Talk:Climate change

AGW??????

Type into Google "AGW" and this article is the top page that shows up . . . yet "AGW" is nowhere to be found in the article. Shouldn't it be somewhere? Just wondering. Seems logical to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris1emt (talk • contribs) 01:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Definition

In the first sentence, why is the term "Global Warming" defined using the phrase "since the mid-20th century"? That seems to be an arbitrary restriction on the definition with no reference given. Global warming has been happening for 12000 years (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_glaciation#Land-based_chronology_of_Quaternary_glacial_cycles). Has this definition been erroneously transferred from "anthropogenic global warming"? Or does Wikipedia make no distinction between cause and effect? Mrdavenport (talk) 19:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

As per the article hat-note (before the first sentence), what you're looking for may be in Climate change or Paleoclimatology. --Nigelj (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Just so you know, the 'global warming' that has been happening for the last 12000 years was us comming out of an ice age. In other words, that doesn't really count because it would have happened anyway. The point is that it should have slowed down, and it hasn't. If it hadn't been for human intervention in the last couple of centuries, the climate would have stablised. Just because to things have the same effect doesn't mean they are the same. 81.187.148.35 (talk) 12:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

that doesn't really count because it would have happened anyway.... so why's this article called global warming when no one's ever proved it isn't natural variation and would happen anyway? Isonomia (talk) 18:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

12,000 years....it's been cooling for the last 8,000 years now.[1] Kauffner (talk) 02:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Kauffner-Where on the Vostok graph does it show "cooling for the last 8,000 years"? --CurtisSwain (talk) 05:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Kauffner is right; there has been a slow decrease in reconstructed temps since the Holocene climatic optimum. Mrdavenport: the last glacial maximum is typically given as 21 ka and the hatnote on this article should tell you how WP uses the phrase (in order to free up "climate change" for the more general). To all - let's move on, as this doesn't seem to have anything to do with improving this article. Awickert (talk) 05:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Satellite temperature measurements article seems to go well beyond its title

The sea surface temperature article has been revamped due to improvements made in the numerical weather prediction article. When doing a web search, I ran across the wikipedia article regarding satellite temperature measurements, so I started incorporating some of the SST article information into it. After I noticed the article structure, I was initially confused. A cursory review of the article shows that its content goes well beyond its name. It looks strongly linked to this article, and even mentions information you would not expect to be involved in an article with its name. My question is: Should that article be renamed, something like Satellite temperature measurements (climate change), or should the information within the article be aligned with its current title? If so, the order of the article would need to be flipped, surface information/SST first (since that's where we all live and that information was first available via satellites, so it makes sense chronologically as well) with a decent amount of material eliminated since it goes beyond the scope of its title. Thoughts? Thegreatdr (talk) 22:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you should keep that discussion on the talk page of Satellite temperature measurements, and not place it here as well.--CurtisSwain (talk) 06:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I have. I posted it here as well because it appears to wharehouse global warming information on it (almost a content fork), so it appears relevant to this article. Right now, there is undue weight given to the global warming information within that article (which takes up nearly all its content). No further response will mean that the satellite temperature measurements article content will be refashioned to fit its current title around a week after the original talk page comment was made (the 16th), and the percentage of global warming information within it will be reduced in kind. Thegreatdr (talk) 19:53, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

minor typo

"Most of the increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century is, with high probability,[D] atttributable to human-induced changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.[86]" change to attributable. 98.28.17.36 (talk) 02:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC) Dan

Done. GManNickG (talk) 04:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

nonexistance

where is the criticism about the nonexistance of global warming from many scientists? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.202.69.205 (talk) 15:02, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Non-existent, of course. I'm not aware of any recent claim in the scientific literature that there is no warming trend. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

See FAQ#2, or Global warming controversy, which this article links to in several places.--CurtisSwain (talk) 18:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Surely the question is whether or not global warming is man-made or just part of a solar cycle. I think the main article should be more balanced with respect to this question.Sushisurprise (talk) 15:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

There's no need to balance. Since solar output has been more or less constant for the past 100 years (with the most recent data in fact suggesting a slight decrease over the last decade), recent warming cannot be attributed to the sun. See Solar constant#Variation or Global warming controversy#Solar variation for a more detailed explanation. Sailsbystars (talk) 15:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for settling that for me. I needed an expert's opinion.Sushisurprise (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Because Temperature change only counts when it goes upwards. Any downward trend like the last 10 years can't be mentioned because the article is only allowed to quote the climategate team and for obvious reasons, they are never going to tell the world it has been cooling! Isonomia (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia

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

Days of discussion without a single suggestion of convergence. One versus several. Suggested source is an encyclopedia, not a scientifically reviewed source. --TS 03:03, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

---

I would think that the best source would be a reference work that specializes in science like Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. Their article on "global warming" certainly takes a more balanced view than this one does, which takes the "hockey stick" interpretation at face value and contains no hint that there has ever been any controversy about it. Currently, the references are overwhelmingly to primary sources. This is quite problematic since thousands of scientific papers have been published on this subject and they often express divergent views. Kauffner (talk) 06:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the IPCC reports, the NAS/NRC reports, the Academies statements, the Met Office, the WMO, Weart's book, are all excellent secondary sources, and, between them, make up a huge proportion of all references. They are certainly better than an 8 year old tertiary source intended for general audiences, including secondary schools. It's typically sceptics who push individual papers into the article. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

If high school students are using Van Nostrand's I'm impressed, since it's certainly higher-level science than, say, Britannica. The latest edition of was published in 2008,[2] so it is actually more recent the 2007 IPCC report that is currently referenced. I'm sure you know perfectly well that many, many books and other secondary sources have been published on this topic expressing, if anything, a wider variety of opinion than in the primary sources. So choosing a group of secondary sources that agree with a single POV is easy enough to do, as you have just shown. So there is a need to look at other encyclopedias to establish is what kind and amount of coverage is "due" to the various relevant points of view. Kauffner (talk) 14:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It sounds a bit odd to hear somebody promoting a mere encyclopedia in preference to our multiple authoritative sources. I remember Lar and I looked at the Britannica once to determine whether there was any imbalance in our coverage. His view was that there was, but I couldn't see it. Our coverage over the whole encyclopedia was huge compared to Britannica which barely mentioned alternative views at all. Searching Britannica for the names of prominent skeptical scientists, for instance, drew a blank. I'd be frankly surprised to see any significant difference in Van Nostrand's coverage, but perhaps somebody might want to raise concrete examples from that book and we'll see where we can go with this. --TS 14:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The "global warming" article in Van Nostrand is more than five pages long. Plus there is a lengthy "climate" article, about half of which is about the greenhouse effect, so that's 2-3 more pages. I'm guesstimating around 1,200 words per page. So they have several times the coverage of Britannica, which has 1,650 words in their "global warming" article. It's Van Nostrand's "climate" article that presents skeptical views, especially in a half page section entitled "The Theory in Perspective." My favorite line is, "One should recall that it was only a few decades ago that some scientists and numerous lay people feared the return of the Ice Age!" (Yeah, but one does not recall ever seeing any other exclamation points in an encyclopedia!) McGraw-Hill's Encyclopedia of Science & Technology is an even more authoritative source and would have more extensive coverage of this issue, although I have not looked at it myself yet. Kauffner (talk) 18:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It was only a few decades ago that people had to wait for their radios to warm up before they could listen to music, but we don't mention that in the MP3 article. This book sounds like a pretty awful source, but I've never heard of it. --Nigelj (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Whether you think it's "pretty awful" or not, the book is accepted in the scientific community as an authoritative source, as this review shows. The 1970s cooling scare was promoted by many of the same people who later became leading AGW affirmers, including Stephen Schneider and John Holdren, now Obama's chief scientific advisor. Kauffner (talk) 07:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact that vacuum tubes take a while to warm up was experienced by people who now listen to MP3s. Vacuum tube radios were promoted by shops that now sell iPhones. What is the point you're trying to make, because I don't see the relevance? --Nigelj (talk) 09:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Insensitive clods, the wireless part of my radiogram still takes time to warm up, the penalty of sound quality :-/

Kauffner, you're rather out of date. The late Stephen Schneider miscalculated the balance of warming and cooling effects in 1971, recalculated and published his correction in 1974. By the sound of it your encyclopedia is similarly behind the times. By the way, I don't listen to MP3s. . . dave souza, talk 10:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Schneider's 1971 study was designed to show that the SST would generate particulates that would destroy the climate. After the 1973 oil embargo, the focus of environmental movement shifted to hydrocarbons. So his "science" was always about politics, or did no one know about the greenhouse effect in 1971? The movement has always been predicting apocalypse and can switch glibly between overpopulation, resource depletion, ozone hole, warming, and cooling. The scientific encyclopedias have far better quality control than those for the general publication. They are the logical place to look for the scientific consensus. "Out of date"...if you don't like something, it's either too old or too new, I've figured that one out. Kauffner (talk) 14:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

  One favorable book review hardly makes any source "accepted in the scientific community as an authoritative source". Especially not encyclopedias, which are inherently written for a broader, generally "popular", non-specialist audience. And in this particular case the reviewer explicitly notes "Where the encyclopedia is polemical ... it takes the industry's line." Which is just what we might expect from a source that runs out the old, discredited claim (read the FAQ, please) about the "1970s cooling scare". Excuse me, but your POV is showing. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:35, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The "takes the industry line" quote is from a review of the Food and Food Production Encyclopedia. Let's say you wanted to know the scientific consensus concerning a "Hydrogen-fueled semi-closed steam turbine power plant", a "High sensitivity corbino disk magnetoresistor array", or possibly "Isotope separation by photodissociation of Van der Waal's molecules". Would you turn to a UN report? A survey that asked random scientists leading questions on the subject? Find someone who read the abstracts of 928 randomly chosen journal papers? Of course not! But you might look it up in Van Nostrand 's, as these and hundreds of other patent applicants did. It gets more cites than Encyclopedia Britannica does, although not quite as many as McGraw-Hill's Encyclopedia of Science & Technology. Kauffner (talk) 03:14, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

  Yes, you are quite correct about the quote: I missed a silly little "box" and slid into a different review. Sorry. But I will stand by the rest of my comment, that a favorable book review does not constitute scientific acceptance. At best such such encyclopedias (just like Wikipedia!) are good places to approach scientific topics. These are starting places for finding and evaluating the science, not the science itself. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:49, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

On the off chance that anyone still thinks Van Nostrand's is some sort of second-rate source, I'd like to note that it has been cited by the federal courts on at least 46 occasions and was even described as an "authoritative reference work" by the U.S. Court of International Trade in the case of Digital Equipment Corporation vs. U.S. (1988). It was cited by the Supreme Court of the United States in Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. v. NRDC (1983). Kauffner (talk) 12:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Correction: that isn't 'cited', it's 'mentioned'. Wikipedia has been mentioned by your federal courts at least 488 times by the same measure. Once again, I fail to see the relevance of this point. --Nigelj (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

  Science is not made by lawyers. (How many scientific discoveries have been published as the opinions of a court?) That some court found Van Nostrand's useful in determining what the received scientific opinion is in some particular question in some particular legal case, which usage the Supreme Court found that appropriate for that case, has nothing to do with the making of scientific opinion. It is wholly incorrect to stretch that very limited legal endorsement as authority for Van Nostrand's interpretation of the science of a completely different topic.

  There is another problem here: you don't seem to understand the the nature of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Van Nostrands's is tertiary source (an encyclopedia). Which in no way makes it "second-rate" (as only you have suggested); it may indeed be superior (as you have suggested) to, say, Britannica, and even (as I just suggested) a very good starting place for finding and evaluating the science. But it is still only a tertiary source (three steps from the actual research), and has to be evaluated with that in mind. And as Stephan said at the beginning of this thread, the IPCC reports, etc., are excellent secondary sources (closer to the science), and also much more authoritative. But this encyclopedia is not, as you imputed at the beginning of this thread, the best source for determining proper "balance" here, and certainly does not validate your particular POV. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I must say that the “science is not made by lawyers” line was certainly good for a laugh. After all, why would anyone need lawyers when climate science can done perfectly well by railroad economists like Rajendra K. Pachauri, mechanical engineers like Stephen Schneider, or historians like Naomi Oreskes? You do realize that patent attorneys and judges generally have a bachelor's degree in a scientific field? The way the article is currently written assumes that the UN bureaucrats at the IPCC are the ultimate scientific authority.

As far as tertiary sources go, there are many, many secondary sources on AGW and they express a much wider diversity of opinion then we see in this article. So how can using a group of secondary that all have the same POV be justified? It could possibly be justified if all other tertiary sources did the same, but they don't.

No, I meant “cited”, not “mentioned.” As you can see from the examples I gave above, the courts consult Van Nostrand’s on scientific issues and technical definitions. The difference between heavy and light water reactors is not exactly high-level science. But the Supreme Court could have used any number of sources to support this point, and presumably some clerk put a certain amount of thought into the issue of which reference should be the court's preferred scientific authority. I do not see the courts using Wikipedia, or even Britannica, as an authority on these kinds of issues. Typing in the search term "Wikipedia" will turn up a case on Google scholar whenever there is a Wikipedia article on it, so most of those 488 hits are false positives. (Unless, of course, the Supreme Court really did mention Wikipedia in Roe v. Wade.) I am, nonetheless, distressed to learn that the courts have been using Wikipedia as a source on such subjects as Mauritanian politics, sarcasm and school shootings(!). Kauffner (talk) 07:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

  So do you maintain that science is made by lawyers? Then tell us: how often have the courts (any legal court, even a papal court) made a scientific discovery? How often do lawyers (practicing as lawyers) publish new discoveries in scientific journals? How often is science published in a legal reporter?

  You cite (e.g.) Naomi Oreskes, a historian, as doing climate science, but her work is not about climate science – her work has been about the debate about climate science. Do you understand that distinction?

  You say that "many, many secondary sources on AGW and they express a much wider diversity of opinion then we see in this article", but again, you don't seem to understand the the nature of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Your vaunted "diversity of opinion" is tertiary at best, and mostly politically driven by the energy industry and conservative think tanks. These are not reliable sources (your book reviewer was more credible) that tend to trot out discredited arguments; they do not reflect the actual science. But all this is old news, well hashed, which you are pushing in a circular argument: Van Nostrand's validates a "more balanced view" of divergent views, which is in turn validated by (surpise) "many, many secondary sources". - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The article is supposed to represent "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources", according to WP:DUE. So calling a viewpoint "tertiary" isn't a basis to exclude it. As for primary sources, here is a list of 850 peer-reviewed skeptic articles. For secondary sources, there's Freeman Dyson, Roy W. Spencer, and A.W. Montford. So every level of source is represented. But if I follow this argument correctly, the issue is not really levels of sourcing, but rather the conviction that any inconvenient source, including the scientific encyclopedias, is "politically driven" and that arguments in favor of balance and NPOV are "old news" and "well hashed". Meanwhile, China moves forward with a thorium molten-salt reactor that will one day power the factories required to produce solar shingles for export to the U.S. Kauffner (talk) 17:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Please inform yourself enough so that you do not appear to be lying. The "850 paper" hoax has been around long enough for several of the alleged sceptics to protest against the misuse of their research. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I must admit that "Evidence for the existence of the medieval warm period in China" and "How Serious is the Global Warming Threat?" are even more enjoyable now that I know they don't exist. Kauffner (talk) 18:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Your sentence is unclear. Most of the interpretations I find make no sense. Please clarify what "they" refers to. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

"They" being two articles on the list that I was able able to find immediately in the literature despite the fact you claim the list is a hoax. Kauffner (talk) 02:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

K: is there possibly any personal circumstance for which we should grant allowance, or are you deliberately obtuse? I ask because it is a little difficult to assume good faith (what the laywers would call a rebuttable presumption) when, after stating '[t]he article is supposed to represent "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources", according to WP:DUE', you leave off the continuation of that quote: in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. That text goes on to say:

Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. (WP:DUE)

Your argument all along seems to be that the "skeptical" views (re climate) should be given equal weight (prominence) with the mainstream, but as can be readily seen, that is not the actual policy here; such "balance" would be misleading. Your omission amounts to misrepresentation. -- J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

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

Additional Source?

I recently had a discussion with a gent who thought volcanoes produce way more CO2 than humans could ever spew into the atmosphere. I told him he was dead wrong and HE produced the following source. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-volcanoes-affect-w The salient quote is "There is no doubt that volcanic eruptions add CO2 to the atmosphere, but compared to the quantity produced by human activities, their impact is virtually trivial: volcanic eruptions produce about 110 million tons of CO2 each year, whereas human activities contribute almost 10,000 times that quantity." TimL (talk) 07:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Um... good for you? Are you proposing that this source be added to the article somehow, and if so, could you maybe post your proposed revision for consideration? This isn't a general discussion forum. »S0CO^{(talk|contribs)} 07:52, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I was posting it for those who actively edit the article, which does not include myself. I will out it on my TODO list to see how it might be integrated into the article. Also I do not see how posting a source is 'general discussion'. TimL (talk) 08:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, we have this in the FAQ at the top of the page, linked to a New Scientist article which is a quite good overview over the many ways we can confirm where the CO2 comes from. We do write that humans emit 100 times more than volcanic activity, but that may be because our source (which I remember vaguely to be the USGS, although the link seems to have vanished) included all volcanism-related emissions, in particular deep sea vents. Or someone at SciAm got their decimal point mixed up ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I know this is probably an article that has every source imaginable (I mean that it is very visible, highly contentious (to some), (I'm not being sarcastic)). Sorry for not looking at that. TimL (talk) 09:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all. One thing we (as in all of us ;-) should be carful about is to let this be an encyclopaedic article on global warming, not a blow-by-blow discussion of discredited arguments. We do discuss the relative contributions of different sources in Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere#Sources_of_carbon_dioxide, though. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Figure caption glitch

In the first panel of the very first figure on the page, there's a right-bracket "]" between the caption and the figure, just hanging there and looking weird. I looked at the page code but couldn't find the source of the error, and would rather not screw things up with test edits. Mokele (talk) 13:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I see it. I cannot figure out what causes it. The Template:Multiple image code looks complex enough to hide all kinds of nasties, but seems to work fine elsewhere... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, unlinking "mean" in the figure caption makes the extra "]" go away.[3] No idea what that means though. Guettarda (talk) 14:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I changed the external link to a wikilink to GISTEMP which also seems to fix things and also keeps the attribution of the graph to a reasonable destination. The problem has something to do with the fact that the image is surrounded by double brackets in the mutiple image template, but more than that I couldn't figure out. Sailsbystars (talk) 16:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion: Move to Global climate change?

I think a better name for this might be "Global climate change" since "global warming" is somewhat misleading. Essentially some (such as Fox News) state that excess snow fall in the eastern United States is blamed on "global warming" however snow and cold temperatures aren't warm. It is somewhat confusing since global climate change accounts for irregular weather patterns. What do others think? (especially those that have worked on this article extensively) If you Google "Global warming" / "Global climate change" I certainly see more results under Global climate change. CaribDigita (talk) 17:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If you search for the full phrases (using quote marks), "Global warming" wins with 40 million vs. 1.6 million (claimed hits, but then large Google counts are extremely unreliable). Google Scholar is 380000 vs. 260000, same direction. I see your point, but at least for now, I think WP:COMMONNAME still points us the the existing name. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a terminology shift I think we are witnessing but its too early to tell whether it's going to be the dominant name for the phenomenon The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 17:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess the people responsible for major social innovations like calling Royal Mail Consignia and Jif Cif have large gaps in their careers when there's nothing much doing. I don't think Fox News' inability to explain scientific relationships is reason enough for us to rename a major article too often. It looks like we have a redirect, perhaps we could debate over there which article that should point to? --Nigelj (talk) 19:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Solar Variation References

While reading the paragraph about Solar Variation i decided to check the linked references but found 66-68 did not support the proposed hypothesis. Instead they seemed to focus on CO2 being the primary forcing behind AGW and make little or no reference to Solar Variation. As such i would recommend removing them or re locating them to a more appropriate paragraph. "...while others studies suggest a slight warming effect.[31][66][67][68]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crushtopher (talk • contribs) 07:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)