User talk:Enuja/Sandbox

Geoengineering or not

Geoengineering is not an "available" option. It is speculation. Robock, Alan. “20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May Be a Bad Idea.” Bull. Atom. Sci. 64, 2, (2008): 14-18, 59. Fleming, James R. “The Climate Engineers: Playing God to save the planet,” Wilson Quarterly (Spring 2007): 46-60. I will not be editing, just a comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ipsler (talk • contribs) 12:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

LOHAFEX experiment shows geoeng is already being done on a research level. Cool roof is also actively employedAndrewjlockley (talk) 15:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

For neutrality, we should keep the peer-reviewed sources that worry about its effectiveness and mention them, either in the lead or later in the article.

Geoengineering is not an "available" option. It is speculation.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations provided here give Ocean Iron Fertilization an "F": T. M. Lenton and N. E. Vaughan, "The radiative forcing potential of different climate geoengineering options," Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 9, 2559-2608, 2009 www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/2559/2009/

Also, white roof idea may be effective on a local level, but not on a planetary level, so it is not "geoengineering" any more than is wearing a white fedora in tropical climes. (Ipsler (talk) 20:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC))

I've discussed Lenton and Vaughan's paper on the Iron Fertilization article. They did NOT 'give it an F', as they did not seek to carry out a cost-benefit analysis. They simply stated that there was an uppper limit to its capacity - as indeed there is.

Geoengineering is demonstrably under consideration as an option by the Royal Society, Nobel laureates and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. This point is not worthy of further debate - regardless of whether any individual may support geoeng or not, many others are taking it seriously and it needs proper discussion in this article.Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Geoeng is a research discussion at the moment. It isn't an "option" in the sense that reducing CO2 is an option: in that you can't actually do it. LOHAFEX [1] is just trying to see if it works, in principle; it might not. They are still at a very early stage. If it did work, then they would need to see if it could be afforded, who might pay for it, and if undesirable side affects might sink it. Sulphur rockets into the stratosphere are at an even earlier stage. And the legal problems are immense (unlike not-producing-CO2, which is clearly OK, dumping sulphur into the strat couldpotentially lead to humungous legal bills from people who think they've been damaged). Geoeng is indeed better described as "speculation" than an "option" at this stage William M. Connolley (talk) 10:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

It's just as viable as electric cars (mitigation), flood defences (adaptation) etc. I fully accept space-sunshades are sci-fi, but most geoeng is nothing like that. It is indisputably an option, and could be started tomorrow if the USA/UN or any other body decided to do it on a large scale. That may not be wise, but it is possible - and therefore it's an option.Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Specifics of Uncertainties

I'm starting a talk page here because some things need to be discussed on this page. Awickert (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

First, I spent a long time working and citing the second half of this section, which was removed a few hours later by Enuja, probably to shorten the lead. However, I think this may answer some things that Andrewjlockley tried to add back.

Climate model projections used by the IPCC indicate that 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. The uncertainty in this estimate arises from use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions and from use of models with differing climate sensitivity. Another uncertainty in climate change is the spatial distribution of temperature change across the globe, and its specific effects. Scientific criticism of the IPCC findings lies in the climate models' omission of positive positive feedbacks due to Arctic methane release from permafrost and, though a much smaller effect on short time-scales, from the release of methane hydrates in the seabed. The amount of summer arctic sea ice loss is approximately 30 years ahead of the IPCC predictions, showing either that these omissions are significant or that the Arctic is more sensitive to climate change than previously realized.

This kind of take-away-add-back could be helped by having a talk page. I'll be commenting one everything I do on the article here, to forestall future issues. Awickert (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed it to make the lead shorter and because I don't think that criticism of IPCC projections are appropriate in the lead of the global warming article. [2] Hopefully, we'll come to a consensus on this question on the global warming talk page. However, it probably does make sense to use this page for long-form explanations of edits. I hadn't made the page yet because I didn't want to exclude people who watch Global warming from the discussion. - Enuja (talk) 02:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense. I just wanted it at least here, because it seems like Andrewjlockley put some of the info back in different places without the refs. So I'm going to put everything I take out on this page, so we keep continuity in terms of total information. Awickert (talk) 02:56, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Good idea to have this page. Hope we can get soemthing we all agree on. I know it's got to be short but it's got to get all the crucial new bits across (arctic shrinkage, 'doomsday' scenarios, methane missing from models, geoengineeing emergence, etc)Andrewjlockley (talk) 03:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I took this out of the lead b/c of relevance, but it seems related to my cut material, so perhaps a rehash of some sort is in order. (Was written by Andrewjlockley.)

"However, it is now notable that Arctic shrinkage has advanced far faster than the IPCC predicted in its latest report."

Awickert (talk) 03:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I moved it to a better place, and rewrote itAndrewjlockley (talk) 03:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

US and UK

I took this statement out, based on my comment about it.

The United Kingdom has already committed to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the World's first legally-binding commitment to emissions reduction. Barak Obama has indicated the USA will follow this lead.

Awickert (talk) 04:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I put this in because the UK's law is groundbreaking, not because I think it's an important place in general!!! Replace plsAndrewjlockley (talk) 15:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

OK - maybe if we could add it in some more general form. I'll try to find something. Awickert (talk) 16:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Anoxia

Pearce and others showed correlation, not causality. So there should probably be either a re-wording or the use of other sources to show that the anoxia likely occurred because of the warming. I mean, granted, lots of temperature up and less dissolved oxygen makes sense. Maybe that's the route to take. Awickert (talk) 04:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed scientific sources

This article is constantly scrutinized by everyone from envirocatastrophe prophets to wingnut denialists. Therefore, the lead should use only verifiable information from peer-reviewed scientific journals - otherwise, it will be toast within a week, and the rest of the article will be brought into play for "revision" as not-as-kosher sources become implicitly "OK". Awickert (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I take your point. However, I don't see the problem with including ADDITIONAL and SUPPORTING sources that are more accessible.Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. However, when it's the only source, it doesn't work, and you have been adding several of those. Awickert (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This sandbox versus the article talk page

So far, there is no consensus on Talk:Global warming to 1) put a citation on the first sentence, 2) put examples of possible positive feedbacks not currently well modeled in the lead, 3) to discuss differences between arctic ice shrinkage predicted by models cited by the 4th IPCC report and currently measured Arctic ice shrinkage, and 4) to mention speculated possible effects such as ocean anoxia, global wildfires, or run-away climate change. We can play around all we want in this sandbox with good ways to present these ideas in the lead, but, before we edit the actual article to add these things, there must be a consensus on the main article talk page to add these things. Right now there is not, so working on them in this sandbox space is likely to be wasted effort. - Enuja (talk) 23:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If they're properly referenced, where's the problem? I don't see a case for people deleting science we copy to the main lead just because they don't like it. That's religion, not science. I think we have to put the new lead up and then see what survives. I don't think we should give up on science because we fear editorial bullying.Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

(I added a colon to the beginning of your post, to make the conversation more visibly threaded. I hope you don't mind.) I'm not worried about editorial bullying: I'm trying to come to a consensus about what should be on the main page. I hope I'm not bullying you, but I am trying to convince you that only the very most important and extremely well-supported information should be in the lead of Global warming. I put the lead in my sandbox to give you a chance to come up with something that other editors would approve of, and so I and others could edit collaboratively with you, without making the main article page extremely unstable. I suspect the best way to get edits from this sandbox to the actual article page is to suggest, on the global warming talk page, edits that appear to have consensus here, and then to make those edits indivudually on the article page. Although it was my original idea, at this point I do not expect to copy and paste what is in this sandbox onto the article page. - Enuja (talk) 02:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting you were bullying me, it seemed you feared bullying from others who would strip out sound science. If you're not planning to post the sandbox edit, why are we doing this?Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Where's your sandbox gone?Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I blanked it, but it's still in the history, of course. As I tried to indicate in the edit summary when I blanked it, if you'd like to use it, go to whatever point in the history you want to edit, and edit that. But since we weren't converging on a single lead section, I decided that it was important to avoid giving the sense of a "current" sandbox version, so I just blanked the page. - Enuja (talk) 19:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Overenthusiasm

I'm concerned about some stuff creeping in, like:

Many climate models omit positive feedback effects which may significantly increase the rate and magnitude of global warming (notably Arctic methane release). This omission of positive feedback effects is a potential reason why Arctic shrinkage has happened far faster than the IPCC's predictions.

This appears to reflect AJL's personal opinion that The IPCC ignored significant feedbacks, especially methane (because their review process is very conservative). AJL is welcome to that opinion; I don't share it.

But to be more specific: the idea that omission of positive (methane-type) feedbacks can explain why current arctic obs have "diverged" from IPCC "forecasts" is simply wrong. IPCC "forecasts" used *higher* levels of methane that current atmos levels; this is because methane levels have been pretty well flat the past decade [3] and have increased rather *less* than was projected William M. Connolley (talk) 10:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I know the methane feedback is not the reason for recent warming, but I accept that it's not clear from the text I wrote. I will edit that! (Please don't personalise, uncalled for)Andrewjlockley (talk) 11:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Definition

DO we need a source for the definition? There's an aggregate here: http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/definition-for-global-warming.htmlAndrewjlockley (talk) 12:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

It's good to have a definition, it's even better to have one based on a bit of science. i SUGGEST:

"Global warming is generally used to refer to the specific period of measured warming the world experienced between the mid 1900s and the end of the century and the predicted continuation of that warming trend into the 21st century thought (PROBABILITY!) to be as a result of manmade CO2 released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel." 88.109.75.55 (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Global temperatures are now decreasing

I've changed the obvioius errors implying present warming to reflect the current data showing cooling this century (since 2001). 88.109.75.55 (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)