (talk) 20:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

It's VITAL that we are clear between FURTHER warming, and PERSISTENCE of warming. The current version is muddled and doesn't make this clear. I will put the ref. back and tidy, but not include the 1000 year claim - I don't want to be controversial.

PS If anyone's interested in doing a paper on methane remediation, can you get back on my TP pls?Andrewjlockley (talk) 22:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Andrewjlockley, Atmoz has suggested taking out three entire sentences, which would make your comments completely moot. Your reply above does not appear to be at all related to Atmoz's comment. What is your reaction to removing those three sentences? - Enuja (talk) 23:21, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

SOrry, it didn't display correctly on my screen so I missed it. I think that we should concentrate on getting agreement on a fuller lead before we trim it down. It's already 'dumbed down' enough to be utterly misleading IMO. I'm just about to correct a howler (further/persisting confusion)Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt, I will never be happy with the lead unless it clearly mentions the issue of abrupt/runaway climate change.Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggest we add, after Atmoz' edit: Warming effects from historic emissions will initially increase, and then will persist for centuries. Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much for suggesting the wording here! That's a really important detail, and a good, concise way to put it. However, I really see both sides about whether that's a big enough idea (not really a detail after all) to put in the lead or not, therefore I don't have an opinion about whether or not this idea should be in the lead. If others agree that it should be in the lead, that wording is at least more concise than what we've recently had. One thing I think could be improved with that wording is "historic". Maybe "past emissions"? On the other hand, does "warming effects ... will ... increase" make sense to the average novice reader? - Enuja (talk) 06:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

As an alternative: Even if emissions stopped immediately, temperatures would still increase further, and would remain high for centuries. (add refs here)Andrewjlockley (talk) 10:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverted Atmoz' deletion of the above sentence, as it was done without discussion.Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim;s jsut reverted it again, citing the word 'unnatural' I'm guessing that that's because there's an ambiguity between 'unnatural in current times' and 'unprecedented'. I therefore suggest Even if man-made emissions stopped immediately, temperatures would still continue to increase, and would remain elevated for centuries. I will bang this up in a bit if no-one objects.Andrewjlockley (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "unnatural" is a good word to avoid. In the absence of a clear objection to the wording or insertion here, it's not edit warring to insert the new sentence. However, since you've been repeatedly reverted when adding simliar sentences to this one, I would suggest that you wait for specific agreement with inserting that sentence. - Enuja (talk) 18:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I won't do it just yet, but I will re-insert unless there's an explained objection soon.Andrewjlockley (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the lead, it is supposed to be a summary of the article. With due weight given to the individual sections in the article, while at the same time comprehensively explain the content. This particular addition is something for Effects of global warming and the summary of that here - not something for the lead. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I approve of Atmoz's shortened version (which I just reverted the article back to, simply to signal my approval). What do other people think? I'm assuming that Kim D. Petersen likes the shorter version (from the above comment), and that Andrewjlockey wants all that and more information in the lead, but this may not actually be true. Please discuss and state your reaction to the shorter version. - Enuja (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind the shorter version as a starting point, but then we must look at what's needed. We still need to make clear to the general reader some basic missing points that are absolutely fundamental to understanding the subject, namely:

A) We can't turn it off by stopping emissions, nor can we stop it getting worse in the short term

B) It will last for ages

C) It might get far worse (runaway), even if emissions don't rise.

D) It might get suddenly worse (abrupt)

E) We might get little warning of C&D happening.

If we miss those points off, then we are simply failing to communicate the subject properly. The current POV of the article could be read as 'global warming is like putting coal on your fire'. In reality it's more like petrol bombing your house.Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with your list of important points. It is your personal point of view that global warming is like petrol bombing your house, but I am not aware of that point of view in the peer reviewed literature. For Wikipedia, neither reality nor what you think are important. What matters is what reliable sources say. You must find reliable sources that say that global warming is like petrol bombing your house before that view is represented in the article, and we must also include the view that global warming is like putting coal on your fire if that view is conveyed by a large percentage of the reliable sources.

Beyond the colorful metaphors, all of those details you list are important. Points A & B are true, but I'm not sure if they fit in an introduction: a good understanding of global warming certainly requires that you understand that, but the lead section of a single wikipedia article is simply too short a space to communicate a good understanding of global warming. If you want a good understanding of global warming from Wikipedia, you must be willing to read at least this entire article. C, D, & E all need to be presented along with a statement of the current certainty about each issue, and why there is uncertainty(inherently unpredictable, not enough research, strongly contradictory results, ect.). Presenting these ideas along with their uncertainty and the type of uncertainty is simply impossible to do in limited real estate of the lead. Therefore points C, D, and E must be kept out of the lead. - Enuja (talk) 18:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I've got the essence of it across in a single sentence, which has been sitting up there for a couple of days now. I've just popped it back in as it just got hit as 'collateral damage' in a WMC edit. he's actually reverted to a point which includes the stuff I wanted in, but the wording's not too clear so I'm just having a go at it now.Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

See Buffett and Archer, and 'How to kill (almost) all life. for the petrol bombing point in peer reviewed journalsAndrewjlockley (talk) 00:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Anoxia

I'm going to add ocean anoxia to the list of effectsAndrewjlockley (talk) 13:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I removed it. From what i can read in the Nature abstract, this is an oxygen depletion - not an anoxic event. Even if the paper is talking about anoxic events, what is the probability (it was inserted as likely), and what is the timescale. Someone with access to the complete Nature article please check. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:25, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Point taken about depletion/anoxia. Hope access can be confirmed. I've already suggested that sentence receives qualifiers on % risk.Andrewjlockley (talk) 15:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Effects on animal patterns

Is this the right article to have a section about the measurable effects a warming globe is having on animal behavior? This article says that the number of Canadian geese who no longer migrate out of the US each year has almost quadrupled in the past 20 years. It doesn't say explicitly that this is from a warmer climate, but I don't see them feeling more at home in the suburbs. I'm sure there's more information like this out there and it would make a compelling example of the current effects of this phenomenon. This isn't my playground though, so what do you folks think? NJGW (talk) 22:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

You might want effects of global warming. And some reliable sources :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:50, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Too much noise

There is too much noise (yes I mean you, AJL) around here.

I dislike this [15] so have restored it. In particular, I don't like losing the reason for the uncertainty, or the loss of past-2100 William M. Connolley (talk) 23:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

since when is "i don't like it" an acceptable rationale for reverts? Anastrophe (talk) 23:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree this should have been TP'd first. I've cleaned WMC's edit up a bit to repair 'collateral damage' and improve a misleading statement.Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:04, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I still feel the addition by WMC is too detailed for the lead, as I was the one that originally removed it. However, I agree there is too much noise right now, and efforts would probably be better used at improving the signal so I'll wait a bit. -Atmoz (talk) 03:47, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted Kim's revert of my work, as I was correcting a factual error. Warming will NOT continue after 2100 in the absence of new emissions. I am aware of no study that supports this unless we hit a 'tipping point'. However, temperatures will REMAIN HIGH. This is a schoolboy error!Andrewjlockley (talk) 09:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

In that case its a "schoolboy error" made in AR4 Chapter 10, subsec 10.7 Long Term Climate Change and Commitment, unless of course that i'm mistaken... As far as i can tell, there are no scenarios that won't continue warming into the 22nd century. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It is now obvious that the AJL RFC needs to be done soon. If someone else wants to do it politely, please do, or you'll get my version :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 12:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You got my version: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Andrewjlockley William M. Connolley (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Kim/WMC - The zero emissions models you suggest do not appear in the AR4 graphs you've given. The GHG concentrations are assumed to rise in all graphed scenarios. You have not yet demonstrated that further warming will continue after 2100 in the absence of new emissions.Andrewjlockley (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, then "constant composition" apparently means something different to you. Have you considered reading the Archer reference given as well? The basics here is that the carbon doesn't just disappear from the atmosphere. And that an equilibrium T with the Oceans take a long time. Both the AR4 and Archer describe this. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

For pity's sake, read the document. It clearly distinguishes between constant composition and zero emission scenarios.Andrewjlockley (talk) 17:23, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

For those who don't actually read sources, the following scenarios are detailed in Kim's suggested ref:

1) Constant composition

2) Constant emissions

3) Zero emissions - this is the one we refer to in the lead, despite not having data to back up what we say. The graph does not use this scenario.Andrewjlockley (talk) 21:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm well aware that carbon doesn't vanish -it was me that put in the 'even in the absence of new emissions' point. However, it's REALLY important to distinguish between 'get hotter' and 'stay hot'. I see no studies that show a definitive additional warming effect after 2100 on a zero-emissions scenario, unless 'runaway' effects are considered. Please can someone cite one, thx.Andrewjlockley (talk) 03:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) if someone doesn't come up with a response, then I'll assume there's a significant science error in the existing version and correct accordingly.Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The lead is going to pot

The first paragraph in particular is a likely turnoff to potential readers. The italicized terminology and the "note 1" "note 2" etc make the thing read like an insurance policy. I'd fix it, but someone is apt to fix it back. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure the lead is going to pot, but I, too, have objected to the note format (and objected to italics and to quotes). You're the first to agree to my objection to the notes. I hope we can convince other people to put them back in a "References and Notes" section, given them letters, or take them out entirely. The readability is compromised by this formatting. - Enuja (talk) 03:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

A particulary ugly thing (at least to my eyes) is to see the [note 1] right next to the [1] (ref1). Anyway, I was under the impresion that the lead does not need to be overloaded with refs, but instate it should be a summary of the rest of the article (where the refs actually lies)...--Seba5618 (talk) 04:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

We had a discussion on this in #% probabilities and #Prose, which includes the rationale than the personal preferences. I can change it to the same method used in Reston ebolavirus, Jane Austen, or something else; but, before we do so, let's have a consensus built on the reasons why we want it, not simply because we do. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

As someone who has just started looking at the article today, I have to agree that the lead is a put-off, visually. There are too many things wikilinked that have nothing to add for the reader as far as global warming is concerned (ie instrumental temperature record, ocean, Celsius and Fahrenheit, and 20th century). The notes should be named something easier on the eyes than [note 1] (as mentioned above), and just as Boris points out, the first paragraph is just about unreadable. Also, is it acceptable to put refs in the notes instead of the body?

Here's my humble attempt to start the ball rolling (notes are the same as the current version, but all links are left out to keep things simple here):

Global warming refers to the recent past and projected future increases in average temperatures of the Earth's lower atmosphere and oceans. From 1905 to 2005, global surface temperature increased about 0.74 °C (1.33 °F).[note 1] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in 2007 that most of the "temperature increase since the mid-twentieth century is very likely[note 2] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations".[1] Their report also concluded that natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by 30 scientific societies and scientific academies,[note 3] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[4][5][6]

[note 1] looks like it should give some historical perspective on this 3/4 degree rise. NJGW (talk) 06:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Take out the note 1 / note 2 stuff. They don't matter for the lede. The entire point of "very likely" is to provide some words to substitute for the probabilities, which aren't precise anyway. Ditto defn of temperature. Wikilink something if you want it's defn William M. Connolley (talk) 08:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

If you take out the notes, then you better just stick to uncontentioius statements - something like: "global warming is an article in wikipedia" 89.168.200.217 (talk) 15:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind that intro. I think a, b etc for the notes is better than note1 etc.Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we can wikilink to the very liklies.Andrewjlockley (talk) 17:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) There are three notes. The first one defines very likely as >90% probably occurring [16], the second one is more serious as it provides context to the list of "those 30 scientific societies and academies of science", and the third better defines the temperature increase beyond simply it's going up but breaking it down to atmospheric and surface temperatures. All of which are relevant to the subject, and verified through the references directly adjacent or near to it. There is a clear and significant difference between "References" and "Notes"; while both are often footnotes, notes do not directly verify the article, but provide relevant information that would seem awkward in the prose. Because of this I believe that removing them or merging them into the same section would be poor solutions. The consensus appears to be against " ^{[note 1]} ", I've brought them back as less invasive letters. A good deal of it is coded directly into XHTML, so it's a little more complex than regular wikicode; but holistically, they aren't that hard to manage. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikilinking

The first occurence of positive feedback should be wikilinked. 213.112.81.230 (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

AgreedAndrewjlockley (talk) 03:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)