User:VicBlake/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Notes

• Some relevant information
• Proposes that surface drying/ deforestation/ excessive grazing (etc.) impact climate change; rather than global warming causing these land surface changes
• Article references range from 2006 to 2016 (with the exception of one that was dated 1975)
• The Land surface effects on climate overview is brief and vague
• The second sentence is incomplete; it did not identify the significant role of deforestation and exploitation of natural landscapes
• Deforestation is not made a link the first time it is introduced in the article
• No referencing in information stated under the subheadings: Orographic lift and Rain shadow
• The information needs to be elaborated on to develop a better understanding
• The article is neutral: references the journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and papers published by the American Institute of Biological Sciences before paraphrasing the information; the article does not draw conclusions or personal ideas
• The view points appear to be underrepresented

Article Selection

Urban Climate

The article's content is relevant to the topic: it incorporates subtopics such as temperature, precipitation, wind and humidity,and how they contribute to an urban climate. However, each section lacks substantial detail (i.e. one to two sentences), making it difficult to generate strong points. The article is written neutrally but each claim did not have a citation. There are only three in-text citations/ references: two references were used for one sentence in the introduction and one for a sentence in the temperature subsection. Many claims were made throughout the article, especially in the different subtopic sections. For instance, "Building materials have a lower specific heat capacity (the amount of energy that will heat a kilogram of a material by 1 °C) than grass and trees—the specific heat capacity of concrete is 800 Joules/kg whereas for soil it can be 2000 Joules/kg, so concrete heats up more quickly in the day, warming the air around it." This is a very specific claim that would have came from a source of some kind which was not referenced at all. Two of the citations are from peer-reviewed journals and one is from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, so they are reliable sources of information but the article requires more referencing for the information proposed. The Talk page only had one comment that was mostly positive, but they did mention the need for more referencing material.

Hydrosphere

The article's content is relevant to the topic: it discusses (elaborately) about the water cycle and less extensively on recharging reservoirs and specific fresh water availability. The article was written neutrally. Some claims are accounted for in the reference section, but there could be improvement. There were six referenced sources, and some of them seemed unreliable: some were reports and others were general websites. They should have incorporated more peer reviewed articles, books and primary source information.

Drawdown

The introduction is the most substantial section of the entire page. It lacks detailed information and subsections [there is only one subsection (Effects)]. The information provided is neutral. There is only one reference which leads to the Utrecht University website; it is not a reliable citation/ reference.

Source List Compilation

1. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/joc.859
2. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0450%281987%29026%3C0427%3ACOCAUR%3E2.0.CO%3B2
3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140196306000942

Add Citation/ Copy-edit/ Finalizing Topic

Add Citation and Copy-edit

The copy-edit exercise was conducted on the Urban Climate article (click the link and check the view history tab). Minor edits were made such as: sentence reconstruction, citation edits and removal of unnecessary phrasing.

The following citation was added to the article: "Better understanding of urban temperature and water vapor contributions and/ or loss will reveal the reasons for lower relative humidity within cities, especially since it is dependent on temperature changes."

Finalizing Topic

I have decided to improve the Urban Climate article.