Talk:Tipping points in the climate system

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 9 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): PhatWabbit (article contribs).

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 February 2020 and 24 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mbrown2098 (article contribs).

Proposed merge with Runaway climate change

Runaway climate change is more developed, and both cover the same basic concept... once there are enough feedbacks, the climate system takes off looking for a new equilibrium. We should talk about that in one place, not two. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

If we merge the two, I think we should stick to tipping points, not runaway climate change. This term is used more frequently in the scientific literature. I don't think the current definition of tipping point (there are many definitions unfortunately) is correct: many climatological tipping points are regional, such as tipping points in glaciology and the biosphere. The current definition of runaway climate change implies that any net positive feedback can cause that, which is also not entirely correct. I think this might be a project I'd like to contribute to. I'll try to find a collection of definitions over the next couple of weeks.

I'm not sure I agree with the article about runaway climate change being more developed. It contains a lot of off-topic things about the climate system in general that can probably simply be removed.

I also think that runaway climate change is a subarticle (or in the future section?) of tipping points (climatology). It's the consequence of a specific tipping point that effects temperature.

Femkemilene (talk) 19:35, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Sure going the other direction works as well. There is SO MUCH overlap in many of the climate articles that down the road we may want to do yet more merging after this merge is complete, but that is for another day. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:52, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Merge makes sense as Femkemilene suggests, seems non-controversial. Not having done this before, I'll just follow the instructions here, probably tomorrow. Let me know if there's thoughts to the contrary.--Efbrazil (talk) 23:53, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Go for it, long overdue. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:58, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Agree, go for it.Femkemilene (talk) 10:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, I super-went for it, which means I not only merged but I rewrote the article, keeping relevant references. I tried taking a light touch but both articles were really out of date and / or incoherent. Take a look and make any patch ups you think are necessary. I did not do an article rename, I figured I had caused enough churn already.Efbrazil (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2019 (UTC) addendum- initial commit failed due to conflicts, actually done nowEfbrazil (talk) 21:11, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Why did we merge the runaway climate change article into this article? Please change this. "Tipping points in the climate system"? That's not searchable.

Please restore the original runaway climate change article. Thanks. Nashhinton (talk) 04:47, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

The reason that the two pages were merged, is there was a lot of overlap between the two articles and we could not find a good definition of runaway climate change in scientific literature or other RSs. If you think we made a mistake, could you give a broad overview what you would want to see in an article about runanaway climate change + RSs supporting that definition and scope. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

I think we need a new category/heading here- Runaway Carbon Dioxide. This is unrelated to climate and weather. The idea, framed out by Bill McKibben in "Falter"(2019) is this: Human CO2 emissions ~37GT/year are causing atmospheric CO2 (~414ppm) to rise at an increasing rate. This is reacting with seawater to form carbonic acid, causing ocean pH to fall (~30% since 1751). Eventually, (possibly CO2 >=1000ppm), many current ocean species (such as phytoplankton) will disappear, being replaced with disaster taxa (i.e. Chlorobiaceae). These species emit hydrogen sulfide, which harms the ozone layer. This leads to a breakdown also in plants on land. Essentially repeating the conditions of the end-Permian mass extinction. Norse1933 (talk) 11:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Merging from Abrupt climate change

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To selectively merge Abrupt climate change into Tipping points in the climate system on grounds of overlap and duplication. Klbrain (talk) 08:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

---

There seems to be very little unique material at Abrupt climate change, and that article should probably be merged here as well. Your thoughts? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:11, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Agree. There is no clear demarcation between a tipping point and abrupt climate change. Some authors might argue that non-reversible 'tipping points' are not tipping points at all, but instead examples of abrupt climate change.. In some text the two are used almost interchangeably: http://www.metlink.org/climate/ipcc-updates-for-a-level-geography/tipping-points/, but defined separately. The 2017 NCA no distinction between the two is made and the chapter title discussing both is simply: 'Potential Surprises: Compound Extremes and Tipping Elements'.

In terms of practicality half of the article Abrupt climate change can be 'dumped' into a new section of 'tipping points and abrupt change in the distant past' or something like that. Femkemilene (talk) 14:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

By the way, in proposing the merge, most of the other article has to do with the earth science usually associated with IPCC WG1. "Abruptness" also has meaning with respect to a given species' ability to adapt to climate change, but that can get worked into the other articles more on point. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, I'm not entirely sure we want to separate that. A lot of work on tipping points an sich contains both physical climate and ecosystems. Cascading tipping points is one example; the work by Lenton another. So ecosystem tipping points I would put in this article. Individual species abrupt changes/tipping points (is that what you mean?) would indeed fit better in a different article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:46, 8 March 2019 (UTC) (changed signature)

I think a section on abrupt climate change is a good idea, but it's tough to write- there's a huge difference between decades and millenia for people, but if you look at the geologic record it's impossible to tell the difference.

My reading of the literature is that there's no hard and fast rule for what a "tipping point" in the climate is- the real power is in the expression "tipping point" in the first place. I think the title of the article sets the context to be tipping points in the climate system itself. In that context, a tipping point is an unstable climate state that marks the point of transition between states (e.g. glacial, interglacial). That's why the graphic was of value, as the geologic climate record shows states and transitions in temperature. I think if the article was called "Climate change tipping points" then it would make more sense to focus on tipping point effects that will result from climate change, like melting of ice caps.--Efbrazil (talk) 17:01, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

On reflection, I disagree with merging in "abrupt climate change". Climate change can be abrupt whether there is a tipping point or not. For instance, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs caused abrupt climate change, volcanism can cause abrupt climate change, and what we're doing to the planet right now is abrupt, but none of those are triggered by climate system tipping points. Similarly, the ice sheets can melt whether climate change is slow of fast, so tipping point "effects" are also not tied to whether change is "abrupt" or not. It's really a separate topic.Efbrazil (talk) 17:51, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

If you reflect again, and think BIG PICTURE, all of those abrupt examples (asteroids and volcanoes) are acute external forcings. They can be addressed on their face wherever we talk about forcings (right now in "climate change" article, though this is flux perhaps). And the sudden nature overwhelming adaptive capacity can be a section at Climate change adaptation. After all, if change is slow enough for (whatever) to adapt, then whatever adapts. And if change is faster than that, the (whatever) will scream, if it can scream, OH MY GOD THAT WAS FAST. So "abruptness" is really just a one-word description for comparing speed-of-change to (whatever's) adaptive capacity. We don't have enough material for a four separate articlees, being (A) Forcings, (B) Tippings, (C) Adaptations and (D) speed-of-change exceding (whatever's) adaptive capacity. The last part can easily fit in the first three. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe I misunderstood what you were saying. I have no problem with the Abrupt climate change article going away as there's not enough content and it's not really a discrete topic, although the speed of climate change is of course important. What I was objecting to was characterizing the solution as a merge into Tipping points in the climate system. If we want it to go away it should probably be dispersed across all the articles that are concerned with the speed of climate change (which is many articles- Global warming, Climate change adaptation, Climate sensitivity, Climate change feedback, Tipping points in the climate system, and probably more). Stuff like volcanism would go into Climate forcing mechanisms, assuming I get that proposal through. Make sense?

Also, do you know why Talk:Climate change#Splitting proposal isn't drawing comments? Do I need to add another notice somewhere?Efbrazil (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

See user talk... but give me a bit to decide how to share my thoughts NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Concretely, shall we merge the content of general, effects, first bit of feedbacks into this article. The part about past abrupt change cannot be integrated easily, but should be integrated with help of literature looking at these events throught the lens of tipping points and irreversible change. I'm a bit worried that not all of the abrupt past changes in climate can be put together in an overarching manner.. Are there any articles where that info might be suited for? The article is very weak on climate change adaptation, but maybe we can add a sentence in that article. (the article climate change adaptation is also very weak). I don't think the article's content should go to sensitivity, nor climate change feedback. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:48, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, general and the first bit of feedbacks are talking about tipping points so merging here makes sense, but effects can be caused by something other than a tipping point so I wouldn't merge that. Adaptation seems like the best place for the rest of the article, so I'd merge it in there and also rename the adaptation article to "Climate change speed and adaptation". Make sense? I can take lead if you want, your call.Efbrazil (talk) 19:11, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

You can take the lead if you don't mind me reorganizing it quite a bit afterwards. I'm tempted by the idea of bringing this article up to good article status as well.

In terms of renaming the climate change adaptation article: strongly disagree. Climate change adaptation is a phrase that's often used exactly like that. It would be weird to add one certain aspect of climate change adaptation to the article title. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:22, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Go for it then! All I'm trying to do is discourage stuffing the bulk of the article into tipping points. I personally think the best solution would be not merging it, but instead changing it to "climate change speed" and doing a deep dive on the research.Efbrazil (talk) 22:29, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Research FIRST then decide NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:30, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I do not think climate change speed is a well-defined topic. A quick Google search does not come up with any definition and the search results are quite varied in scope. Ideally, Wikipedia articles should have a well-defined scope about which for instance overview literature exists. If we define our own scopes, we get a lot of overlap with other topics that have a well-defined scope.

It is quite difficult to determine whether abrupt climate change in the past was due to tipping points. There is some literature that covers specifically abrupt climate change from a paleo-perspective (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change, https://www.nap.edu/read/10136/chapter/4#23). If we keep a separate article, I think we can limit its scope to this particular topic. (I love well-defined shorter articles). Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:52, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

On the page of Abrupt climate change, NEAG and me have collected some definitions of abrupt climate change. They indeed differ very little from the definition of tipping point. I now think the way forward is to merge, but including abrupt climate change in bold emphasizing how close the definitions are. I've started the process of adding more information about abrupt climate change in the articles that Ebrazil proposed (climate sensitivity and climate feedback done). If no protest, I'll start the process when I've got a bit more time on my hand. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:09, 12 March 2019 (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.

@Femkemilene, NewsAndEventsGuy, and Efbrazil: There seems to have been an agreement in principle about a year ago; just pinging those with subject expertise, involved in the discussion, would might be able to complete the merge. Klbrain (talk) 08:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

This is all dumb. Abrupt Climate Change is a real thing. Tipping points is gunk William M. Connolley (talk) 10:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

While scientists don't always agree about the definition of either tipping points or abrupt climate change, most sources do agree that the terms exist and that they may have a bit of overlap. The IPCC SROCC report uses the term tipping 82 times. They include examples of non abrupt tipping. They also include examples of abrupt change without threshhold behaviour, i.e., Tipping behaviour. I didn't think merging is a good idea anymore. On page 594 and 595 separate definitions of the two terms are given. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Neutral. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

https://bskiesresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/tipping_rev1.pdf William M. Connolley (talk) 10:38, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Actions to prevent or delay (local) tipping points of being crossed

Shouldn't the page also include a list of actions that can be taken (and are often already being taken btw, at least to some degree) to prevent crossing over individual tipping points ? In some cases, such actions are already described on the pages of the individual tipping points, but a quick list here would avoid needing to look up each one individually. For instance, I'm thinking of:

• savannization of the Amazon -> monitoring of forests (uav, satellite, ...) to avoid illegal logging thereof
• melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets -> prevention of black carbon emissions (from ships) again through monitoring
• arctic methane release (thawing) -> not sure about this, but methane storage (so before it thaws and is released) could be done in some degree, see here. Even if the methane is used then (for fuel), the global warming potential will be lower as you're no longer releasing methane any more (as it has been burned then)
• peat fires in the arctic -> again, remote monitoring of forests to allow for faster extinguishing of the fires
• Ocean deoxygenation ? -> growing more oxygen-producing aquatic plants (i.e. seaweed, ...) in the oceans
• ...

I think that by adding something like this, the article would be a bit less negative in tone, besides simply also being useful information for the page. Genetics4good (talk) 14:58, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

That would be off topic here, but this article is one of many. See main articles for such ideas at climate change mitigation and Climate engineering NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:21, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll propose it at the climate engineering talk page.

Regarding ocean deoxygenation, can this be mentioned at this tipping points page too ? What I'm thinking of (and why it would be relevant) is that as global warming decreases ocean oxygen levels, more aquatic life dies off or simply doesn't become as plentiful and does not grow as fast/get as big. The aquatic life itself is also made of carbon, so if it dies off or if there is fewer of it and/or remains smaller, that would mean the "carbon storage ability" of the oceans as a whole gets reduced quite significantly. I haven't found any real references to support this, but there is some literature that does point into this direction (see https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190313103238.htm -> sea life containing carbon, releases carbon when they die down ; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-s-oxygen-starts-running-low/ -> oxygen reduction increasing stress on aquatic life

Genetics4good (talk) 08:04, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

These feedback processes are very interesting, but as long as they are not named tipping points by RSs (and preferable scientific and or pop-sci sources, not reliable newspapers), we should consider those as off topic for the current article. My first thought was to put it at climate change feedback, but that is specific to feedbacks on warming. The article on ocean deoxygenation itself is ready for improvements however! There is no real structure in the article yet, so you might want to add a section on feedbacks. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

See Suffocating the Ocean (2016); And this later Phys.org article notes the connection to 'tipping' the carbon and nitrogen cycles, but also says the effect is so far unquantified. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:34, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Structure

The article has a section on large scale tipping elements and regional tipping elements. This seems to me to be an arbitrary distinction. The reality is that over ten years ago, scientists identified nine (main) possible tipping points. These need to be documented in the article. I have added headings. Please feel free to add material to each of them. Yaklib (talk) 20:53, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

References

Carbon brief as a source

@NewsandEventsGuy: Carbon brief isn't a blog. Has editorial board and a reputation for fact-checking. It's significantly more reliable than for instance The Guardian. FemkeMilene (talk) 20:04, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

To vet this source best, use the WP:RSN. As a reader I consume their content. As a Wikipedia editor, sure they have an editorial board, but there is no published Terms and Conditions that allow us to determine if a guest post should be treated any differently than the non-RS contributions by guest writers at Forbes. If we were to accept it, that would create a template for the likes of Heritage Foundation to mimic the structure and so sneak in the BS. In the specific instance, there is VASTLY better RS for the potential carbon source represented by permafrost and hydrates so why not just use the vastly better RSs on which the carbon brief material is usually based? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

PS I see Y just did that very thing... NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:20, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

While IPCC is always a great source, I would not say at all vastly better RS. Guests posts are mostly from experts that have just published an impactful study published in a scientific journal, and would be a RS even if they weren't published in the highest quality science journalisms around on climate matters. Note that some of these articles in CB have ended up as scientific papers. FemkeMilene (talk) 20:37, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

that may all be true, but as I said.... the place to make the case to use it when other sources can be used instead is WP:RSN where it seems we did debate it awhile back and I participated. See archived thread here. The site appears to be a group blog, by an advocacy group. Don't get me wrong, I love their work, but it still appears to be self-published by the group. There might be a case for an exception under the "expert opinion" rule and if we had the T&C it might be clear that it is a journalism outlet, rather than a self published group blog. But with all that... there is almost certainly going to be unquestionably RS sources to be used. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:54, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That's a ridiculous analysis. They got awards for investigative journalism, for instance for the Royal Statistical Society and also won the Press Gazette British Journalism Awards for Specialist Media. If we cannot use this, we cannot use any journalistic source. Specialist science journalism is typically more reliable than generalist media, as noted in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (science). I have never detected advocacy in their pieces, and I think that's the only journalism on climate I can say that for. FemkeMilene (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

"Ridiculous" is an indication that you're pissed but is hardly accurate, once you step outside your climate science brain and enter the byzantine labyrinth of Wiki policy.

• True or false... They publish a Terms and Conditions that explains whether they take responsibility for the reporting of guest submissions? ANSWER...... FALSE they do not....at least not that I could find.....so it appears we don't know if the editorial board "owns" that reporting, or republishes without taking responsibility for it as they do at Forbes.

Also, lacking such a statement wiki policy would seem to force us to make the lesser assumption, that guest material is the responsibility of the author alone. That takes each citation into the world of "expert opinion". Sure, they probably are all expert enough to merit the exception. But do we want to jump through those hoops each time, or leave the text susceptible to future criticism when none of us are watching? This is avoided by the next point....

• True or false... Usually we have no other source that is unquestionably RS for the same material so advice in the RS policy to look for unquestioned alternatives does not apply. ANSWER.... FALSE, we can cite the same material that writers at Carbon Brief rely upon.

I once ran into a troublemaker like myself when I tried to use unlicensed graphics from SkepSci. This is years ago. So I contacted SkepSci to explain what happened and asked them to consider CC licensing. Almost overnight they slapped cc licenses on all their graphics so now we use many of them. You're welcome. This is similar. The RS policy makes an ambiguous distinction between established journalism sources and new ones. Notice that established ones have a lawyer statement linked on their home page, usually called "Terms and Conditions" and there is usually a paragraph or two about editorial control and responsibility for content. I've looked at many of these in other RS debates. If you really really really want to cite CB, please consider contacting them, as I contacted Skep Sci, and ask them to address this oversight. I realize that in your climate science persona this may seem like a "ridiculous analysis" but if you can think instead like a Wikipedia policy wonk, that might be a bit strong. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not pissed, just informal/direct wording in a discussion with an old friend. I'll contact them. :) FemkeMilene (talk) 22:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I belatedly realized "frustrated" was probably a better descriptor of how I read it, even if I read it wrong. Good luck! I suspect this will benefit CB for offwiki purposes as well. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:28, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

related DIFF for BRD

@Yaklib: I moved your comment here from user talk, so its all in one place per the WP:TPG.... NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC) (@NAEG), You removed [information] because it is on Carbon Brief - claiming that although you are a regular reader, it is a blog, of dubious neutral RS value for WP purposes. The particular article which is the source of the information is written by Dr Christina Schaedel, a research associate at the Ecosystem Dynamics Research Lab at Northern Arizona University. I'm inclined to think that would make her a reliable source. I hope you don't mind if I revert your edit. Yaklib (talk) 10:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Please see the specific expert-exception criteria at WP:SELFPUB. I can't tell from what you just wrote that she qualifies, and I stand by my view that until CB is clearly established as RS we need to go through these steps each time we cite it. Much easier to use the underlying sources found in unquestionably independent RSs, and it will immunize us from some troll's future binge complaining over these ambiguities. You might say I'm the annoying friend who wants to make sure everyone has their rapeling harness on correctly before leaping off the edge of the cliff. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Describing Carbon Brief as "journalism"

I'm adding this comment here instead of at Talk:Carbon Brief so we have a centralized discussion, as recommended by the WP:TPG.

Some years ago we debated CB as an RS at the RS noticeboard in this archived thread. At the time we tweaked the corresponding article about CB using their own words talking about themselves, per WP:ABOUTSELF. Today Femkemilene complained that their own description about themself was "too close to the mission statement" even though our ABOUTSELF policy explicallows such useage. F changed that text to explicitly describe the work of CB as "journalism", which is Femke's opinion in this contested discussion. That's getting kinda close to POINTY or GAMING, Femke. You're not using the available sourcing to establish CB as an RS, you're editing to advocate for that outcome. That's thin arctic ice, one might say. Patience with your outreach effort would be wiser IMO.

That said, I'm going to delay a decision on reverting that change for the time being. Instead, I just wanted to fully document my research and thinking. Is Carbon Brief "journalism"? Or a self-published group blog by an NGO? For our analysis please compare to Forbes. Both websites have editorial boards. Over at Forbes, the Forbes legalese titled "Terms" explicitly denies editorial control or ownership of guest contributions. Carbon Brief lacks any explanation about editorial control and responsibility for content. But that doesn't help us today. So the fact is, we might believe this or that, but we just don't know. We do know the site is funded by the NGO described in our article, but we don't know how independent the editorial team is from what is apparently a single source of funding. We also can't tell if the editorial team has control and accepts responsibility for guest submitted content. So right now today it seems like wiki policy compels us to view it as a WP:SELFPUBLISHED source, at least until CB provides additional info. It's my understanding that Femkemilene is going to contact the CB team to inform them of this discussion, and suggest they release a TERMS statement so not just Wikipedia but the whole world will have a more clear understanding of the nature of CB's work. Which will help not just us, but CB too.

But today.... this isn't necessarily a deal breaker to using CB as a source right now, because there are two exceptions that allow us to use selfpub sources. The first is when they talk WP:ABOUTSELF. The other is when the author meets the expert exception in the policy (see section WP:SELFPUBLISH). The expert exception lists criteria to apply on a case by case base for each desired citation, and if that seems like a lot of work its probably because it is. However, the policy also says Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources. and in footnotes gives examples of institutions that advise citing the original sources underlying the selfpublished work instead.

So is CB "journalism"? Maybe... they are getting awards with that word in the title of the award. But when the editorial board does not tell us how they operate, I'm not sure we should rely on the characterizations of their work by third parties. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:19, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I have contacted them, and send them a follow up about their relation to their funding.

We should rely way more on the multitude of established third parties than on their own description. It is not uncommon for high-quality newspapers to not describe how they work, and I feel you're imposing your own criteria, going well beyond the WP:NEWSORG, which explicitly states: "Some news organizations do not publish their editorial policies.". FemkeMilene (talk) 12:33, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Cool, I'm as eager to you to hear about their reply; Out of curiosity, have you spent time evaluating RS debates at the RSN, outside of the climate subject area? I did that for awhile. My own criteria? Well, you're frustated I get that. However, you cherrypicked a factoid from the full subsection. Just because a site is a NEWSORG does not mean it is a RS. I'm thinking we'd be best served by patiently waiting for CB's reply. Ideally a Plan B would be asking experienced RSN thinkers who are not climate regulars look at this question but the reality is CB will likely speak before Plan B bears fruit. So let's try not to let frustration burn any bridges in the meantime. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

FYI I did add a thread pointer over at the RSN so maybe some uninvolved eds will comment. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:56, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

PS re.... does "journalism" necessarily mean Wiki-qualifying WP:RS? Answer... obviously not. See for example Journalism#Forms. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I have read quite a lot of RSN on natural and social science topics, and my experience is that sources with less tendency to correct mistakes and find balance in experts are deemed (mostly) reliable. Let's wait a week. I've used this source in FAs without getting any pushback on it not meeting the HQRS standards, which go beyong RS. FemkeMilene (talk) 12:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

HQRS? that's a new one on me, and just redirs to RS generally, but I'd like to learn. Please consider boldly retargeting the redirect to go to the subsection you have in mind and then letting me know. Or alternatively just telling me, and I'll retarget the redir if I agree NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:00, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I just read through an interview with Chief Editor Hickman at which I gleaned the chronology.... 2010, launched to do what Hickman described as "advocacy type of rebuttal journalism"..... 2015, Hickman took the helm with a stated desired to do a "a very straight ‘explainer’ type of journalism”. Which is great and all. But it does raise questions about which characterization applies to each thing from CB we might want to cite. In this context I note that policy on NEWSORGs mentions the concept of "well established" outlets, and this is a relatively new but maturing one. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

high-quality reliable source, which is named in criterion 1c of WP:WIAFA. Not sure if there is a written definition, as this varies too widely over disciplines. For medicine it's relatively strict adherence to WP:MEDRS. FemkeMilene (talk) 13:38, 20 July 2021 (UTC)