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Frequently asked questions

To view an answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question. To view references used by an answer, you must also click the [show] for references at the bottom of the FAQ.

Q1: Is there really a scientific consensus on climate change?

A1: Yes. The IPCC findings of recent warming as a result of human influence are explicitly recognized as the "consensus" scientific view by the science academies of all the major industrialized countries. No scientific body of national or international standing presently rejects the basic findings of human influence on recent climate. This scientific consensus is supported by over 99% of publishing climate scientists.^[1]

Q2: How can we say climate change is real when it's been so cold in such-and-such a place?

A2: This is why it is termed "global warming", not "(such-and-such a place) warming". Even then, what rises is the average temperature over time – that is, the temperature will fluctuate up and down within the overall rising trend. To give an idea of the relevant time scales, the standard averaging period specified by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is 30 years. Accordingly, the WMO defines climate change as "a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer)."^[2]

Q3: Can't the increase of CO₂ be from natural sources, like volcanoes or the oceans?

A3: While these claims are popular among global warming skeptics,^[3]^[4] including academically trained ones,^[5]^[6] they are incorrect. This is known from any of several perspectives:

Current human emissions of CO₂ are at least 100 times larger than volcanic emissions. Measurements of CO₂ levels over the past 50 years do not show any significant rises after eruptions.^[7] This is easily seen in a graph of CO₂ concentrations over the past 50 years: the strongest eruption during the period, that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, produced no increase in the trend.
Isotopic analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide shows the observed change in the ratio of carbon isotopes reflects the isotopic ratios in fossil fuels.^[8]
Atmospheric oxygen content is decreasing at a rate that agrees with the amount of oxygen being used to burn fossil fuels.^[9]
If the oceans were giving up some of their carbon dioxide, their carbon dioxide concentration would have to decrease. But instead we are measuring an increase in the oceans' carbon dioxide concentration, resulting in the oceans becoming more acidic (or in other words, less basic).^[10]

Q4: I think the article is missing some things, or has some things wrong. Can I change it?

A4: Yes. Keep in mind that your points need to be based on documented evidence from the peer-reviewed literature, or other information that meets standards of verifiability, reliability, and no original research. If you do not have such evidence, more experienced editors may be able to help you find it (or confirm that such evidence does not exist). You are welcome to make such queries on the article's talk page but please keep in mind that the talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not discussing the topic. There are many forums that welcome general discussions of global warming, but the article talk page is not such a forum.

Q5: Why haven't the graphs been updated?

A5: Two reasons:

There are many images used in the articles related to global warming, and there are many reasons why they may not be updated with the latest data. Some of the figures, like the Global Warming Map, are static, meaning that they are intended to show a particular phenomenon and are not meant to be updated frequently or at all. Others, like the Instrumental Temperature Record and Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomalies, use yearly data and thus are updated once per year—usually in mid- to late-January, depending upon when the data is publicly released, and when a volunteer creates the image. Still others, like Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide, use monthly data. These are updated semi-regularly.
However, just because an image is 6 months or a year old does not mean it is useless. Robert A. Heinlein is credited with saying, "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get", meaning that climate is defined as a long-term average of weather, usually about 30 years. This length was chosen to eliminate the year-to-year variations.^[11] Thus, in terms of climate change, any given year's data is of little import.

Q6: Isn't climate change "just a theory"?

A6: People who say this are abusing the word "theory" by conflating its common meaning with its scientific meaning. In common usage, "theory" can mean a hunch or guess, but a scientific theory, roughly speaking, means a coherent set of explanations that is compatible with observations and that allows predictions to be made. That the temperature is rising is an observation. An explanation for this (also known as a hypothesis) is that the warming is primarily driven by greenhouse gases (such as CO₂ and methane) released into the atmosphere by human activity. Scientific models have been built that predict the rise in temperature and these predictions have matched observations. When scientists gain confidence in a hypothesis because it matches observation and has survived intense scrutiny, the hypothesis may be called a "theory". Strictly speaking, scientific theories are never proven, but the degree of confidence in a theory can be discussed. The scientific models now suggest that it is "extremely likely" (>95%) to "virtually certain" (>99%) that the increases in temperature have been caused by human activity as discussed in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Global warming via greenhouse gases by human activity is a theory (in the scientific sense), but it is most definitely not just a hunch or guess.

Q7: Does methane cause more warming than CO₂?

A7: It's true that methane is more potent molecule for molecule. But there's far less of it in the atmosphere, so the total effect is smaller. The atmospheric lifetime of methane (about 10 years) is a lot shorter than that of CO₂ (hundreds to thousands of years), so when methane emissions are reduced the concentration in the atmosphere soon falls, whereas CO₂ accumulates in the atmosphere over long periods. For details see the greenhouse gas and global warming potential articles.

Q8: How can you say there's a consensus when lists of "skeptical scientists" have been compiled?

A8: Consensus is not the same as unanimity, the latter of which is impractical for large groups. Over 99% of publishing climate scientists agree on anthropogenic climate change.^[1] This is an extremely high percentage well past any reasonable threshold for consensus. Any list of "skeptical scientists" would be dwarfed by a comparably compiled list of scientists accepting anthropogenic climate change.

Q9: Did climate change end in 1998?

A9: One of the strongest El Niño events in the instrumental record occurred during late 1997 through 1998, causing a spike in global temperature for 1998. Through the mid-late 2000s this abnormally warm year could be chosen as the starting point for comparisons with later years in order to produce a cooling trend; choosing any other year in the 20th century produced a warming trend. This no longer holds since the mean global temperatures in 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have all been warmer than 1998.^[12] More importantly, scientists do not define a "trend" by looking at the difference between two given years. Instead they use methods such as linear regression that take into account all the values in a series of data. The World Meteorological Organisation specifies 30 years as the standard averaging period for climate statistics so that year-to-year fluctuations are averaged out;^[2] thus, 10 years isn't long enough to detect a climate trend.

Q10: Wasn't Greenland much warmer during the period of Norse settlement?

A10: Some people assume this because of the island's name. In fact the Saga of Erik the Red tells us Erik named the new colony Greenland because "men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name."^[13] Advertising hype was alive and well in 985 AD.

While much of Greenland was and remains under a large ice sheet, the areas of Greenland that were settled by the Norse were coastal areas with fjords that, to this day, remain quite green. You can see the following images for reference:

A map of the Eastern Settlement
A satellite image of that area today
A map of the Western Settlement
A satellite image of that area today
A zoom in on the general area where the Brattahlíð (Erik the Red's farm) and Garðar farms were located

Q11: Are the IPCC reports prepared by biased UN scientists?

A11: The IPCC reports are not produced by "UN scientists". The IPCC does not employ the scientists who generate the reports, and it has no control over them. The scientists are internationally recognized experts, most with a long history of successful research in the field. They are employed by various organizations including scientific research institutes, agencies like NASA and NOAA, and universities. They receive no extra pay for their participation in the IPCC process, which is considered a normal part of their academic duties.

Q12: Hasn't global sea ice increased over the last 30 years?

A12: Measurements show that it has not.^[14] Claims that global sea ice amounts have stayed the same or increased are a result of cherry picking two data points to compare, while ignoring the real (strongly statistically significant) downward trend in measurements of global sea ice amounts.

Arctic sea ice cover is declining strongly; Antarctic sea ice cover has had some much smaller increases, though it may or may not be thinning, and the Southern Ocean is warming. The net global ice-cover trend is clearly downwards.

Q13: Weren't scientists telling us in the 1970s that the Earth was cooling instead of warming?

A13: They weren't – see the article on global cooling. An article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has reviewed the scientific literature at that time and found that even during the 1970s the prevailing scientific concern was over warming.^[15] The common misperception that cooling was the main concern during the 1970s arose from a few studies that were sensationalized in the popular press, such as a short nine-paragraph article that appeared in Newsweek in 1975.^[16] (Newsweek eventually apologized for having misrepresented the state of the science in the 1970s.)^[17] The author of that article has repudiated the idea that it should be used to deny global warming.^[18]

Q14: Doesn't water vapour cause 98% of the greenhouse effect?

A14: Water vapour is indeed a major greenhouse gas, contributing about 36% to 70% (not 98%) of the total greenhouse effect. But water vapour has a very short atmospheric lifetime (about 10 days), compared with decades to centuries for greenhouse gases like CO₂ or nitrous oxide. As a result it is very nearly in a dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere, which globally maintains a nearly constant relative humidity. In simpler terms, any excess water vapour is removed by rainfall, and any deficit of water vapour is replenished by evaporation from the Earth's surface, which literally has oceans of water. Thus water vapour cannot act as a driver of climate change.

Rising temperatures caused by the long-lived greenhouse gases will however allow the atmosphere to hold more vapour. This will lead to an increase in the absolute amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. Since water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, this is an example of a positive feedback. Thus, whereas water vapour is not a driver of climate change, it amplifies existing trends.

Q15: Is the fact that other solar system bodies are warming evidence for a common cause (i.e. the sun)?

A15: While some solar system bodies show evidence of local or global climate change, there is no evidence for a common cause of warming.

A 2007 National Geographic article described the views of Khabibullo Abdusamatov, who claims that the sun is responsible for global warming on both Earth and Mars.^[19] Abdussamatov's views have no support in the scientific community, as the second page of the National Geographic article makes clear: "'His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion,' said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. [...] Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that 'the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations.'"^[20]
There is no reliable source claiming that Jupiter is warming. However, observations of the Red Spot Jr. storm suggest Jupiter could be in a period of global climate change.^[21]^[22] This is hypothesized to be part of an approximately 70 year global climate cycle, characterized by the relatively rapid forming and subsequent slow erosion and merging of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices that help transfer heat between Jupiter's poles and equator. The cycle works like this: As the vortices erode, heat exchange is reduced; this makes the poles cool down and the equatorial region heat up; the resulting temperature difference destabilizes the atmosphere, leading to the creation of new vortices.^[23]^[24]
Pluto has an extremely elliptical orbit with a period of about 248 years. Data are sparse, but two data points from 1988 and 2002 indirectly suggest that Pluto warmed between those two dates.^[25] Pluto's temperature is heavily influenced by its elliptical orbit – it was closest to the sun in 1989 and has slowly receded since. Because of thermal inertia, it is expected to warm for a while after it passes perihelion (similar to how a sunny day's warmest temperatures happen during the afternoon instead of right at noon). No other mechanism has so far been seriously suggested. Here is a reasonable summary, and this paper discusses how the thermal inertia is provided by sublimation and evaporation of parts of Pluto's atmosphere. A more popular account is here and in Wikipedia's own article.

Q16: Do scientists support climate change just to get more money?

A16: No,

Scientists participate in international organizations like the IPCC as part of their normal academic duties. They do not receive any extra compensation beyond possibly for direct expenses.
Scientific grants do not usually award any money to a scientist personally, only towards the cost of his or her scientific work.
There is not a shortage of useful things that scientists could study if they were not studying global warming.
- Understanding our climate system better brings benefits independent of global warming. For instance, more accurate weather predictions save a lot of money (on the order of billions of dollars a year), and everyone from insurance agents to farmers wants climate data.^[26]^[27] Scientists could get paid to study climate even if global warming did not exist.

Q17: Doesn't the climate vary even without human activity?

A17: It does, but the fact that natural variation occurs does not mean that human-induced change cannot also occur. Climate scientists have extensively studied natural causes of climate change (such as orbital changes, volcanism, and solar variation) and have ruled them out as an explanation for the current temperature increase. Human activity is the cause at the 95 to 99 percent confidence level (see the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report for details). The high level of certainty in this is important to keep in mind to spot mention of natural variation functioning as a distraction.

Q18: Should we include the view that climate change will lead to planetary doom or catastrophe?

A18: This page is about the science of climate change. It doesn't talk about planetary doom or catastrophe. For a technical explanation, see catastrophic climate change, and for paleoclimatic examples see PETM and great dying.

Q19: Is an increase in global temperature of, say, 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) important?

A19: Though it may not sound like much, a global temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) is huge in climate terms. For example, the sea level rise it would produce would flood coastal cities around the world, which include most large cities.

Earth's climate has varied significantly over geological ages. The question of an "optimal temperature" makes no sense without a clear optimality criterion. Over geological time spans, ecosystems adapt to climate variations. But global climate variations during the development of human civilization (i.e. the past 12,000 years) have been remarkably small. Human civilization is highly adapted to the current stable climate. Agricultural production depends on the proper combination of soil, climate, methods, and seeds. Most large cities are located on the coast, and any significant change in sea level would strongly affect them. Migration of humans and ecosystems is limited by political borders and existing land use. In short, the main problem is not the higher absolute temperature but the massive and unprecedentedly fast change in climate and the related effects on human societies. The IPCC AR6 WG2 report has a detailed discussion of the effects of rapid climate change.

Q20: Why are certain proposals to change the article discarded, deleted, or ignored? Who is/was Scibaby?

A20: Scibaby is/was a long term abusive sock-master (or coordinated group of sock masters) who has created 1,027 confirmed sock puppets, another 167 suspected socks, and probably many untagged or unrecognized ones. This page lists some recent creations. His modus operandi has changed over time, but includes proposing reasonably worded additions on the talk page that only on close examination turn out to be irrelevant, misinterpreted, or give undue weight to certain aspects. Scibaby is banned, and Scibaby socks are blocked as soon as they are identified. Some editors silently revert his additions, per WP:DENY, while others still assume good faith even for likely socks and engage them.

Q21: What about this really interesting recent peer-reviewed paper I read or read about, that says...?

A21: There are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published every month in respected scientific journals such as Geophysical Research Letters, the Journal of Climate, and others. We can't include all of them, but the article does include references to individual papers where there is consensus that they best represent the state of the relevant science. This is in accordance with the "due weight" principle (WP:WEIGHT) of the Neutral point of view policy and the "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" principle (WP:IINFO) of the What Wikipedia is not policy.

Q22: Why does the article define "climate change" as a recent phenomenon? Hasn't the planet warmed and cooled before?

A22: Yes, the planet has warmed and cooled before. However, the term "climate change" without further qualification is widely understood to refer to the recent episode and often explicitly connected with the greenhouse effect. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we use the term in this most common meaning. The article Climate variability and change deals with the more general concept.

Q23: Did the CERN CLOUD experiment prove that climate change is caused not by human activity but by cosmic rays?

A23: No. For cosmic rays to be causing global warming, all of the following would have to be true, whereas only the italicized one was tested in the 2011 experiment:^[28]

Solar magnetic field must be getting stronger
The number of cosmic rays reaching Earth must be dropping
Cosmic rays must successfully seed clouds, which requires:

Cosmic rays must trigger aerosol (liquid droplet) formation,
These newly-formed aerosols must grow sufficiently through condensation to form cloud-condensation nuclei (CCN),
The CCN must lead to increased cloud formation, and
Cloud cover on Earth must be declining.

Perhaps the study's lead author, Jasper Kirkby, put it best: "...it [the experiment] actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step."^[29]

Q24: I read that something can't fix climate change. Is this true?

A24: Yes, this is true for all plausible single things including: "electric cars", "planting trees", "low-carbon technology", "renewable energy", "Australia", "capitalism", "the doom & gloom approach", "a Ph.D. in thermodynamics". Note that it is problematic to use the word "fix" regarding climate change, as returning the climate to its pre-industrial state currently appears to be feasible only over a timeframe of thousands of years. Current efforts are instead aimed at mitigating (meaning limiting) climate change. Mitigation is strived for through the combination of many different things. See Climate change mitigation for details.

References

^ ^a ^b Powell, James (20 November 2019). "Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 37 (4): 183–184. doi:10.1177/0270467619886266. S2CID 213454806. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
^ ^a ^b "Commission for Climatology Frequently Asked Questions". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
^ Harris, Tom. "Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change". National Post. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2009 – via Solid Waste & Recycling. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 4 February 2012 suggested (help)
^ Arriola, Benj. "5 Good Arguments Why GlobalWarming is NOT due to Man-made Carbon Dioxide". Global Warming Awareness Blog. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ Ahlbeck, Jarl. "Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming". Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ Kirby, Simon (11 April 2007). "Top scientist debunks global warming". Herald Sun. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ Brahic, Catherine (16 May 2007). "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ "More Notes on Global Warming". Physics Today. May 2005. Retrieved 10 September 2007.
^ Battle, M.; et al. (2000). "Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and d13C". Science. 287 (5462): 2467–2470. doi:10.1126/science.287.5462.2467.
^ The Royal Society (2005). "Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide". Retrieved 9 May 2012.
^ "Met Office: Climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
^ Climate Central (18 January 2017). "2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record". Climate Central. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
^ The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880, English translation by J. Sephton, from the original Eiríks saga rauða.
^ "Cold Hard Facts". Tamino. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.^{[dead link]}
^ Peterson, T. C.; et al. (2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1325. Bibcode:2008BAMS...89.1325P. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1.
^ Gwynne, Peter (28 April 1975). "The Cooling World". Newsweek. p. 64.
^ Verger, Rob (23 May 2014). "Newsweek Rewind: Debunking Global Cooling". Newsweek.
^ Gwynne, Peter (21 May 2014). "My 1975 'Cooling World' Story Doesn't Make Today's Climate Scientists Wrong". insidescience.org.
^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (page 2)". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
^ Marcus, Philip; Shetty, Sushil; Asay-Davis, Xylar (November 2006). Velocities and Temperatures of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the New Red Oval and Implications for Global Climate Change. American Physical Society. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Goudarzi, Sara (4 May 2006). "New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change". Space.com. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Philip, Marcus S. (22 April 2004). "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter" (PDF). Nature. 428 (6985): 828–831. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Yang, Sarah (21 April 2004). "Researcher predicts global climate change on Jupiter as giant planet's spots disappear". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Elliot, J. L.; et al. (10 July 2003). "The recent expansion of Pluto's atmosphere". Nature (424): 165–168. doi:10.1038/nature01762.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Foerster, Jim. "What's The Difference Between Private Weather Companies And The National Weather Service?". Forbes.
^ Eilts, Mike (27 November 2018). "The Role of Weather—and Weather Forecasting—in Agriculture". DTN.
^ "What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?". Skeptical Science. 2 September 2011.
^ Brumfiel, Geoff (23 August 2011). "Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays". Scientific American.

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Modern warming period

"Modern Warming" redirects to this article, so I take it that this article is supposed to be the article covering this climate period. According to this article, the modern warming period started in the "mid-20th century". I'm finding sources, however, that say that the modern warming period started around 1814-1820, around the beginning of the industrial revolution. See here for example (2nd to last paragraph). Is this (the Global warming) article trying to say that there are two warming periods, the modern warming period which began in 1820, and the more recent, extreme "greenhouse" warming period? Cla68 (talk) 22:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CO2Science is not a reliable source. It may amuse you (I know I read Answers in Genesis for the entertainment value occasionally), but it has not value as source of information. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please address my question. Here's another source which takes a moderate-to-pro view of AGW science. This source states that the modern warming period may have begun in the mid-to-late 19th century. So, when did the Little Ice Age end, and when did the Modern Warming Period begin, according to the sources? Cla68 (talk) 22:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

True that there was a slight warming trend (following the year without a summer from the eruption of Tambora) over the course of the 19th century, which has increased substantially over the 20th century and which accelerated through the latter half of the 20th century continuing into the 21st. See e.g. File:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png for a quick view. The most reliable sources say GW started in the 20th century; Also, the IPCC, notably, has advanced figures starting in the middle of the 20th Century (starting after a brief cooling trend in the late 40s), as seen in the lead. Thus far the consensus of WP editors here seems to have been to use both the "over the course of the 20th" and the "since the mid-20th figures. ... Kenosis (talk) 23:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that seems reasonable. So, why doesn't the article explain this? The article appears to jump immediately into explaining the Greenhouse theories on recent warming, and ignores the general warming that occurred since the late 19th century to the mid-20th century when many scientists believe that greenhouse gasses started to be a factor. Cla68 (talk) 23:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the article doesn't 'explain' it because the authoritative sources are vague on the subject, indicating that little is known about any exact starting date. Sometimes the talkative ones with the easiest ready answers are actually the ones that know least about something, and the wise keep quieter, until there is something to say. --Nigelj (talk) 19:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scafetta etc on solar variation

I reverted this edit mainly because I think the detail article ought to be used to deal with issues of weight and whatnot, prior to incorporating summarised content back here. --TS 22:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That, plus S+W is a bad paper William M. Connolley (talk) 23:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So this is what Connolley means by 'discussion' (see below)? Were there some cogent critique accompanying your remarks about a published paper in a respected journal one might have some respect for your POV.Dikstr (talk) 12:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~::The paper is fine, and the conclusions are appropriate here. Frendinius (talk) 07:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)~~Confirmed Scibaby sockpuppet~~~~ [reply]

If that is so, the paper should be integrated into solar variation and, if appropriate, summarized here. Starting here isputting the cast before the horse. Sorry but we've had problems of undue weight in this article many times. Everybody wants to add their favorite hobby horse. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 07:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
D, and socks, keeps reverting. Is there some reason why he doesn't want to discuss stuff here? It is hard to have a one-sided discussion William M. Connolley (talk) 23:54, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that this information has been the subject of some edit warring. The information seems to be reliably sourced. What is the objection to the information? Cla68 (talk) 01:12, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It might belong in Solar variation. We might be able to shoehorn a passing mention of it into here, but I'm hesitant because the present article already gives solar variation considerably more emphasis than its representation in the literature. There's nothing outstanding about the Scafetta and Willson paper such that it requires prominence beyond other papers on the same topic. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:33, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~(Following an edit conflict)~~
~~Due weight.~~
~~The edit warring, such as it was, was in large measure due to a banned troll and an editor later blocked for his disruptive editing.~~
Please discuss that information at talk:solar variation, with a view to discussing the relevance and weight of this rather new paper. Relevant questions would include: which subsequent papers cite that one? If the paper is believed to be significant enough to include in that article, it may be worth discussing whether it should be included in the summary of the influence of solar variation on the climate in this article. --TS 01:36, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Funny, the source with a declared mission for human influenced changes is considered reliable on solar variation. Where is the NPOV on that point? There are COI questions about the source presented for the existing statement. The single IPCC source, may not meet the requirement for reliable source here on this point. Seems questionable to me. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:07, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are you talking about Scafetta and Wilson, or some entirely different paper? --TS 02:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't quite decipher what ZP5 is trying to say here. Can someone clarify? Does his mention of COI refer to Willson citing his own paper? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:12, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~I suspect, the IPCC is a wp:sps and therefor questionable on this point. The existing statement must be balanced for a NPOV. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
Very droll. I begin to spot a reason why so many editors of global warming articles fail to discern anything especially and obviously tendentious about Scibaby's nonsense. --TS 02:32, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Was that intended to be PA, or can you address the wp:sps issue for the IPCC. I have't seen evidence of editorial oversight on there single purpose publications. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you "have't seen evidence of editorial oversight" you must not have looked. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:44, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I looked and best I can tell, the process stops with the IPCC. Sorry if I am wrong, but the IPCC is a highly organized but questionable source. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 02:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm invoking Rule 5 from here onward. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I am glad you agree on this point. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, please correct me if I'm wrong, but no one here is disputing the veracity or sourcing of the added information, just that it fails UNDUE. Checking the edit again, it seems to be just one sentence, "Recent empirical analyses confirm potentially significant variations of solar luminosity on climate timescales and indicate the contribution of solar forcing may be underestimated by current climate models." So, how does a single sentence violate UNDUE? Cla68 (talk) 03:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Should we have a single sentence on every paper that has been published on climate change? I would argue that instead we should summarize the overall state of the topic, focusing on the majority view and giving due attention to significant minority views, with enough representative citations to each that the reader can verify our coverage. Particularly notable contributions to the field can get specific mention. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~:I don't see why mentioning the results outlined in Scafetta and Wilson is "undue weight". What is the criteria for determining weight? Jinnus (talk) 06:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)~~[confirmed scibaby sock Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)][reply]

You're missing the point that SBHB is trying to get over to you. We already talk too much about SV. We can add S+W, but which bit of the existing SV stuff will you take out to compensate? Please make a proposal here William M. Connolley (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
SBHB is saying that the information represents only one opinion on the influence of solar activity, and is therefore not noteworthy enough to be mentioned in this article. As long as it is mentioned in the Solar Activity article, then it's probably ok. If any other, independent research support those findings, however, then I would think it's important enough to mention in this article. Cla68 (talk) 12:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There needs to be MORE material on solar variation in this article. It is an issue of debate and research within the climat7e science community, and therefore should be highlighted with more references. Jinsnus (talk) 15:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[confirmed scibaby sock Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)][reply]
Yes, for example .. the S&W authors report 10-30% for just solar variation contribution since 1980 to temperture increases while the IPCC reports 5 to 10% for all natural source attribution of climate change. There is a disconnect between Logic A and Logic B to verify these claims. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 15:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
First, do you have a concrete source for this claim? And secondly, you do know that there are other natural sources, like e.g. volcanos, that are negative, right? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~The sceptics here should read this paper. This is almost as model independent as you can get. Count Iblis (talk) 16:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
Here's a pdf version of the whole Verdes paper, the abstract of which Count Iblis just linked-to. Perhaps needless to say, we shouldn't be using primary sources such as S&W and Verdes in this article. From the text of the policy WP:PSTS:
Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
and,
Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source can be used only to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge.
Neither Scafetta and West's paper nor Verdes' paper seem to me to meet these criteria, nor does it seem thus far that there exists a body of reliable secondary-source literature analyzing, double-checking and summarizing the respective scenarios proposed by these just-mentioned authors. Nor does it seem to me we have that much additional space in an already lengthy WP:Summary style article to include every one-off publication pro or con w.r.t. this complex topic. Which is why we rely mainly on reliable secondary sources, e.g. the IPCC, CRU, and various other secondary-source publications. ... Kenosis (talk) 20:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The IPCC's self-published opinion is subject to Climate change exaggeration particularly when their Bayesian interpretation exceeds the modeled attributions. They have an invalid assumption on their opinion scale at the face of their measure, they painted themselves into an overconfident corner by setting a confidence higher than others have modeled for solar activity. It's like saying their opinion carries more weight than the primary sources. With this method, the IPCC will remain a questionable source; because 1 + 2 = 3 no mater what the IPCC psychometrics measures say. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)^{[Inappropriate under WP:TPG - Tag by ZP5, cause KDP claims soap boxing [1].]}[reply]
~~Kenosis, I agree. My point is merely that ZuluPapa5 & co. should read the paper by Verdes. Count Iblis (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
A current, peer-reviewed research paper is a primary source only in the most perverse Wikipedia interpretation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:46, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even if it is a primary source, I personally don't usually object to primary sources being used. Cla68 (talk) 00:09, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I got into a highly unfortunate massively heated argument over this a while ago ago: it needs to be clarified because WP:RS says both that peer-reviewed papers are favored and that they are primary sources (=! bad). I certainly will vehemently oppose anything that says that we shouldn't favor peer-reviewed sources over others. Add that to the to-do list. Awickert (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I added the information to the Solar variation article since it appeared that no one had gotten around to doing it yet. If someone had already added, I apologize for not seeing it. Cla68 (talk) 00:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since it's already on the GW talk page, a brief response: If you look in the paragraph directly above what you just added at Solar variation, you'll see Scafetta's work mentioned in the context of research that directly addresses and contradicts Scafetta's work. The 2007 paper is already in another footnote (refname="Scafetta07"? or something like that). Maybe move the sentence up into the previous paragraph where Scafetta's hypothesis is already mentioned-- something to the effect that "A 2009 paper by Scafetta repeated the assertion that the contribution of solar forcing may be underestimated by current climate models, reiterating that there have been significant variations of solar luminosity on climate timescales.^[13]" citing to the 2009 paper. Scafetta's slant is mentioned in at least a couple places in that article. ... Kenosis (talk) 00:54, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Echo Kenosis, and Scafetta's work is pretty much rejected by the larger community (for various reasons, see comments on papers). Awickert (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's vague criticism. Since Scafetta's work is new many climatologists are unfamiliar with it. Others have have insufficient familiarity with it to find objective fault. Dikstr (talk) 00:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me we can't have it both ways. If it's well known in climatology circles then climatologists will have an opinion on it, but if it isn't well known it doesn't seem likely to merit inclusion in Wikipedia. --TS 00:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Solar variation article~~
~~The following discussion budded off from #Scafetta etc on solar variation~~
~~The solar variation article could do with some cleanup William M. Connolley (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
Agreed, in the sources it seems solar variation parametrization was ignored for global climate model machinations. Maybe something to do with Moore's law beginning in 1980 and then it's correlates and associated to the Hockey Stick seen in temperature trends. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZuluPapa5 (talk • contribs) 21:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC) Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 17:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That comment seems a bit soap-boxish to me. It's certainly an extreme minority viewpoint, whatever else it is. --TS 21:27, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By coincidence I just left a note related to ZP5's first sentence on Talk:Solar variation. ZuluPapa5, if you look here, you'll note that the IPCC did indeed consider solar variability very seriously, allowing for the possibility of underestimates of the extent of solar forcing. ... Kenosis (talk) 21:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks K! ... TS, a fringe read into the sources it is. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon? Could you explain what you mean, since i have difficulty in understanding your comment. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:05, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, where are you having difficulty KDP? This statement responds to Kenosis's and Tony Sidaway's above. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 22:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have a problem understanding it. What does "a fringe read into" mean? (it doesn't make any sense) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I had a peek and I believe, though I could be mistaken, that when Zulu Papa 5 mentioned "fringe read into" something he meant reading into the material that was specifically trying to interpret it from a fringe perspective as opposed to the original intentions of that material. I.E. - "Twisting words" or "Colorful interpretation". 72.192.46.9 (talk) 13:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Still don't get it - it doesn't make sense in the context of his comment. Kenosis gave him a link to AR4 Chapter 9 with no interpretation at all. In fact i have to say that i find ZP5's comments here almost impossible to read (Moore's law - huh?) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:10, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~FAIL!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.8.187.97 (talk) 19:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
Myself having some brief time on my hands at the moment, and this thread being part of a recurring theme in the CC-article discussions, the following is intended to supplement what WP users William J. Connolley, Tony Sidaway, ShortBrigadeHarvesterBoris, Stephan Shulz and perhaps others, seem to me to have been trying to point out w.r.t. Scafetta, Haigh and the like. It occurs to me that some of the participating WP editors might be seeking to advocate maximum possible inclusion of alternative POVs into the climate-change articles that put forward the hypothesis that non-anthropogenic causes (or call them "natural" if you prefer) are far more "to blame" for current global warming than has been asserted by the published statements of the IPCC, CRC, and other reliable sources which put forward similar analyses and conclusions about present-day global warming. If in fact this concern about balancing the POVs of the IPCC, CRC and other supporting reliable sources with an opposing POV is held by any participating editors, then I easily imagine it might seem to be quite important to advocate that the speculations of, e.g., Scafetta, West, Wilson and Haigh, merit inclusion in a more conspicuous and assertive way so as to balance the various POVs in the climate-change articles. Assuming of course that any of my speculation here is correct, the conceptual problem I have with this approach is that it's already long been clear (or should by now have long been clear to participating editors who've actually done their "homework") that the IPCC and CRC and other reliable sources which have published reliable summaries of the present scientific consensus have already factored in the possibility of underestimates of solar forcing as a contributing cause of current global warming.
...... Without going to great lengths to quote "book, chapter and verse" of the IPCC and other reliable summary sources about present-day GW at the moment, it seems to me that it should already have been obvious to any participating editors who've actually read those sources that the IPCC has diligently attempted to make clear, at least to serious readers of their material, that their conclusion is that the effects of variations in solar forcing is believed by the scientific community to be capable of being reliably differentiated from the effects of variations in the amount of "greenhouse gasses" such as CO2 and methane. The method of differentiating between solar variation and GHG variation is actually fairly straightforward if one is not predisposed to look for reasons to avoid what the IPCC says in its statements. As it happens, the effects of greenhouse gases are readily differentiated from the effects of solar forcing and other extraterrestrial forcing by noting the changes in temperature both below and above the altitude at which the GHGs are most influential (roughly the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere). As has been known by the community of climate scientists for many years now, the relative influence of solar forcing vis-a-vis GHGs can be ascertained by determining whether there has been a measurable increase in temperature throughout the entire atmosphere right up to the exosphere. By contrast, the influence of increases in GHGs can be ascertained by a temperature increase in the troposphere, with a concurrent decrease in temperature in the upper atmosphere above the tropopause. In fact, the latter is what has been found to date-- that is to say, the measurements of atmospheric temperatures have clearly indicated an increase in temperatures in the troposphere and a decrease in temperatures in the higher regions of the atmosphere. An increase in GHGs would account for this, while an increase in solar forcing would not. Thus, Scafetta and Co.'s assertions are indeed, as has been pointed out by several other editors of the WP CC-related articles, an outlier in the range of current scientific reasoning w.r.t GW. ... Kenosis (talk) 06:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Gallup results on AGW theory~~
That suggests we need to improve the Simple-Wikipedia article on Global Warming. Count Iblis (talk) 14:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Useless, see Dunning–Kruger effect. It's the bane of public discourse that simple but wrong arguments often have more appeal than complex relationships that need some effort to present and even more to understand. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just as with tobacco and evolution, teach the controversy is an effective strategy when the facts are against you. (Sorry for responding to a Scibaby thread.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Better science education in (primary) school could help. E.g. you get a decent eduction in history in primary and secondary school and that shields most people from Neo-Nazi propaganda. In contrast, you get a very poor education about fundamental physics in school. Of course, you can't teach that in detail like we do at university, but the basic facts can be mentioned in school. Uri Geller could not claim to be able to bend spoons and earn millions with his tricks if most people knew about the limits on new forces. I think Wikipedia can play a role in explaining basic fundamental science better to the general public. Count Iblis (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. 'Teach the controversy' may be what some people are trying to do, but we must stick to RS and due weight, so that we maintain good coverage of the science, and the facts, here. --Nigelj (talk) 15:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Paraphrase of the text to this point "Hee hee, americans sure are dumb. Let us mock them." The thing that is collapsing support (and not just in the US) is that even though people generally don't get into the details, they very well understand that "I lost the basic data" is bad science. They also understand "I'm not telling you how I got my results" is bad science. This is exactly the sort of basic understanding of science that's supposed to be imparted by secondary education.
We are all going to be spending significant amounts of the portion of our tax dollars that go to science to redo the work on the basic data sets that should have been set up properly decades ago. That's a tremendous opportunity cost and I don't know about anybody else but those lost science dollars make me quite upset. Sloppy science that has to be redone makes for suspicions in the general public that what's going on is politics, not science. The suspicions are enhanced when public policy changes are advocated by said sloppy scientists that shift trillions of dollars in economic activity around. TMLutas (talk) 22:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You appear to be remarkably badly informed, data has not been lost. Copies of archived data used for scientific work will have been destroyed as required by those holding the original data,[2][3] this does not affect the original data. Note that the Met office requires that "Data sets must not be passed on to third parties under any circumstances. Any scientist requiring data which happens to have been supplied already to someone else, even within the same institute or programme of research, must first approach one of the NERC Data Centres, who have agreed to maintain records of data users for UKMO. Once the project work using the data has been completed, copies of the datasets and software held by the end user should be deleted, unless permission has been obtained for them to be retained for some alternative use." . . dave souza, talk 22:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, of course, CRU is a university department. Their job is not to provide raw data or indeed a temperature record. Their job is to educate students and to do research. They seem to have done such a good job of maintaining a temperature record that others have found a lot of use for it, but that does not impose any particular duty on them. Moreover, unlimited data storage is a new idea. It's easy to forget nowadays, but when I did my Master's work, around 1994, I got a whopping 20 MB to play with. My experiments created about 20 MB of proof output per run. So it was experiment, evaluate, delete...over and over again. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The CRU is a university department subject to the UK's FOI law and they are only escaping prosecution because the statute of limitations has run out according to expert opinion. A revised law extending the statute of limitations to avoid this sort of situation is being worked on in parliament. You are giving a false impression that they were not under a legal obligation. They were, and are under such obligation and it's a scandal that they haven't done it. TMLutas (talk) 23:29, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The obligation, however, is to provide certain data they have under certain circumstances. There is no formal decision that they have failed to do so. But what is more important: They are in no way obliged to keep all data they have forever, or to supply data they don't hold anymore. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even the page you refer to says they've lost data. At a minimum they've lost their legal non-disclosure agreements so that they simply are unaware whether they are violating nondisclosure or FOI UK law. This is part of the reason that the UK is now spending a good amount of money to recreate the original, raw data to be available in one spot. It is unclear at this point whether they will be able to. Had the CRU not lost it, why the multi-year effort to recreate it? TMLutas (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a bit like asking "why did you not stop Sadam from invading Kuwait?" It's not their job to store old data forever - why would it be? In particular not since this was not a politically controversial topic 20 years ago, and data storage had a non-trivial cost in both money and administrative overhead. Of course hindsight is 20/20. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting discussion, but, with all due respect…This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. Talk pages are for discussing improvements to the article, so let’s just stick to that. Oh, and Gallup Poll results on AGW belong in Public opinion on climate change.--CurtisSwain (talk) 09:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~FAQ Q22 needs rework~~
It is out of compliance with WP:RS. See Section 2.1(4), reliability of individual papers is not to be determined by citations, impact, or impact factor. Back to the drawing board! TMLutas (talk) 18:04, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the reliable sources guideline has been changed in such a manner as to imply that the neutral point of view policy must be overridden, then it is the reliable sources guideline which must be changed. We do not and shall not insert references to new scientific papers until we have a basis on which to judge their acceptance as individual sources within the scientific community. If somebody has told you different, that person misinformed you on the operation of Wikipedia and the relationship between guidelines and policies. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 18:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"We do not and shall not insert references to new scientific papers until we have a basis on which to judge their acceptance as individual sources within the scientific community." ?? Sounds like justification for arbitrary censorship!Dikstr (talk) 05:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
TS, please can the straw man. WP:RS has not been changed in the manner you describe. The change simply clarified that individual papers should not be scored for reliability using citation index scores, the so called "impact factor" standard. This has always been a very problematic standard that has raised lots of controversy in the academic community because those index scores are subject to manipulation. In fact, there's a lot of hot talk about how climate change index scores in particular have been actually manipulated (part of the fallout from climategate) so it's relevant to this topic.
If you want to change WP:RS, you are as welcome as I was to suggest and gain consensus for an improved version of 2.1(4). Until that happens, FAQ Q22 should either be reworked to be WP:RS compliant or entirely pulled. Further discussion on changing/improving WP:RS really should go into that talk page. TMLutas (talk) 18:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the FAQ Q22 needs revision to remove the link to a WT:IRS section where TMLutas seems to have jumped to a conclusion unsupported by the comments of other editors. As stated above, any such addition should not be given undue weight, and reliable evidence is required of its significance in the field. As for the fourth bullet point in WP:RS Section 2.1, what part of "Isolated studies are usually considered tentative and may change in the light of further academic research. The reliability of a single study depends on the field. Studies relating to complex and abstruse fields, such as medicine, are less definitive. Avoid undue weight when using single studies in such fields. Meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available, so as to provide proper context." do you think conflicts in any way with the FAQ? . . dave souza, talk 18:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you would actually read the prior round discussion in archives Talk:Global warming/Archive_57#FAQ_A22_edit_war et seq, you would realize that Q22 is not about isolated studies (2.1(5)) but rather waiting on using a study in order to determine impact which is handled in 2.1(4) the immediately prior section. Such waits used to be implicitly disallowed but the language was admittedly clumsy. No more. TMLutas (talk) 18:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So Q22 is still supported by the reliable sources guideline? Okay, great. The rest of this thread appears to be an attempt to abuse Wikipediaa as a forum to spread a conspiracy theory to explain the dearth of scientific papers supporting fringe views. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 18:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Q22 is not supported by WP:RS. The relevant section is 2.1, 4th bullet point which explicitly disallows calculating impact. For those who have not followed the full conversation, this round started in discussion over at global cooling on the inclusion there of a 2010 peer reviewed paper asserting global cooling. Yes, one actually exists out there (actually a couple do), something that I thought was novel enough to try to get into global cooling.
TS asserted the relevance of FAQ Q22 on this page which, much to my surprise, nobody had caught was no longer even possibly in compliance with WP:RS so I decided to also come over here to fix this issue as well. The whole application of impact factors to individual papers *is* controversial, especially with regards to funding but also elsewhere. It is part of my intent to steer Wikipedia clear of the conspiracy theories TS refers to. To that end I've been seeking (and got) clarification that citation index scores (otherwise known as impact factor) do not apply to individual papers. FAQ Q22 takes a different view, endorsing the controversial concept of impact. Changes to WP:RS should be discussed there. Changes to Q22 should be discussed here. If you want to weigh in on the underlying paper, feel free to migrate over to global cooling and be aware that even most CAGW skeptics don't think we're actually undergoing global cooling. Some international scientists do disagree but it is a very minority position. TMLutas (talk) 19:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Why would we want to include information that is not yet proven to be accepted science? This isn't about impact factor: this is to be correct. Awickert (talk) 19:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
Please define your term as "accepted science" doesn't appear in the text of WP:RS. Manifestly, Wikipedia includes coverage of science terms that are incorrect. One blatant example is phrenology. TMLutas (talk) 19:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You'll jump on me for this, but I don't care what the policy is. It is simply irresponsible to give a lot of weight to a brand new paper in articles that summarize decades of research and hundreds to thousands of published papers. Phrenology isn't relevant in this context, because it doesn't purport to be real science. This is an article that is based on real science, so we should make sure it stays correct. And due to the quantity of papers, WP:WEIGHT applies: a new paper, especially one that contradicts established science, must be treated with care. For the rest, I agree with Kenosis (below). Awickert (talk) 21:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that you reconsider your dismissal of policy. That's the road to administrative sanction (and this subject is under especially strict rules, see the top of the page). There are perfectly adequate ways to get a reasonable result that respects policy. Q22/A22 just needs to be tweaked to become rule compliant and you get 95% of the same effect. Some people are not satisfied with 95%. TMLutas (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just saying that excess weight on new papers is bad, whether or not policy says so. Administrative sanction, humbug! Awickert (talk) 23:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We do not disagree on excess weight. Putting excess weight on a new paper is actually violating two rules/guidelines/policies, excess weight and over-reliance on new sources. What's actually being fought over in this kabuki is what happens when a paper talking about global cooling is rejected on the global warming page. On a WP:RS rejection, the paper just isn't used. It's not reliable. On a WP:WEIGHT rejection, you can just pop the paper over into the specialist page (global cooling) and place it there because pages about the subject of the paper require less compensatory text and global cooling, unlike global warming, isn't busting at the seams. TMLutas (talk) 01:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I actually just figured out how to sum up what I've been struggling to say within the terms of Wikipedia-policy. If something is presented in an isolated paper in a crowded field of research, its WP:WEIGHT is pretty much nil. But if as time passes, it is cited and incorporated into other work, then its WP:WEIGHT increases. If on the other hand, other authors comment on problems with the research that aren't later resolved, then it stops being as reliable a source because other WP:RS contradict it. This, then, would make newer papers just fine in less-researched fields and niches, but would ask that they be considered with respect to the whole literature in more widely-researched fields. Does this sound like an acceptable framework to resolve this issue? Awickert (talk) 21:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're on the right road here but believe your approach needs more polish. Presenting an actual Q22 and A22 as a proposal would be better. I agree that a perfectly adequate Q22 using WP:WEIGHT could be constructed. *I* tried to do it. My effort was rejected. Feel free to have a go. My only caution would be that it needs to be on based on the rule as written, not a misinterpretation that has no basis in the text. Something specific that has tripped others up, WP:WEIGHT is not about exclusion but appropriate balance. A paper that asserts global cooling would rightly be shunted off to the global cooling page (where there's plenty of room to add balancing text and the rule is slightly different) but not excluded entirely from Wikipedia, the result if you use WP:RS. TMLutas (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the global cooling issue is that the article is pretty much about the 1970's stuff, which is neither here nor there, and I'm going to eject myself from that debate.

How about:

Q: A brand new scientific paper just appeared and contradicts/agrees with/changes the state of knowledge in some part of this field. Can I include it?

A: That depends. There is a large amount of scientific work on global warming and climate, and we do our best to represent all of that work. New papers haven't had the time to affect the broader scientific consensus, and in a crowded field like climate, they may not yet have the WP:WEIGHT to make them notable enough for inclusion. In addition, scientists other than the paper's reviewers have not yet had the chance to view brand new papers, scrutinise them for errors, and publish comments on the papers with any issues they may have found. Both of these factors show that extreme caution must be taken when including new research and that a mature understanding of the field is beneficial in deciding whether or not to do so. Awickert (talk) 23:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're going to have a hard time finding a time element in WP:WEIGHT. Where are you finding it? Here's some sample text you might find useful. Global warming is an article that is on the edge of having to split because it is too big. The balancing text required to present minority views under WP:WEIGHT requires space that has to be carved out by deleting other things. This makes adding new items, especially expressing minority viewpoints, challenging because of the need to delete to keep the article manageable. Other articles that are smaller may have the room to discuss the paper. Other articles that specialize in the topic of the source require less balancing text for minority viewpoints to satisfy WP:WEIGHT. TMLutas (talk) 01:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let's take the first two sentences, "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. How much weight is appropriate should reflect the weight that is given in current reliable sources." A brand new concept or result has very little weight in current reliable sources, and if there are tons of current reliable sources, that further dilutes the significance of brand new work. Awickert (talk) 02:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a priori true that a new concept has very little weight. You can make the case but it is a case that has to be made. Let me give an example. It is a holy grail of toy makers to create colored soap bubbles. People have been trying and failing to do it for years. Yet an academic paper (or the resulting patent application of the discovery) demonstrating the dye chemistry on how it is done would not have weight problems. We didn't know how to do it. A lot of people thought it couldn't be done. A US midwest obsessive and an Indian dye chemist teamed up and, hey now we have Zubbles. I'm not saying that you are entirely wrong, rather that you cannot assume it to be true because there are real life cases where it is not true. Therefore you have to go through the work of proving it. That means a case by case analysis and not something you can put in a FAQ. TMLutas (talk) 17:35, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the opening comment of this section, TMLutas says that the guideline WP:RS asserts that: reliability of individual papers is not to be determined by citations, impact, or impact factor, referring to the 4th bullet point in WP:RS#Scholarship. But the guideline page doesn't say what TMLutas says it says. The fourth bullet point in the pertinent section of the WP:RS guideline, WP:RS#Scholarship, reads:

The scholarly acceptance of a source can be verified by confirming that the source has entered mainstream academic discourse, for example by checking the number of scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. A corollary is that journals not included in a citation index, especially in fields well covered by such indexes, should be used with caution, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context. Individual papers are not considered reliable or unreliable based on citation index scores.

It might also be useful to take an extra moment and read all five bullet points. in any event, it seems to me the most relevant policies here are WP:SOURCES, WP:WEIGHT and WP:PSTS. FAQ 22 appears to me to be consistent with both the letter and the spirit of these policies, as well as that of all five of the bullet points in the guideline WP:RS#Scholarship. ... Kenosis (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC) [reply]

The extensive discussion on F22 in the previous round made it clear that the only nail the writers wanted to hang their hat on was requiring a waiting period to calculate whether a paper had sufficient impact, specifically via citations and specifically using 2.1(4). Other possible mechanisms were examined and (unwisely in my opinion) discarded. I personally offered a like method using WP:WEIGHT so I am sympathetic to your stated position but my alternative was rejected. There was a particular effect desired by the majority, it was justified by a particular interpretation of a very specific section, and alternatives were disallowed. Supporters of the present A22 are stuck with the narrow justification of 2.1(4) because, believe me, everything else either doesn't fit, gives a like but not identical result, or has been rejected (or some combination of all three). Now that this section disallows impact scoring pro or con (and yes, that's the edit's intent, I wrote it) A22 simply doesn't work. I was willing to live and let live right up to the point where someone, once again, tried to apply Q22 to a different page, global cooling, an exercise that I thought was dubious the first time around but doubly so with the multi-week debate and consensus edit that this sort of thing shouldn't happen. So here I am once again dealing with the issue on this page.
Let me repeat my position from last time. I'm open to some sort of FAQ point on excluding new papers so long as there's some sort of rule or guideline that actually supports the exclusion mechanism. After an extensive review, I've come to the conclusion that this does not, in fact, exist and that the majority on this page supporting A22 as it is written is a local majority that does not reflect the wider community consensus and the results have been suboptimal. Rather than going the sanctions route, I'm patiently trying to get Q22 redone in a rules compliant way with the anticipated result being more climate skeptic friendly but more importantly a more friendly editing process throughout the climate science space. For entirely legitimate weight reasons most of this stuff will not end up accepted directly into this page. Instead such papers will go into specialty pages like global cooling and then if evidence accumulates summaries of the relevant specialty page will go into this article. I frankly care more about the even-handed application of wider community norms than anything specifically regarding catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. The truth will out if the rules are well applied. The rules are not currently applied well via FAQ Q22. TMLutas (talk) 21:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A good idea does not have to be explicitly stated in policy for it to be a good idea. WP:IAR. — DroEsperanto (talk) 22:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes good ideas do not have to be explicitly stated in policy. But they do need to not be disallowed by policy. When you have a discussion on the relevant talk page and come to the conclusion that the 'good idea' is against policy, even good ideas need to pass the gauntlet of reversing that consensus before they are applied. Bottom line is that this FAQ has been considered and rejected against long standing consensus on WP:RS. Take it up on that page. TMLutas (talk) 23:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The guideline is simply a guideline, the FAQ expands on that in relation to the particular requirements of this topic. I appreciate TMLutas's enthusiasm for incorporating a mention of newly published papers, and everyone might find it interesting to read this expert opinion by a physicist / climatologist discussing four new papers. Rather much detail for this page, perhaps these will eventually be added to more suitable articles on the specific topic. No need for haste, . . dave souza, talk 22:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're going a bit off topic here with the discussion of papers. This is probably interesting elsewhere. If you are saying that the guideline WP:RS is somewhat optional, I think you'll find that a distinctly minority position on this page and in the larger community. Are you suggesting that counting citations to measure impact and excluding papers on that basis using WP:RS as a justification is still permissible? TMLutas (talk) 23:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're the one out on the fringe in your peculiar interpretation of the RS guideline, and the FAQ gives a reasonable approach. Do seek consensus for your views before implementing anything. . . dave souza, talk 23:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly urge you to read the relevant discussion in wp:rs. The FAQ may be reasonable (I don't agree that it is reasonable but I'll grant that reasonable people may disagree) but it is contrary to WP:RS which has been recently clarified to disallow its (the FAQs) approach. You may attempt to forge a new consensus on that page. We'll talk it out there and if your position wins, Q22 can come back in at that time. But I'm going to insist that until that time, WP:RS is followed as written at the present moment. At the moment denying the inclusion of papers based on citation counts is just not acceptable so delaying them to *wait* for "reliable" citation counts to materialize is similarly out of bounds. Citation counts on individual papers do not affect whether the paper is a reliable source, period. TMLutas (talk) 01:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:Hipocrite has appropriately clarified the language in WP:RS#Scholarship, fourth bullet point, here. Its intent is now clearer, indicating that citation indexes should not be the sole basis for assessing reliability. I'd support a similar statement in Q22 that briefly mentions that there also are other criteria involved in assessing reliability. That is, there are additional policy provisions beyond the WP:RS guideline page, perhaps most importantly WP:PSTS, for avoiding using primary sources from GRL, JofC and the like--especially in a topic-summary article such as this one--waiting instead until a body of secondary literature has been developed about a particular researcher's claims so as to be able to make better assessments of reliability, weight, whether the assertion(s) in the source might constitute a fringe theory, etc. ... Kenosis (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That edit has been reverted. I've notified Hipocrite on his talk page. I've also set up a new section in WP:RS to talk it out. Naked edits on a rule/policy/guideline page without pre-establishing consensus, especially ones that go against a recent long discussion are just not a good idea. If anyone else wants to go the route of modifying WP:RS please go through talk first to establish consensus. TMLutas (talk) 17:38, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem isn't that A22 is incomplete. The problem is that it is not compliant. It attempts to use a standard that was always dubious though one that had a clear local majority on this page. This is the essence of special pleading and a major reason why climate issues are so contentious. Global warming needs to abide by the rules that run everywhere else. If you don't like the rules, go off to the rules page and suggest a change. What can't be done, and what breeds all sorts of bad behavior, is to make local rules that contradict the general rules. This is what A22 does and it needs to go. You make several new assertions. If you would put them in the form of a replacement Q22/A22, I would appreciate it because as it stands, they don't look very good. Perhaps it is just that I'm not understanding your points. TMLutas (talk) 17:47, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that the context in which this discussion invariably reignites is an attempt to force Wikipedia to give undue prominence to an outlier paper. I don't believe it has ever happened that someone has attempted to force a paper reflecting the consensus position into the article by opposing the notion of waiting to see public commentaries from external reviewers and citations from other researchers.
Given that context, I suggest that it would be unwise to press this argument. just let it drop. You don't get to make an end run around the neutral point of view by fiddling with the wording of guidelines. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 13:20, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please make an actual accusation or withdraw your implication that I'm gaming the rules. One of us should be up for sanctions at this point given the article probation on the article we're discussing. Either me for WP:GAMING as you've laid out above or you for your accusation of bad faith. I've been trying to avoid sanctions by carefully establishing what is the source of controversy (the use of impact), running a conversation (successfully) to clarify what role impact can play in individual papers (answer: none), done an edit in WP:RS to establish that consensus opinion more clearly and now, reluctantly, am doing the cleanup work. You are engaging in, at best, special pleading. I don't agree that it's warranted. I think that we've already had quite enough of it on the climate pages already. You already attempted to lay out your point of view in WP:RS. That point of view did not prevail. You can't legitimately come back for a 2nd bite at the apple here. TMLutas (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An accusation of WP:GAMING is one thing, while an accusation of bad faith is entirely another. WP:GAMING makes clear that it's not necessarily to be construed as necessarily constituting "bad faith". Frankly, I see no implication or accusation of bad faith in Tasty monster's (Tony Sidaway's) comments. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editing a guideline or policy yourself then using that edit to justify actions elsewhere is frowned apon. It makes it reasonably clear that both the edit to the guideline and the action being attempted are both invalid. Hipocrite (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've set up an easy to read, clear discussion regarding the use of impact factor as a component of determing reliability at Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#Impact_factor_usable.3F and advertised such at the appropriate venues. Hipocrite (talk) 18:28, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. AFAICT, TMLutas' position w.r.t. citation indexes and the controversial approach of "impact factor" was fairly strongly resisted by the participants at WT:RS. Unfortunate that, after Hipocrite having made the thrust of bullet point #4 in WP:RS#Scholarship more consistent with the content policies WP:WEIGHT, WP:SOURCES and WP:PSTS, that TMLutas then proceeded to revert it, seemingly so as to try to make it say that citation indexes are to have no bearing whatsoever in assessing reliability. I imagine that in due course the context in which this is taking place will become somewhat clearer to the participants at WP:RS and ultimately find a stable resolution. Either way, I do not accept the notion that the particular provision of bullet point #4 at WP:RS#Scholarship (relating to the role of citation indexes in assessing reliability) somehow takes priority over explicit language of the just-mentioned policies. FAQ #22, while I think it could be improved, appears to me at present to be consistent with the WP editorial policies relating to primary sources which lack a supporting body of secondary literature to assist in making assessments of their appropriate level of notability, reliability and weight in a given topic area. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:58, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I believe TMLutas is acting in good faith. My concern is only to ensure that in his enthusiasm to tweak the reliable sources guideline he does not neglect or ignore the neutral point of view policy, and does not lead others into that error. This is why this line of argument cannot prevail: it poses a recently modified guideline against a long-established and well understood policy, and there can only be one result in such a clash. --TS 18:35, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think reliability is not really the concern here, but instead WP:WEIGHT. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:55, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Rewrite of attributed and expected effects, and other changes~~
Additions to intro
I've made some additions to the intro. I didn't think the intro was alarmist enough. Global warming/climate change is probably bad news for at least some people (if not most people), and that fact shouldn't be obscured.
Temperature changes addition
I've added this paragraph to the section:
In 2007, the IPCC concluded that warming of the climate system was "unequivocal." This conclusion was based on observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.
The was one of the central conclusions of the last IPCC report, and it should be mentioned in this article.
GHG change
I've changed this because the previous revision was inaccurate. Previous revision:
CO2 concentrations are continuing to rise due to burning of fossil fuels and land-use change. The future rate of rise will depend on uncertain economic, sociological, technological, and natural developments. Accordingly, the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios gives a wide range of future CO2 scenarios, ranging from 541 to 970 ppm by the year 2100 (an increase by 90-250% since 1750).[34]
The SRES scenarios are emissions scenarios, not concentration scenarios. The 2100 concentrations are projections based on these emissions scenarios. It is also wrong, because the 541-970 ppm figure is only for the six SRES marker scenarios, not, as was implied, the entire set of (forty) SRES scenarios. Another criticism is that uncertainty is not mentioned in the projection, in the sense that you are projecting concentrations from emissions scenarios. There's uncertainty about the carbon cycle, for example.
Attributed and expected effects
I've rewritten a large part of this section. My rewrite was based on my following concerns:
The Northwest Passage does not, in my opinion, deserve to be mentioned in this prominent article.

The previous revision of the article did not, in my view, adequately explain negative health impacts, negative impacts on ecosystems, negative impacts on coastal areas, negative impacts for water resources, etc..

The previous revision's coverage about those most vulnerable to climate change was poor.

Areas of this section were vague and imprecise
~~My revision was designed to address these issues. Enescot (talk) 14:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~
I've reverted the major rewrite, for now at least. It's much too much for one edit, given the large number of participants in this article and the controversy that attends this article. I recommend taking it in smaller chunks so each can be individually analyzed and, hopefully, consensus can be gained for each aspect of the proposed changes. ... Kenosis (talk) 16:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thats the way to take it. There are problems with relying on IPCC's outdated 2007 projections, and oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf's Sealevelgate article, about a very real projection anomaly that ought to be an international scandal but somehow isn't, demonstrates this quite graphically. In short; Rahmstorf argues that sea level has risen in the past and is likely to rise in the future much faster than the models used by the IPCC. We should take notice of informed critiques of IPCC, and to represent IPCC's position as fully as possible. I'm not very familiar with this or with the critiques Enescot raises, but they are the kind of detail of which I would probably want to be aware, whereas, as Enescot says, the Northwest Passage stuff is neither here nor there. Americans and Canadians may regard that as possessing a symbolic relevance that people living in other continents find quite difficult to understand. While I haven't looked at Enescot's revision on health impacts, further work in this area is to be welcomed. --TS 16:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately another way to say "the model underestimated the last 50 years of sea level rise by 50%" is that the model just isn't good at explaining the data. (Insert comment about how it is better than anything else here.) Ignignot (talk) 18:43, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. This article is about the best projections available based on a careful consideration of the available information, which takes into account the models and the possibility that they are wrong. --TS 19:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The sea is a huge system with massive in-flows and massive out-flows every day. The future variations in these flows are the end-products of huge calculations and projections in many other areas including temperatures on land and sea, at different levels up and down. Then you subtract 'out' from 'in' and get a small number. That that number is accurate with +/- 50% may well be one of the greatest pieces of careful estimation ever done, for all we know. Sorry if it "just isn't good enough" for you. It's getting better all the time, though, provided whole research departments aren't held up for too long dealing with mass FOI requests from blog-readers, or dealing with public enquiries. --Nigelj (talk) 19:25, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Calm down dude. I put the required boilerplate in parenthesis. Maybe it is a herculean feat to get it that close, I dunno. I just wouldn't bet my life on it. Ignignot (talk) 21:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For one, I'd support the proposed sentence: "In 2007, the IPCC concluded that warming of the climate system was "unequivocal." This conclusion was based on observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level." [cite to IPCC 2007 report) ... Kenosis (talk) 22:25, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. If it's "unequivocal", then why not just say it? If the purpose is to establish authority, remember that the IPCC's authority doesn't come from the itself. Scientific societies recognize the conclusions. You're getting this from the SYR or an SPM, which is "for the benefit of policy makers".[4] Scientifically an "unequivocal attribution would require controlled experimentation with the climate system," which isn't pratical.[5] I like how the National Academies of Science put it, it's that "There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring."[6] Which runs along the lines where strong evidence qualitative observations and significant being statistical significance. There's no "unequivocal," that just sounds hubris. Evidence-wise, the lead is really running out of space. ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:48, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Enescot proposed that the italicized text above be placed into the section on temperature changes, not in the lead. Perhaps more accurate are the words In 2007, the IPCC stated that warming of the climate system was "unequivocal." ... Kenosis (talk) 15:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then I'd to see Enscot reply, because for some reason it's turned into regional effects of global warming.[7] If you believe this owes merit, start a new thread. ChyranandChloe (talk) 23:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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[WMO-FAQS-2] "Commission for Climatology Frequently Asked Questions". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020.

[3] Harris, Tom. "Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change". National Post. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2009 – via Solid Waste & Recycling. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 4 February 2012 suggested (help)

[4] Arriola, Benj. "5 Good Arguments Why GlobalWarming is NOT due to Man-made Carbon Dioxide". Global Warming Awareness Blog. Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[5] Ahlbeck, Jarl. "Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming". Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[6] Kirby, Simon (11 April 2007). "Top scientist debunks global warming". Herald Sun. Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[7] Brahic, Catherine (16 May 2007). "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[8] "More Notes on Global Warming". Physics Today. May 2005. Retrieved 10 September 2007.

[9] Battle, M.; et al. (2000). "Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and d13C". Science. 287 (5462): 2467–2470. doi:10.1126/science.287.5462.2467.

[10] The Royal Society (2005). "Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide". Retrieved 9 May 2012.

[11] "Met Office: Climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.

[12] Climate Central (18 January 2017). "2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record". Climate Central. Retrieved 1 February 2017.

[13] The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880, English translation by J. Sephton, from the original Eiríks saga rauða.

[14] "Cold Hard Facts". Tamino. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.^{[dead link]}

[15] Peterson, T. C.; et al. (2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1325. Bibcode:2008BAMS...89.1325P. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1.

[16] Gwynne, Peter (28 April 1975). "The Cooling World". Newsweek. p. 64.

[17] Verger, Rob (23 May 2014). "Newsweek Rewind: Debunking Global Cooling". Newsweek.

[18] Gwynne, Peter (21 May 2014). "My 1975 'Cooling World' Story Doesn't Make Today's Climate Scientists Wrong". insidescience.org.

[19] Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008.

[20] Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (page 2)". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008.

[21] Marcus, Philip; Shetty, Sushil; Asay-Davis, Xylar (November 2006). Velocities and Temperatures of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the New Red Oval and Implications for Global Climate Change. American Physical Society. Retrieved 9 May 2007.

[22] Goudarzi, Sara (4 May 2006). "New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change". Space.com. Retrieved 9 May 2007.

[23] Philip, Marcus S. (22 April 2004). "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter" (PDF). Nature. 428 (6985): 828–831. Retrieved 9 May 2007.

[24] Yang, Sarah (21 April 2004). "Researcher predicts global climate change on Jupiter as giant planet's spots disappear". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 9 May 2007.

[25] Elliot, J. L.; et al. (10 July 2003). "The recent expansion of Pluto's atmosphere". Nature (424): 165–168. doi:10.1038/nature01762.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[26] Foerster, Jim. "What's The Difference Between Private Weather Companies And The National Weather Service?". Forbes.

[27] Eilts, Mike (27 November 2018). "The Role of Weather—and Weather Forecasting—in Agriculture". DTN.

[28] "What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?". Skeptical Science. 2 September 2011.

[29] Brumfiel, Geoff (23 August 2011). "Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays". Scientific American.

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@@ Line 310: / Line 310: @@
 ::No. If it's "unequivocal", then why not just say it? If the purpose is to establish authority, remember that the IPCC's authority doesn't come from the itself. [[Scientific opinion on climate change|Scientific societies]] recognize the conclusions. You're getting this from the SYR or an SPM, which is "for the benefit of policy makers".[http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/frontmatterspreface.html] Scientifically an "unequivocal attribution would require controlled experimentation with the climate system," which isn't pratical.[http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-1-2.html] I like how the National Academies of Science put it, it's that "There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring."[http://www.nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf] Which runs along the lines where strong evidence qualitative observations and significant being statistical significance. There's no "unequivocal," that just sounds hubris. Evidence-wise, the lead is really running out of space. [[User:ChyranandChloe|ChyranandChloe]] ([[User talk:ChyranandChloe|talk]]) 08:48, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 :::Enescot proposed that the italicized text above be placed into the section on [[Global_warming#Temperature_changes|temperature changes]], not in the lead. Perhaps more accurate are the words ''In 2007, the IPCC '''stated''' that warming of the climate system was "unequivocal."'' ... [[User:Kenosis|Kenosis]] ([[User talk:Kenosis|talk]]) 15:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
+::::Then I'd to see Enscot reply, because for some reason it's turned into [[regional effects of global warming]].[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming&action=historysubmit&diff=349623624&oldid=349436145] If you believe this owes merit, start a new thread. [[User:ChyranandChloe|ChyranandChloe]] ([[User talk:ChyranandChloe|talk]]) 23:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)