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Consensus View of Article Abstracts Discussing Global Climate Change

A source under Scientific Discussion, states "Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW ["anthropogenic global warming"], 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming." The current version of the article states, "among those whose abstracts expressed a position on the cause of global warming, 97.2% supported the consensus view that it is man made." It seems best to stick with the phraseology of the source. While it's accurate to say that drunk driving causes auto accidents, it would be somewhat misleading to flip that around to say that auto accidents are caused by drunk driving. The figure cited in the source for the described statistic is 97.1%, not 97.2%. It's also signficant to know what percentage of the papers took a position on the issue in the first place. Frankly, saying that "66.4% of the articles discussing global climate change took absolutely no position on its cause," probably tells us more than the current statement. Thoughts? John2510 (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm certainly not opposed to mentioning that 66.4% did not waste space in the abstract re-repeating the re-redundant consensus (again), but we should do so with a full treatment of the concept. In part this is discussed in the "impossible expectations" portion of a post in the Guardian by one of the coauthors (Dana Nuccitelli), in which he wrote
"Another characteristic of movements that deny a consensus involves impossible expectations. The tobacco industry perfected this approach in the 1970s, demanding ever-more stringent levels of proof that smoking caused cancer in order to delay government regulation of their products. This technique of impossible expectations was illustrated in another blog post claiming that only papers which quantify the human contribution to global warming count as endorsing the consensus. Most climate-related research doesn't quantify how much global warming humans are causing, especially in the abstract; there's simply no reason to.

"We didn't expect scientists to go into nitty gritty detail about settled science in the valuable real estate of the abstract (the short summary at the start of the paper). However, we did expect to see it more often in the full paper, and that's exactly what we observed. When scientists were asked to rate the level of endorsement of their own papers, in the 237 papers that actually specified the proportion of human-caused global warming, over 96% agreed that humans have caused more than half of the recent global warming."

Publishing scientists don't waste much abstract space telling their competing colleagues about stuff that was pretty much settled a long time ago. They write just enough to introduce why their new work is new. of course abstracts tended not to say humans are causing most of global warming. Been there, done that. It isn't a new thought to publishing climate scientists writing for their colleagues/competitors. So if we're going to talk about the abstracts with no position it has to also present the context, plus Cook study's self-rating approach to try to control for this issue. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
That suggests that we know the reason why a cause wasn't mentioned, and we don't. That would be like saying that where 2% of articles about mars suggest that there is intelligent life, that means that the other 98% don't mention it because it's so bloody obvious. Maybe... In our case 66.4% don't discuss a cause. Maybe they think it's obvious, maybe they aren't convinced, maybe they think it isn't a cause. We don't know. Let the reader decide. I think that's the only way to be intellectually honest about it. It's certainly not fair to describe 97.1% of 33.6% as simply 97.1% John2510 (talk) 22:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
The statistic of 66.4% refers specifically to the abstract, not the paper overall. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
As does the 97.1% statistic and the entire study for that matter. It was a study of abstracts. If you think that diminishes the value of the study, we can remove any reference to it. John2510 (talk) 05:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Abstracts are summaries of the conclusions of the paper. Most of the 97% of abstracts were implied (group 3) "consensus" meaning the results or assumptions supported warming *however* it was not a rigorous statement on either the amount of anthropogenic influences or the uncertainty. The papers need not agree with IPCC or whatever notion "consensus" is. Humans release greenhouse gases and greenhouse gasses are warming the planet counts as "consensus." It's a "sky is blue" paper as no scientist would dispute that. In fact, the authors treated partial rejections as "neutral."(group 4b) (i.e. abstracts stating that "the human contribution to the measured warming is inconclusive" - isn't rejecting consensus in this study). It is grossly misleading to state that this papers' consensus definition is in any way related to a numerical statement such as "more than half of the 0.8C of observed warming since pre-industrial times is attributed to human influences." I'd also point out, considering all the new papers on it, that there appears to be a consensus that GMST has stopped rising since 1999 yet there are scientists that say "no, we were measuring surface temps wrong." Are they the new "deniers?" It's a useless term because science is not based on consensus and consensus has no definition. --DHeyward (talk) 23:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Editorial Woes Redux: Examining the following problems in Consensus View of Article Abstracts : 1. Misleading Phrasing; 2. Stacking the Deck; 3. Interpreting Intent; 4. Non-Collegial Attitude; 5. Non-Neutral Sources; 6. Emphasis on Rhetoric and Not on Science Hi News and Events Guy. Your genuine hard work seems to drive this page and also to provide sources for constructive criticisms of editing techniques. Some points for editors to consider about the arguments in this Talk section: 1. John observes that the language used in the GW page is different from that used by a source. Further, he finds the potential for the altered phraseology to mislead readers of the GW page. (My language used here. Did I get that right John?). Comment: We've been over this ground before in "Challenge v. Undermine." At issue in that discussion was the substitution of one word for another (less neutral) word in a direct quote from an Abstract. In a science page such as GW WP, we should strive for intellectual honesty so as not to mislead our readers and thus discredit the page. . 2. John finds that significant information from that source was NOT USED in the GW page. Comment: This is the same logical fallacy that was mentioned before. It is "Stacking the Deck." It is picking and choosing statements to garner a result of the editor's choosing. It is a device used to mislead readers. 3. Mind Reading. The claim to interpret the intent of non-respondents in a study is a topic for debate between NAEG and John. John seems not convinced of NAEG's ability to infer non-respondent's intent. This type of subjective judgement was also an issue in "Challenge v. Undermine." NAEG's argument at that time was that the source used the word 'challenge' in a way that was 'like' the word 'undermine.' In a nutshell, that was the justification for removing one word from a direct quote and substituting in a less neutral word. Comment: It is simply wrong for an editor to inject his/her subjective judgements onto the GW WP. We can't infer scientists' intents. We should not try. It is wrong to use our judgement of intent as a basis for scientific statements of fact. 4. Always being right and finding the necessary arguments so that the input of others is ignored or diminished seems to be at play in this Talk section. That is my opinion. Comment: We should be respectful of others opinions. Give others a voice. Non-collegial actions could damage the GW page by limiting the sources of input and discussion, thus allowing the biases of a few to dominate. Those biases are apt to show up on the GW page and are easily spotted by antagonistic parties and by neutral readers alike. Also, non-collegial actions are at odds with the goals of WP. 5. and 6. The justification for NAEG to interpret the intent of non-respondents in the study was taken at least in part from an article that he cites in the "Guardian," posted as, "global-warming-consensus-climate-denialism-characteristics." It seems odd that we would take our cues on how to infer scientists' intent from an article posted on "Denialism." (Full Disclosure: I shortened the post header). The article header practically screams "Get your bias fix here." Comment: From the standpoint of editing a science article, we would be better served to concentrate on the actual science and to spend less time on reading and absorbing the arguments of non-neutral sources on how to read the minds of skeptics. . . . The editorial subjects touched on in this comment are: 1. Misleading Phrasing; 2. Stacking the Deck; 3. Interpreting Intent; 4. Non-Collegial Attitude; 5. Non-Neutral Sources; 6. Emphasis on Rhetoric and Not on Science. The intent of this post is to provide resources for editors by example and not to damage any party. Being in the front exposes one to the fire. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC) jesse 75.139.42.110 (talk) 10:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)jesse 75.139.42.110 (talk) 12:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)jesse75.139.42.110 (talk) 12:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
The Guardian article, being penned by a co-author on the Cook study, is itself an RS about the Cook study. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi NAEG. Thanks for the quick reply. I was afraid that you would be mad at me for using you for a case study!
The Cook study seems not to be related to the science of GW but rather to be geared to the rhetoric of studying studies. In any event, the Cook study will not transform us into mind readers able to infer the motives/intent of others. It is best that we stop claiming that ability. It ain't science. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 12:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Jesse
Where RS authors state they didn't expect study authors to "go into nitty gritty detail about settled science in the valuable real estate of the abstract", we can report that without reading minds. We can also report on the self rating part of the study; we can also point out that the study was not asking authors to self-rate their overall view of the issues, just the text of specific papers. What we must truly not do is foster inappropriate innuendo or false inference stemming from the number of abstracts/papers that took no position.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Stating that it's a "false inference" again assumes you know not only the author's intent, but the intrinsic truth ("We know X to be the truth, so we need to exclude anything from which one might infer that X isn't the truth"). It isn't relevant to say that 97.1% of authors stated a particular position on causation, without knowing that 66.4% stated no position at all. That's especially signficant where you're talking about a subject where causation is critical to any sort of solution. The 97.1% figure, without context of what the universe of the study, isn't science - it's a fraud. It mischaracterizes the abstracts to dramatically increase the percentage of authors ascribing the cause of climate change. John2510 (talk) 15:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
(A) @John, Please define the "it" in the third word of your preceding post and if you say I said "it", please quote the words I supposedly used.
(B) EXAMPLE of what we must not do: One day, God (who had access to the data) commissioned a survey of all those who ordered sandwiches the previous day. Of those who included coffee with their order, 33% stated they prefer decaf, and 47% prefer caffeinated, and the rest said they had no preference.
  • QUESTION True or False: The ratio in this silly example is relevant for the question decaf vs caffeinated coffee preference?
(C) EXAMPLE of what we must not do - continued, Same facts as prior example, but the HAO (heavenly accounting office) reports that of all sandwich orders yesterday, 60% omitted drinks altogether.
  • QUESTION What specific inference should we draw from fact that "60% of sandwich orders yesterday omitted drinks"? How would knowing this give us better understanding of the ratio in subparagraph B above? Is it possible a lot of people assumed they would have coffee, just not with their sandwich order?
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
The "false inference" reference was yours. What false inference do YOU mean? Whatever it may be, does the scientific method allow for editing out findings that may create inferences contrary to the hypothetical? BTW, I gathered the inference to which you referred, and which you believe to be false, would be that a lot of people writing about global warming may not opine on causation because they may be less than 100% certain. Maybe readers will infer that from the data of the study, maybe not. Isn't that the cool thing about scientific studies and independent thought? John2510 (talk) 03:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi NAEG. By golly, you agreed with me! Thanks. And you should. Your own source, Cook, makes it clear that false inferences are NOT appropriate. Oops! I missed an end quote. That was YOU saying that false inferences are inappropriate. Jolly good for you. No more mind reading of our sources.
Now... let us take up John's suggestion to remove the reference to this study.
Hey! One other thing: With respect to Pure Science, we need to distance ourselves from bloggy sources, e.g. the "Guardian." They make interesting reading at times, sort of like an uptown version of the National Enquirer. If you must read it, keep one eye closed. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Jesse 75.139.42.110 (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Except it was written by a Cook study Co-author, and is therefore RS for the co-authors' thinking. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Yeeeeah. You said that before. (Allow me to shift gears a little and to take a slightly different tone?) The authorship fails to impress. The co-author's thinking is not relevant. It is our job as editors to assess sources, including RSs, for suitability for use in the GW WP. The Cook study is not about the science of global warming. It is about the rhetoric that surrounds the science. The Cook study has no place under a section header entitled, "Scientific Discussion."
Editor, do you job. Cast off this ill fitting frock. You can do it. We have confidence in you. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Jesse
Researchers discussing their paper looking into scientific discussion of global warming appearing in the professional literature is highly relevant and should be kept. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi NAEG. Nonsense! What science is being researched? What is relevant about folks talking about how many other people are talking about something? Hehe This is not relevant to the Scientific Discussion section of GW WP. Throwwww it out, editor. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Jesse
Of course it is relevant, it's a conclusive study about consensus in the scientific community. Simply saying "66.4% of the abstracts reviewed took no position on the cause" is misleading at best, as NAEG pointed out above. I'd oppose even mentioning it for the reasons stated in this article, but if the consensus is that we should then let's see a proposed edit so it can be discussed. Regards. Gaba (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi Gaba. Thanks for wading in. It's nice to get another voice.
1. Gaba's opening, "Of course it is relevant..." Naked paternalism is evident in the manner in which "of course" is used here. Paternalistic argument are better avoided.
2. "It's... conclusive..." About what science issue is a conclusion made? Surveys of Abstracts are obviously not about underlying issues [e.g. science] but about the numbers of researchers who investigate specific issues. Avoid these kinds of arguments.
3. "It's a... consensus..." This type of argument is better not used with respect to science. Consensus does not imply scientific truth. Formerly, there was a consensus that the sun/earth was at the center of the universe. "Deniers" of that consensus were often ill-treated. Scientists should RUN from any talk of consensus. GW WP editors should do the same lest we be accused of bias [or worse].
4. Gaba's concern that the results of the survey could be stated in misleading language is valid. John expressed the same concern.
5 Use of the Guardian article as a source to understand how skeptics "read" results and how to guide the delivery of information: As stated above, "global-warming-consensus-climate-denialism-characteristics," is loaded with bias. "Denialism" is not neutral. It is decidedly "anti-skeptic." As editors of a science page, we should not choose sides. We are neither supporters nor skeptics. Generally, information has to be presented in a neutral manner and not engineered to produce results that represent viewpoints that are unassailable by critics. Also, we are not mind readers.
6. Please listen for a problem with a statement offered in support of the Abstract survey:
"Researchers discussing their paper looking into scientific discussion of ..."
Now condense the wording [and replace 'researcher' with 'scientist' for effect]:
"Within the GW Scientific Discussion section we have... scientists discussing... scientific discussion." ??? This is too convoluted to be reasonable.
7. My question has gone unanswered: From the perspective of pure science, why do we need to know how many of our fellows agree with our position on a science issue?
Answer: We don't. This is not an issue of pure science. Therefore, the Abstract survey information does not belong in the GW Scientific Discussion section.
8. Where might the survey of Abstracts belong?
9 Might I speculate on how the issue of Consensus is relevant [without loosing cannon shots in my direction]? Future funding? Politics? (Heavy lean toward Politics)
10. Throw out the survey of Abstracts or move it.
11. If we move the survey, I will be interested to help with the tricky wording issue.
75.139.42.110 (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)jesse 75.139.42.110 (talk) 20:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
From the phraseology used here, I would have assumed that some of you folks had some respect for the scientific method, but the tone here seems to be one of ensuring that nothing from the study be included that differs from the a priori conclusion. I favor my original edits, but would agree with removing any references to the study whatsoever. John2510 (talk) 03:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Bah, attacking other editors is a good way to ensure you'll never get consensus for your proposed edits. Cheers. Gaba (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
I didn't mean it as an attack, and I apologize if it was taken that way - but hoped to to get editors' attention that it's hypocritical to use scientific papers and generally argue for the careful application of science on the one hand, and then reject scientific method and practices on the other - including rephrasing the findings of the study and misquoting figures. I think I may have found a way to rephrase it that we might agree on. It currently reads:
"A meta study of academic papers concerning global warming, published between 1991 and 2011 and accessible from Web of Knowledge, found that among those whose abstracts expressed a position on the cause of global warming, 97.2% supported the consensus view that it is man made. [ref=study]"
How about:
"A meta study of academic papers concerning global warming, published between 1991 and 2011 and accessible from Web of Knowledge, found that among those authors whose papers expressed a position on causation and responded to a survey to self-rate their papers, 96.4% indicated that their papers endorse the view that humans cause global warming. Among self-rated papers not expressing a position in the abstract, 53.8% were self-rated as endorsing that view. 34.9% of responding authors overall indicated that their papers state no position on the issue. [ref=study] Arguably, the lack of discussion of causation may reflect the author's belief that the issue is settled science. [ref=Guardian article]"
I think the above edit accurate reflects the findings and language of the study (as the current version does not), without piling on any additional advocacy on either side. Reading the study in more detail, I believe that most significant single statistic in the study is that 62.7% of the responding authors indicate they endorse human causation (Table 4, 4th column). It cuts through interpreting what mention in the abstract or paper may mean, and reveals what the authors say they believe. The current language in this page's FAQ ("This scientific consensus is supported by 97% of publishing climate scientists") is simply not supported, at least by that study. John2510 (talk) 19:09, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Actually, that is not what the paper is saying at all - or at least your language is so ambiguous that it's easy to misread. Table 4, column 4 says that 62.7% of the authors have endorsing AGW in the papers analysed (see the definitions at the top of section 3), while 34.9% of the authors state no position on AGW in the papers considered and 2.4% reject AGW in the papers considered. Column 5 ignores the "no opinion" paper authors and splits the remaining authors 96.4% (endorse AGW) to 3.6 (reject AGW). Note that the 34.9% are not authors lacking an opinion, but authors who have (according to themselves) not expressed an opinion in the papers analysed (which may be because it is irrelevant to the research, not because they don't have an opinion). Note that there is secondary literature on the paper, e.g. this, which explicitly state that "a vast majority of 97.2%" endorses the attribution of global warming to human activities. So I'd say we are fine with including that bit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

e/c

John's comment about Table 4 seems like an Apple vs Oranges logic error to me; If you're just joining us here, I am going to build on a sandwich analogy I introduced earlier
  • That part of the Cook study asked authors to rate their own individual papers in the professional literature
e.g., How did you like your sandwich at lunch today?
  • The Cook study did not ask authors about their overall professional opinion
e.g., In general, what do you think of mustard?
The Cook study is not an assessment of what scientists think, but rather what scientists have actually published in the professional literature. We can report that (A) 90-something % of abstracts that expressed a negative/neutral/positive position endorsed AGW, and (B) 90-something % of papers that were characterized by their own authors as expressing a negative/neutral/positive did the same. No one has explained the significance of the following stats, which I think are rather meaningless
(A) the number (or %) of abstracts that did not include mustard a negative/neutral/positive position on AGW, and
(B) the number (or %) individual papers that were characterized by their authors as not including mustard a negative/neutral/positive position on AGW
Those numbers are meaningless because they do not tell the reader anything about the ratio of negative/neutral/positive positions on AGW appearing in the peer reviewed professional literature. But I've an open mind if anyone wants to try to explain why the reader would learn something important from those statistics. Meanwhile, I will reply to John's draft text (posted in an earlier comment in this thread) in the near future. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps a better way to have phrased my comment (which wasn't in my proposed edit in any event) would have been, "62.7% of the responding authors indicate THEIR PAPERS endorse human causation." It's certainly clear from Table 4 that the 97.2% figure is not for authors who support it, but rather for papers. 96.4% of authors (expressing an opinion) do, according to column 5. As the paper clearly states (above Table 4), "Among respondents who authored a paper expressing a view on AGW, 96.4% endorsed the consensus."
Addressing your earlier sandwich analogy, it may be useful to know the decaf/regular ratio alone, but if I want to estimate the number of diners who will drink decaf coffee then I'd want to know, first an foremost, the ratio of diners who don't drink coffee at all. Do I know why? Did they drink so much decaf at home that they couldn't drink more? (i.e., authors didn't write about causation because it's so obvious) I dunno the reason - but I'd still want the number. The topic here is one for which not having, or even not expressing, an opinion may have significance.
Since we're talking about a BELIEF here, rather than preferences, I think my martian life analogy is better suited. If 9% of authors writing about life on mars express the view that it exists, while 1% say that it does not, and 90% express no opinion... what would a reader want to know about the consensus? Would it be adequate to tell him that 90% of those expressing an opinion support the existence of martian life? Same situation here, if we divorce ourselves from our own beliefs about the issue. John2510 (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
(A)The Cook study does not report on "belief" but on the ratio of negative-neutral-positive endorsements of anthropogenic global warming actually published in the professional peer-reviewed scientific literature.
(B)In reply to your comment that "The topic here is one for which not having, or even not expressing, an opinion may have significance".... If you feel the % of papers that didn't even take a neutral position (i.e., no opinion whatsoever) might - or might not - have significance, then you have not shown the factoid has WP:WEIGHT; the way to show us it needs to be included is to persuade us with some secondary source(s) asserting the significance of the number of papers that expressed no opinion.
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Now we're getting into semantics. If endorsement in publications isn't a measure of belief in a view ("the consensus"), then the study has no value at all (and maybe it doesn't).
Seems to me the study set our to prove a point using questionable methodologies, then twisted the result to fit a hypothesis.
Using your analogy above, what percentage of people like decaf coffee? You can't know unless you consider the people who didn't have coffee at all. The question here isn't decaf/regular, it's decaf/not-decaf - the ratio who endorse causation versus those who haven't (for whatever reason). It's really a good analogy in that way. John2510 (talk) 23:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
There's a difference between beer&pretzels soapbox belief and sufficient basis to publish in the professional literature belief. If the first is all that is important we should also cover opinions of cookie-bakers though I guess we do have a section on public opinion. The % of people overall who like decaf (whether ordered with lunch today or not) is the subject of a different type of study, several of which are discussed at Surveys of scientists' views on climate change and the sub-article Surveys of scientists' views on climate change. That said, I was at least a little surprised to see the Cook study is covered at the latter (which I had not watchlisted until now). (continued after outdent below)NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
For what it may be worth, I've finally thought of a way to simplify the core point I've been trying to make. The relevant question is the ratio of endorse vs. not endorse, rather than endorse vs. refute. The use of the latter imposes its ratio upon the undecided/unstated, which isn't valid.
Reading the study yet another time, I note that the language of the study, at least in some places, is humans "contributing" to global warming, which has somehow morphed into "causing." ("Explicit endorsements were divided into non-quantified (e.g., humans are contributing to global warming without quantifying the contribution)...") That seems more than a little disingenuous. The place in the continuum that would lead to an "endorse" label is murky at best. Taking it from "humans contribute to GW" to "GW is caused by humans" is quite a leap. John2510 (talk) 16:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

So what do you think of the text at Surveys of scientists' views on climate change#John Cook etal, 2013? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't seen it before either, and I think it's spot on with what I've been suggesting. A couple of caveats: 1) there's confusion (everywhere the study is cited) about whether the sample set is PAPERS or AUTHORS. Where the WP article uses the 97.2% figure on self-rating, I think it should be 96.4% - since it's talking about authors, not papers (or change it to papers... which seems less relevant).
I'm not sure I agree with the editor's conclusions about how the articles change over time. Leaving that part out would avoid having to argue about it. Looks like the # of articles has exploded over time, while the % who endorse the view actually decreased (80% in 1997 to 60% in 2011). We could argue about what that means, but I'd just as soon not. John2510 (talk) 16:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
The core of your argument seems to be your belief that, to quote you, "the study set our (sic) to prove a point using questionable methodologies, then twisted the result to fit a hypothesis."; Until you publish your rebuttal research in the professional literature that's just your opinion, and constitutes original research, which we don't use. If you have the goods to support that allegation, submit your own paper to the journal and get back to us. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
That's not my argument at all. It's merely my conclusion after reading the study more times than I care to count. I'm cool with using the findings of the study, if they're not cherry-picked out of context. John2510 (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
This makes little sense. We use the main findings of the study, as summarised in its own abstract; that is not cherry picking. The abstract, and our coverage of the paper, clearly states that these are percentages of published abstracts. As a reminder: The Cook et al abstract says, "Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming" and "Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus." Our coverage says, "A meta study of academic papers concerning global warming, published between 1991 and 2011 and accessible from Web of Knowledge, found that among those whose abstracts expressed a position on the cause of global warming, 97.2% supported the consensus view that it is man made." I don't know what the mention of 'Web of Knowledge' is doing there as it seems to be WP:UNDUE weight on a trivial detail, but I fail to see any other sensible suggestion to improve this coverage here. --Nigelj (talk) 23:04, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Nigelj, in case that isn't obvious. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Section on food security

I think that the section of the article on global warming#Food security is in need of revision. I'm concerned that it places too much weight on a few studies, and does not explain that projected changes are highly uncertain. Another problem is how it explains changes in food production in relation to socio-economic changes. It mentions changes in population, but does not discuss how, even including the effects of climate change, socio-economic development may help to reduce malnutrition from present levels (see Easterling et al 2007). The section also heavily emphasizes negative impacts on food but places very little weight on positive effects.

References:

  • Easterling, WE (2007). "5.6.5 Food security and vulnerability". In ML Parry, et al, (eds.) (ed.). Chapter 5: Food, Fibre, and Forest Products. Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: contribution of Working Group II to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-88010-6. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |display-authors=1 (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

Enescot (talk) 08:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Yep, and it doesn't even mention the likely increased food production in Northern climages if the world continues to warm... cwmacdougall 11:29, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
user:cwmacdougall, yes it does - the whole second paragraph is about that, and don't forget that it only applies for small increases in future temperature, not for the larger projections. Which we get will depend on future cuts in global CO2 emissions, and we still have seen nothing but increases so far. User:Enescot, your well-sourced alterations are always interesting, and usually very good. I'm sure you're well aware that this section is a short summary of the main article at Climate change and agriculture, which might be in need of an upgrade too. It hasn't been on my watchlist until now. And of course we have AR5 coming out bit by bit just at the moment too. --Nigelj (talk) 14:50, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
While WG1 is scheduled for public release Jan 30, the other parts are still some months out, though maybe their SPM's will arrive sooner. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:53, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Chap. 7 of the AR5 deals with food production http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ar5-outline.html (not yet released) The IPCC AR4 Impact report also states: "Ecosystems and species are very likely to show a wide range of vulnerabilities to climate change, depending on imminence of exposure to ecosystem-specific, critical thresholds (very high confidence)." http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter4.pdf Prokaryotes (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. I agree that the AR5 Working Group II report will be a useful source when its finaly released. However I think that the food security section should be revised before then. I suggest that the more detailed information on food impacts be moved to climate change and agriculture. In my view, it would be preferable to revise the entire section so that it presents a more generalized description of the social impacts of climate change. For example, it could be mentioned are that:
- The impacts of climate change on social systems will be uneven, but will be increasingly negative at higher temperatures.
- Some people are at risk from even small increases in global mean temperature.
References
- IPCC 4th Assessment Working Group II report: Summary for Policymakers: Magnitudes of impact; Technical Summary: Box TS.5. The main projected impacts for systems and sectors: Industry, settlement and society; Chapter 19, Section 19.3.7: Update on 'Reasons for Concern'
- National Research Council (2011), Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia, Washington, D.C., USA: National Academies Press, p.25
- UK Committee on Climate Change: Fourth Carbon Budget Review – part 1: Chapter 1: Section 3 (pp.28-30)
Enescot (talk) 07:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
I've prepared a draft revision of the "Observed and expected effects on social systems" section of the article:
"The social impacts of climate change are expected to be uneven. Vulnerable regions include small island states and low-latitude, developing countries. In some regions, negative impacts are expected even for low increases in global mean temperature (less than 2.6 degrees C above the pre-industrial level). Negative impacts include increased coastal flooding, reduction in water supplies, and increased malnutrition. Many risks are expected to increase for higher magnitudes and rates of global warming.
There are expected to be some benefits from global warming. For example, there will likely be fewer deaths due to cold weather extremes."
The first paragraph of my draft is supported by the citations I gave in my previous post. The reference for the second paragraph is chapter 8, section 8.7 of the IPCC Working Group II 4th Assessment Report.
Enescot (talk) 07:07, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm worried that a casual reader could get an impression from that that does not reflect the balance of coverage in the sources. At a first reading such a reader may see the proposal above as, "Impacts uneven: some flooding and stuff, but also benefits like fewer deaths." That is not the balance of what the sources say. I would prefer to base our text on the authors' own summaries, rather than choose our own couple of points from long reports. So, if we're working from AR4 SP2, I would look at the SPM,[2] and then concentrate on the pull-out summaries in the coloured boxes. Here they are:

Section B
Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.
A global assessment of data since 1970 has shown it is likely that anthropogenic warming has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.
Other effects of regional climate changes on natural and human environments are emerging, although many are difficult to discern due to adaptation and non-climatic drivers.
Section C, Magnitudes of impact
Magnitudes of impact can now be estimated more systematically for a range of possible increases in global average temperature.
Impacts due to altered frequencies and intensities of extreme weather, climate and sea-level events are very likely to change.
Some large-scale climate events have the potential to cause very large impacts, especially after the 21st century.
Impacts of climate change will vary regionally but, aggregated and discounted to the present, they are very likely to impose net annual costs which will increase over time as global temperatures increase.
Section D
Some adaptation is occurring now, to observed and projected future climate change, but on a limited basis.
Adaptation will be necessary to address impacts resulting from the warming which is already unavoidable due to past emissions.
A wide array of adaptation options is available, but more extensive adaptation than is currently occurring is required to reduce vulnerability to future climate change. There are barriers, limits and costs, but these are not fully understood.
Vulnerability to climate change can be exacerbated by the presence of other stresses.
Future vulnerability depends not only on climate change but also on development pathway.
Sustainable development can reduce vulnerability to climate change, and climate change could impede nations’ abilities to achieve sustainable development pathways.
Many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed by mitigation.
A portfolio of adaptation and mitigation measures can diminish the risks associated with climate change.

Summarising and paraphrasing these, I could come up with the following:

Many of the natural systems in all continents and in most of the oceans are being affected already by global warming. The effects of anthropogenic warming since 1970 are discernible in many physical and biological systems, and upon natural and human environments. The magnitude of these impacts in the future depend on the extent of global warming, and they are very likely to be the result of the frequencies and intensities of extreme weather, and of coastal flooding, which may cause very large impacts especially after the 21st century. Such impacts will vary regionally but collectively they are very likely to impose net annual costs that increase over time as global temperatures continue to rise.
Some adaptation to these changes is occurring already, but on a limited basis. Adaptation will be necessary to address impacts resulting from the warming which is already unavoidable due to past emissions, but more extensive efforts are required to reduce vulnerability to expected future climate change. The barriers, limits and costs of these efforts are not yet fully understood. Vulnerability to climate change can be exacerbated by the presence of other stresses, so future well-being depends not only on climate change but also on other aspects of social change and development strategies. With the best portfolio of mitigation strategies in place, many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed.

That's only a first pass, and is not specific enough regarding food and fresh water security yet. I also haven't been through any other sources at the moment. What I have here could be further condensed to make room for some more food-specific statements, but I would hesitate simply to quote-mine these, preferring to summarise an existing summary. --Nigelj (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response. I agree with your criticism of my edit. I also think that your suggested revision is balanced, but I have a few comments. Personally I don't like AR4's emphasis on "net annual costs". This statement is based on estimates of the social cost of carbon (SCC). Estimates of the SCC are based on weak evidence and are value-laden [3]. I also feel that the SCC is less intuitive than other aggregate measures, like GDP.
Another issue is that AR4 deliberately stresses the negative impacts of climate change since these are viewed as being most policy relevant (see this review (pp.37-40) by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency). I think that this needs to be taken into account.
In my opinion, AR4 Working Group II Chapter 19 is a useful reference for summarizing the social impacts of climate change, particularly the "reasons for concern" section. These reasons for concern also appear in the AR4 Synthesis report. I've put together a revision based on this and a separate paper by authors of Chapter 19. In this revision, I've tried to place greater weight on negative impacts:
"Climate change is expected to have a range of impacts on human society, including increased coastal flooding, reduction in water supplies, and increased malnutrition. Impacts are expected to be uneven. Especially vulnerable regions include small island states and low-latitude, less-developed areas. Impacts will also vary within countries. For example, the poor and elderly are especially vulnerable, even in developed countries. Vulnerable populations are at risk from even small increases in global mean temperature (1.6 to 2.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels). Many risks are expected to increase for higher magnitudes and rates of global warming.
Aggregating the social impacts into a single indicator is difficult. Aggregate measures hide the fact that impacts will vary across different regions and sectors (e.g., health and food production). One global aggregate measure is world GDP. The effects of climate change on the world economy are highly uncertain. Small magnitudes of global warming (0 to 2 °C, relative to pre-industrial levels) could lead to losses or gains in world gross domestic product (GDP). Above around 2.5 °C, most studies suggest losses in world GDP, with greater losses at higher temperatures."
References: IPCC AR4 Chapter 19; Smith et al 2009: Assessing dangerous climate change through an update of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "reasons for concern"
Enescot (talk) 08:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
In the cited reference, I didn't find a prediction of increased malnutrition. The sentence in the revision may have been based on the cited reference's section titled "net aggregate impacts", which listed three examples of impacts which studies have quantified in non-monetary terms: coastal flooding, less water, and worse health.
As a general comment on the wording, the use of "vulnerable" and "risk", without clarifying what the vulnerabilities/risks are, seems abstract and vague. The cited reference uses similar language, and is also vague, but it does expand on the statements with explanations and examples (e.g. dry regions and mega-deltas for regions, extreme weather events like Katrina and the 2003 Euro heat wave for poor or old people).
Agyle (talk) 09:36, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
Increased malnutrition is mentioned in the section on "aggregate impacts" in [4] and appears in the AR4 Synthesis Report: "climate change over the next century is likely to adversely affect hundreds of millions of people through increased coastal flooding, reductions in water supplies, increased malnutrition and increased health impacts."
The opening sentence of my suggested revision gives examples of several risks of climate change. As I'm sure you're aware, the full Working Group II report contains a great deal of information on the risks of climate change. The risks that I included were mentioned in the AR4 Synthesis Report. Risks from climate change are discussed in more detail in effects of global warming and other sub-articles.
In regards to your other comment, the cited source is not vague in its use of terminology. It offers a detailed explanation of how it selects "key vulnerabilities" to and risks from climate change. A definition of "vulnerability" is provided in [5] - "the degree to which a system, subsystem or system component is likely to experience harm due to exposure to a perturbation or source of stress". "Risk management" is explained in [6].
Enescot (talk) 06:52, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Well, those are all sources you didn't mention below the passage. :-) My point on vagueness was just to provide feedback that your wording is at risk. (<-- facetious example...but doesn't it make you wonder "at risk of what?") Seriously though, just feedback, take it or leave it, no need for a lawyerly defense. ––Agyle (talk) 12:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
My mistake. I do appreciate your comments. As you say, my edit could be improved by explaining the risks of climate change more clearly.
As other editors have commented, there's only a month until the new IPCC impact assessment is published. It might be worth delaying further discussion until then.
Enescot (talk) 06:56, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Good read/discussion on climate science and IPCC

A couple of links. Some of which may be citable.

This APS discussion is pretty in depth with a number of presenters about IPCC. Each particpant has a presentation and the discussion at the end is rather enlightening as the IPCC authors discuss where the science is lacking and what they want in terms of money (i.e. weather balloons in remote areas). They go over a number of the areas where the model and observation do not correlate and why. APS reviews it's position statement every 5 years. As a general rule, I'd suspect they are sceptical in the process but the final statement will probably not be as sceptical as they ask tough questions. It's good because mainstream lead IPCC authors are discussing the sausage making without the SPM cloud and can be open and direct where they feel the error is and the so-called "sceptics" also bring up their concerns. They are not particularly far from each other.

The experts (sorry for caps, cut and paste): DR. JOHN CHRISTY, DR. WILLIAM COLLINS, DR. JUDITH CURRY, DR. ISAAC HELD, DR. RICHARD LINDZEN, DR. BENJAMIN SANTER The APU APS members all seemed like the no BS types with impressive credentials in physics, climate or modelling. I'd point out that, at least in the transcript (even though they disagree to an extent but not as much as the press or our articles would have the public believe), it's enlightening to read about what they admit and concede to others. One of the things I learned was apparently a paper/research into measured vertical heating profiles and model predictions which I hadn't heard before.

Out of that came PCMDI group which was formed to shore up climate models from disciplines that do modeling more intensely than traditional climatologists. They developed CMIP5 model (and CMIP3, I believe) which is where all the forcings are derived. CMIP5 was intended to be accurate at a decade level for hindcast and forecast (there also a AMIP allued to, but I haven't found it). The coupled ocean-air model seems to be most accurate when the ocean temps are forced to observation (Xie et al) but it's mentioned in the APS meeting. It seemed there was a little resentment about PCMDI formation from the IPCC folks as it was formed to assess the numerical methods and models used (and ended up standardizing it all). The IPCC group believed they were an oil advocacy group. -DHeyward (talk) 04:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

all seemed like the no BS types WTF!?! Is that your description, or has someone competent actually said it? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
I expect you need to read that in context. Among so-called sceptics, Lindzen and Christy are some of the less weird ones. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Civility Bill. Keep it civil. 71.8.61.207 (talk) 13:31, 26 February 2014 (UTC)Jesse
That was my impression of the questions and academic positions that were held by the APS members of the committee. They asked questions that got pretty candid responses from all the climate experts invited. In other words, it wasn't like Congressional testimony or screeds on blogs, it was scientists talking to other scientists about strengths and areas necessary to improve. I expected APS' sharp questioning of IPCC though I don't think the questioning will change their statement, it's just good inquiry like a dissertation defense. I'll take APS questioning William Collins over Jim Inhofe any day. Do you have insight into the APS committee members that would refine that assessment? --DHeyward (talk) 13:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks D. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 12:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)jesse

WP:NOTFORUM, what is the article improvement being proposed? If there is none this section needs to be collapsed. Regards. Gaba (talk) 16:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
As stated, it's two sources. One is a very long piece that has climate scientists discussing the topic (with external references). The other is a link the organization that crafted and developed models. I chose to post on talk so others can read rather than quote mine it. Both are topically relevant to this and other climate related articles. Why do you think any of that is a "forum?" There is no advocacy or debate here. --DHeyward (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Sure sounds like you are just promoting their point of view without tying what you read there to a possible article improvement. And that sounds like the definition of external linkspam. WP:NOTFORUM WP:SOAP and WP:LINKFARM all seem to apply. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Promoting William Collins point of view? The lead author of IPCC AR5 chapter 9 and AR4 chapter on projections? I just added an external link in the article to PCMDI as the model developers. I gleaned that directly from the transcript. Try reading it. It's informative. --DHeyward (talk) 16:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
I might look at it if a specific suggestion for article improvement is based upon it. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi NAEG. It should be good for science editors to keep up with the relevant science. Additionally, the American Physical Society should be better focused on science and far less biased than Advocacy blogs that are often referenced. 71.8.61.207 (talk) 13:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC) Jesse
Page 21, Collins very articulately defines what forcings mean (i.e. they are model outputs, not observations. Input to models are concentrations). We can use that to clean up our references to forcings. It's a subtle update. He also bounds the problem to the tropopause (not really stated in our article but is part of "fingerprint" as tropopause is where the adiabatic cooling gradient inverts to warming in the stratosphere). Slightly different than TOA where TSI is used.
Page 92, quote from collins "Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small. " I hate quotes in articles but Collins is a reliable source (I doubt he believes there will be a 20 year hiatus and his field is modeling, I believe, not data collection). That is a reliably sourced statement that I think should bound the hiatus projection. That's just one. I haven't time right now to find it, but there was good presentation/discussion on the future models and measurements needed as well as some focus on stratosphere and the boundary problem of the tropopause (modeling was presented as a boundary value problem with a terminus at the tropopause and the tropo/strato dipole). --DHeyward (talk) 18:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like that to me at all. In any case, WP:AGF. The proposal is for us to consider whether or not the cited sources is important enough to cite in the article, and if so in what context. We should discuss that, instead of hastily closing the issue. Is this source reputable? What statements in the article does it back up? Should any part of the article be rewritten in light of this source? The answers to all of these question may be no, but the proposal was made seriously and politely and deserves to be answered seriously and politely. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Your mileage may vary, but usually I think one who presents a source with advocacy-verbiage of this sort should at least attempt to answer at least one of those questions, if their goal is appropriate use of the talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
This like many other (if not all) articles related to the climate change topic are constantly being filled with sections like this one which do not make a specific proposal to improve the article and instead present "ideas" or most of the time simple rants. This only serves to clutter the talk page with walls of text which end up discouraging new editors from getting involved. From WP:NOTFORUM:
...talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles. Talk pages are not mere general discussion pages about the subject of the article, nor are they a helpdesk for obtaining instructions or technical assistance. Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal per the talk page guidelines.
(emphasis added) So no, this is not the place to present sources without giving absolutely no context as to what specific part of the article they should be used upon and how. If no edit proposal is made this section needs to be closed. Regards. Gaba (talk) 17:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
And if you pay too much attention it keeps you from making actual article improvements. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
This is a transcript from an APS meeting of 3 mainstream climatologists and 3 so-called "sceptics" all with excellent credentials presenting to a board of APS committee members, all with excellent credentials. APS shose the participants and directed questions to them. It is an excellent source for both supporting IPCC's SPM and noting where it is lacking from multiple viewpoints. It is not a policy paper (is that the real objection?) In addition the invitees acknowledge where they leave their realm of expertise (i.e. the AR5 chapter 9 author does not/cannot defend "more than half" because that's not in his realm. Curry also defines the limit of her expertise and does not comment on a number of things). It puts into perspective exactly where criticism and praise is deserved. It appears you are dismissing this as some sort of advocacy piece but I am not clear as to what you think it advocates. Are you contending that the APS with it's 50,000 members and largest physics society in the U.S. and second largest in the world has an agenda? If so, please state what you think it is. This was a transcript of a meeting with scientists with lots of useful information that is on the talk page for editors to peruse for usable information (both in terms of references and statements). Mostly, it's useful to direct editors to the supporting documents. As I said, I already made one edit based on it, and two other proposals using only a single climatologist. Please state what you think the objection to the source is and why it shouldn't be on the talk page for editors to reference and peruse while formulating changes? It's recent and reliable. --DHeyward (talk) 20:05, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't believe it's usable as a reference, though. Basically, the reliable source policy requires editorial control for a source to be considered a reliable source. This particular document is an unedited transcript, which by definition has no editorial control. Furthermore, it is, I think, pretty unequivocally a primary source, which not generally usable as reliable sources. Sailsbystars (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Of Course, it's not presented that way. It does, however, have references to material that notable climatologists deem pertinent (like the reference to the model developers and the reference to vertical temperature profiles). The climatologists support their positions with referenced and peer reviewed literature. In addition, it is a source for the climatologists themselves. --DHeyward (talk) 20:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Hello Gaba and NAEG. Wow! Are you guys kidding? This is front line stuff. It captivates the science-literate among us far better than the re-packaged babblings of second and third hand sources. To a Talk Page newbie, these are not mere "walls of text." They are beacons to draw in science-minded new editors. Some time to aliquot and discuss the purveyed material is needed. 75.139.42.110 (talk) 19:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Jesse
DHeyward could you please point me to the two edits being proposed in this thread please? Thank you. Gaba (talk) 19:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Sure [7]. They are presented as a source first as I suspect wording and location will need discussion. I don't like direct quotes so paraphrasing in the appropriate section is preferred. The source is reliable. And that's only through one presentation. I also added the external link already that I gleaned. There will be more (both direct and as a result of reference) as I (and others hopefully) review it. --DHeyward (talk) 20:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
(A) Re your page 21 Collins quote, I am happy with the IPCC AR5 WG1 glossary definition that reads "External forcing: External forcing refers to a forcing agent outside the climate system causing a change in the climate system. Volcanic eruptions, solar variations and anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere and land use change are external forcings. Orbital forcing is also an external forcing as the insolation changes with orbital parameters eccentricity, tilt and precession of the equinox.",
(B) Also re the page 21 bit, since you claim math & modeling expertise D your tech speak might be able to improve the more detailed article on this specific subtopic, i.e., the "main article" Climate model.
(C) Re your page 92 Collins quote described by you as a "statement that I think should bound the hiatus projection", huh? What do you mean "bound the hiatus projection"? Do we discuss hiatus projections someplace? If not, how exactly do you propose to improve the article on the basis of that quote?
(D) If this is an RS, what about faculty meeting minutes from my university's various departments, and that of the other dozens of colleges in my state? In my view, if the material presented in this transcript really does have WP:WEIGHT then there should be additional and less questionable RSs to use instead. Of course, if they can not be found, then maybe the premise of relevance and weight is faulty. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
DHeyward thank you but I still don't see any proposed edit in that comment. Could you perhaps make the edit you are talking about in the article and then self-rv so we can see clearly what it is? Right now all I see are vague references to snippets of text in a non-WP:RS which is definitely not a proposal to improve the article. Regards. Gaba (talk) 21:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of "Etymology" section (or complete rewrite)

I had a go at tidying up the "Etymology" section, but I found all of the information in the section to be either wrong, or unverifiable:

1. There is a claim, based on a couple of sources, that the first use of the term "global warming" was in Broeker's 1975 Science paper. While this is verifiable based on the sources, it is also clearly wrong. A 5 minute search turns up multiple much older papers using the term "global warming" in very much the modern sense e.g. here is one from 1961: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1961.tb50036.x/asset/j.1749-6632.1961.tb50036.x.pdf?v=1&t=hs7ionk4&s=084326cfda11928d139529fde573339a26b630fc. It seems to be based originally on a WebofScience search on the RealClimate blog, which is a fairly dreadful way of establishing the first use of the term.

2. The next part of the section is a claim that the first time the National Academy of Science used the term "global warming" was in a 1979 report, but the cited source (Conway's article on the NASA website) does not say this is the first time, so a citation is needed for this. In my opinion this claim may well not be correct (especially since the term had been in use in the scientific community for at least 18 years by that point) - but it is actually quite a hard thing to know what the first usage of the term within this particular organisation is, and I certainly can't find any reliable sources.

3. Finally, there is the claim the that Jim Hansen popularised the term after his testimony to Congress. As far as I can tell, this is just the opinion of a NASA historian on a NASA scientist. There is no justification for it e.g. an observed spike in usage directly after June 1988. At best we can say "According to Erik Conway, the term 'global warming' was popularised after the June 1988 testimony of Jim Hansen..."

I think it is clear that, with current citations, 1 and 2 should be removed, leaving a whole section for the opinion of Erik Conway that the term 'global warming' was popularised after Hansen's testimony, with no empirical backing for the statement.

I think the options then are either to remove the section completely, or find sources that discuss the etymology and rewrite the section using those. Currently, the section is unacceptably poor in my opinion. Atshal (talk) 14:28, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed; can't see the point of the section. It seems to be being used as a sort of pseudo-history section William M. Connolley (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Agree with respect to the treatment of the issue in its present form, though I may explore the topic some other way here or elsewhere later. But the present text isn't that helpful, I agree. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:08, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Agree. The concept of having an Etymology section, though, is good. 71.8.61.207 (talk) 05:33, 1 March 2014 (UTC)Jesse
I have removed most of the section, leaving only the Conway claim, to make it easier for people to add to the section an rebuild it. Atshal (talk) 14:16, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

On a more general topic..

(Redacted) 41.130.213.196 (talk) 13:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

While these may be correct statements or worthy objectives, they don't seem to have anything to do with etymology, so I've added a header. Without reliable published sources, we can't add anything about this to the article: do you have sources in mind? . . dave souza, talk 21:15, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks like it's a close paraphrase of some stuff floating around on the internet, so I redacted it as a likely copy vio... Sailsbystars (talk) 01:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Climate models

I have been under the impression that climate models have OVER estimated observed surface temps, but UNDER estimate sea ice loss.

The physical realism of models is tested by examining their ability to simulate contemporary or past climates.[132] Climate models produce a good match to observations of global temperature changes over the last century, but do not simulate all aspects of climate.[133] Not all effects of global warming are accurately predicted by the climate models used by the IPCC. Observed Arctic shrinkage has been faster than that predicted.[134] Precipitation increased proportional to atmospheric humidity, and hence significantly faster than global climate models predict.[135][136]

This doesn't reflect the latest IPCC explanation.


http://www.thegwpf.org/ipcc-draft-lowers-global-warming-projections/

Since this is a "Talk" section, I'm throwing this out there and hoping someone more versed in climate models will correct this or confirm the wording as acceptable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.238.198.56 (talk) 00:33, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Clue – the Global Warming Policy Foundation is a denialist publicity stunt with no scientific credibility, and is not a reliable source. Please present your own proposals for improvements to article wording, and cite the IPCC AR5 itself showing page numbers so that the context can be checked. If you want to cite commentary on the AR5, find a better commentator. . . 21:22, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
That shows your ignorance Clue. They are a skeptic organization, and the information should have been all the scientific credibility you needed. It is obvious that they were familiar with the work of Stroeve and Scambos on the Arctic Ice Cap, and that you aren't. Otherwise you would know that the models were 30 years behind the melting in 2006, even before the 2007 loss of much of the perennial ice, and that their more recent work shows the models are still doing poorly.
"Observations indicate a downward trend in September Arctic sea ice extent from 1953–2006 that is larger than any of the IPCC AR4 simulations, and current summer minima are approximately 30 years ahead of the ensemble mean model forecast." Arctic sea ice decline: Faster than forecast Julienne Stroeve, et al GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L09501, doi: 10.1029/2007GL029703, 2007
Don't be so clueless Clue. Here is a quote from Stroeve “The actual rate of sea ice loss in March, about 1.8 percent per decade in the 1953 to 2006 period, was three times larger than the mean from the computer models,” Poodleboy (talk) 20:05, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Clueless, here is the more recent Stroeve publication I referred to:
"We show here that as a group, simulated trends from the models contributing to CMIP5 are more consistent with observations over the satellite era (1979–2011). Trends from most ensemble members and models nevertheless remain smaller than the observed value. Pointing to strong impacts of internal climate variability, 16% of the ensemble member trends over the satellite era are statistically indistinguishable from zero. Results from the CMIP5 models do not appear to have appreciably reduced uncertainty as to when a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean will be realized." Citation: Stroeve, J. C.,V.Kattsov, A. Barrett, M. Serreze, T. Pavlova, M. Holland, and W. N. Meier (2012), Trends in Arctic sea ice extent from CMIP5, CMIP3 and observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L16502, doi:10.1029/2012GL052676.
Poodleboy (talk) 20:22, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Social impacts of climate change

I've previously criticized [8] the section of the article that describes the impacts of climate change on food production (global warming#Food security). Now that the IPCC 5th Assessment Impacts report has been published [9], I suggest that the entire social impacts section be revised. In my view, important areas of the IPCC report include the "key risks" of climate change listed on p.12 of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), and the risks organized into 5 "reasons for concern" (p.13 of the SPM). The FAQs is another useful source. I suggest that the new revision be based upon this information. Enescot (talk) 07:11, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Once this is done, this section here needs also a few lines with the new data (currently does not acknowledge food, water, energy security and inequility as a cause for civil unrest) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change_on_humans#Security Related IPCC Climate Change Report The Five Key Points Prokaryotes (talk) 16:39, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Unequivocal?

Is is really necessary to use the word unequivocal in the first sentence? I think it's on the redundant side. A better read would be: "Global warming refers to the continuing rise in the average temperature of Earth's climate system." --IamGlobalTemp (talk) 00:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

been discussed before. Got off track though... Sailsbystars (talk) 01:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
The inclusion of that word in the opening sentence also jars with me too. While, it is true that the warming of the Earth is 'unequivocal', or at least close to it, including the word in the opening sentence makes the article instantly seem confrontational, and does not need to be included in any definition of global warming. The level of evidence is apparent and discussed numerous times within the article. Including the word 'unequivocal' in the opening sentence certainly makes the article seem less neutral for anybody reading it (in my opinion), and is a shame since the rest of article on the whole is very good. Atshal (talk) 14:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Here is one alternative... see the first couple paragraphs at Talk:Global_warming/Archive_69#Attempted_Lead_Rewrite NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:59, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

That suggestion is well written, but I think would be more appropriate for a climate change article, rather than global warming. My suggestion would be simply to change the opening sentence to "Global warming refers to the recent rise in the average temperature of Earth's climate system." That to me is a simple and uncontroversial definition to begin the article with. Atshal (talk) 14:39, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Should "Evidence of global warming" really redirect to "Attribution of climate change"?

In my view, the new redirect Evidence of global warming ---->>> Attribution of recent climate change was done in GF but little knowledge and probably shouldn't have said that, sorry the result is an WP:EGG. There is a difference between

A. Evidence that the place is getting hotter, e.g. "evidence of global warming", and B. Evidence that it is caused mostly by us, or by pink unicorn farts, or whatever, e.g. "evidence supporting the attribution of global warming"

I was going to fix that myself, but I am unsure of a good place that would be a better redirect. That got me to wondering if Evidence of global warming should be turned into an article of its own. Thoughts? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:24, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I created this redirect because of pages like evidence of common descent. And since "attribution" clearly discusses evidence that global warming is man-made rather than just that it is occurring, I guess it might make sense to retarget it to instrumental temperature record or something like that. Jinkinson talk to me 18:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I think that the equivalent of 'evidence of common descent' would be 'evidence of man-made global warming'. The benefit to the encyclopedia of creating random, and slightly wrong, redirects is less clear. --Nigelj (talk) 20:48, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Alright, I retargeted it as I proposed above; I hope you're happy. Jinkinson talk to me 22:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 April 2014 I don't want to edit this article.. I just need it for homework please.

--97.96.223.153 (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2014 (UTC)--97.96.223.153 (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2014 (UTC)--97.96.223.153 (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to edit this article.. I just need it for homework please.←§ 97.96.223.153 (talk) 11:06, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

No request needed for that -- good luck with your homework. Vsmith (talk) 11:14, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Combining of all WG1 2013 Summary report Refs?

Though, i updated all the broken PDF links to the first draft release of the Summary for Policymakers report, now pointing to the landing page http://www.climatechange2013.org/spm of said report. However, reference page numbers might be off(didn't checked on a case by case basis). To slim down on references i suggest to use only 1 reference for all the summary 2013 links. However, if we do this, page numbers would be gone. Good or bad idea? Prokaryotes (talk) 17:39, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

With footnotes it would be possible to add page numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NAMEDREF#Footnotes:_page_numbers Prokaryotes (talk) 03:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
There is also a citation template for the IPCC WG1 report. prokaryotes (talk) 19:27, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Simple edit

WP:SOAP is WP:SOAP, regardless of POV. Except for a minor thing now fixed this thread lacks article-improvement ideas. Click 'show' to read anyway

Spending some time looking at past edits on this article, I applaud the wiki editors who have put up with so many AGW denialists. I just wanted this part of the intro to read "interGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change" instead of "interNATIONAL Panel on Climate Change." Just click the link to the wiki IPCC article or go to the IPCC's website. The Talk [[10]] has some folks citing the Global Warming Policy Foundation and talking about how the models have over predicted change. That's a freqent denialist tack. While models (and there are many of them) have both over AND underpredicted different changes resulting from global warming, the evidence suggests the IPCC (which uses an ensemble of different models) has more frequently UNDERpredicted changes. Here's the cite for that claim--Brysse, K., Oreskes, N., O’Reilly, J., Oppenheimer, M., 2013. Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? Global Environmental Change 23, 327–337. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008--and I can send if you can't find a copy.

I also get a bad feeling with these folks who want to parse the difference between "global warming" and "climate change." They are used interchangeably. Global warming is the heating up of the globe (land and sea surface, ocean, cryosphere) by humans. Climate change is the same thing, though usually has a connotation more on the effects of a heating planet. Global warming was the dominant phrase up until right wingers figured out that "global warming" made it sound like climate scientists knew what they were talking about while "climate change" made it sound wishy-washy, like they were uncertain. There's a memo that the republican strategist frank luntz wrote where he encouraged republicans to use "climate change." Here's a link to a Guardian article talking on that Luntz memo. Bobbywego (talk) 02:28, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

As suggested in this thread, I fixed the name of the IPCC. However, the rest of the thread is unhelpful WP:SOAP and WP:FORUM. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:27, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

definition of IPCC 2014 of climate change

Gibberish and collapsed as WP:FORUM since there is no IPCC 2014 def of "climate change" in the article. Click 'show' to read anyway

has so many "ors". Is this for IPCC's safety due to whims (or guesses) they are implicated upon? Besides what is pointed in each item connected by OR here must bring heavy weight scientific proof that it bestows real "climate change" otherwise again IPCC is in the brain storming guessing game. And why do they again go back to blame anthropogenic disturbance (due to C02)? because of the high % and if the rest does not have a significant contribution then why include it in their definition. Are you not perplexed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.21.81 (talk) 05:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Besides using =OR= means that each item can stand independently as a sole source of climate change. Did you not find that a bit crazy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.21.81 (talk) 05:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

`You are referring to climate change definition 2010 of ipcc current only a few "or" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.68.218.218 (talk) 09:22, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Off topic, since there is no such definition in the article. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:12, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Article issues

Since my recent edits got reverted i ask to address them here, rather than reintroducing false, outdated data, sorting and broken Refs. I will re-add content which is deemed necessary but believe most edits have been an improvement. prokaryotes (talk) 23:05, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Summary of recent page content edits

  • Volcanism is not an external forcing (wrong conclusion)
  • Particulates and soot is not an external forcing. (Apparently is both)
  • Human actions are not an external forcing (AR5 glossary = Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.)
  • This part only lists "external forcings, for climate responses, doesn't mention human attribution (scope)
  • This part suggest we are not within an Ice Age.
  • This part suggest again that there is no human attribution.
  • The section "Initial causes of temperature changes (external forcings)", falsely lists greenhouse gases as an external forcing.
  • This edit updated a AR3 conclusion, which is no longer valid.
  • This edit corrects a misleading value.

Improvements

Edits which have been criticized

If anything from these edits is wrong, point it out, rather than reverting everything. prokaryotes (talk) 23:22, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Also notice when you look at the cites, that i moved sections and renamed section titles (in particular "Initial causes of temperature changes (external forcings)", to better reflect the science. prokaryotes (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion
Revert to this edit (includes "Ship track img", and address issues here on a case by case basis. prokaryotes (talk) 23:59, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

(A)It's hard for the rest of us to deal with shotgun pellet editing. The BBs come faster than we can think about them. Although lots of climate hawks think the issue is an emergency, our writing about it is not in crisis mode. So the first problem is a process problem, in the nature of the rapid rate of tweaking.
(B)While others may look at details immediately, I will take more detailed time tomorrow or later in the week. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:29, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
I understand that this is not a crisis mode, but wrongs should be corrected and i would rather replace my edits and address them on a case by case basis, than to have them all removed. This should be clear from looking up specific cites of interests. Thanks. prokaryotes (talk) 23:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Please let us know when you're done tweaking the menu of things to talk about. Alternatively, organize the long list with section headings. When you string a whole lot of christmas lights together and keep fiddling, it makes it impossible to have meaningful discussion. Suggest studying WP:TALK for tips. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, you complained in your revert about the image removal, i suggested to keep it, if you have any other issue with my edits (see edit history or above case-by-case cites i added to make it easier for you). If this isn't enough for you I'm sorry but if you revert with claiming there are issues, you have to address them. prokaryotes (talk) 02:14, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Please quote the words by which I complained about image removal specifically. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:37, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
In your edit summary? At least that's what i get when you refer to dimming, since i only changed the image there(removed it). prokaryotes (talk) 02:38, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
You really think this only removed an image? I'd like to work thru this stuff, but its going to take some good communication (and more time than I have right now). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:55, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
What else do you suggest i removed "beside this image"? And btw. if you do not have time now, then you maybe shouldn't get involved. However, if you have issue with the edit "we can keep it" (Also, i went to the NASA site and couldn't find the article about this image there on their archive page from May 2005). If you have any other issue with the recent edits i ask you to refer exactly to the specific cites. prokaryotes (talk) 09:34, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
If I may attempt to reduce confusion, I believe what NewsAndEventsGuy is objecting to in that particular edit is the addition of {{Main|Global dimming}} to the Particulates and Soot section. Novusuna talk 09:40, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
The ship tracks article can be found here, i've updated the image link. (NASA doesn't list the photo on their archive page) prokaryotes (talk) 09:47, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
I see no problem with including the link to dimming there, since the entire section is about this term, other related articles could be added there as well. It might could read "See also", however this isn't really a reason to revert all the edits. prokaryotes (talk) 09:53, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

"Volcanism is not an external forcing" is wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2014 (UTC) e/c

Ok! I just look through the new IPCC 8Cpater 11) and found this definition "‘External forcing’ is a term used by climate scientists to refer to a forcing agent outside the climate system causing a change in the climate system. This includes increases in the concentration of long-lived greenhouse gases." I still looking for more up to date info on this. prokaryotes (talk) 14:08, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
So, the problem you have there is that you've read their words but you haven't understood them William M. Connolley (talk) 14:43, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Notice that volcanic activity on long time scales appears not to be an external forcing and it also appears to depend if a volcano is active or not? However, you are the last person who seems to have any interest to be constructive. The entire discussion here could have been more streamlined if you had stated in your edit summary what you wrote 24 hours later here (without any cite, lol). Maybe be more precise the next time? prokaryotes (talk) 15:12, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Diff to this series of edits

Current reasons for objection (I may notice others later)

  • IPCC used to define Volcanism as external and so far as I know they still do. Discussed before here
  • New heading "natural causes of temperature changes" would have expanded scope of section to include all natural feedbacks (e.g., permafrost outgassing naturally outgassing in response to an external forcing). That is a large structural change that is not an improvement.
  • The edit summary asserts that human changes are not an external forcing. Unless IPCC changed that def in AR5, IPCC says differently in the AR4 glossary for "External forcing"
  • Some of the text that would have resulted included this External climate forcings include, the Milankovitch cycles, the variations in Earth's orbit around the Sun. The solar insolation, is the total amount of solar radiation (sunlight) received by Earth. in which there are multipled messy grammar errors that makes the text very hard to read and unprofessional-looking.

Suggested way to proceed

Discuss desired structural & organizational changes here first. You might consider either posting draft text here, or doing a large one-shot change as a demo edit, and then self reverting. That produces a diff to the proposal without going "live" until there's an agreement in principle that the structure/organization needs to change. I'm actually glad you brought it up, because I do think we could make the material more accessible to the average reader. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:46, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, NewsAndEventsGuy for taking the time to explain now in detail what was at issue. prokaryotes (talk) 14:25, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Notice the topic is brought up here (updated, per AR5) as well, and here (Requires attention, sorted per AR5, though not entirely sure about tectonics.). prokaryotes (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  • This edit also falls in this group. I think IPCC uses "external forcing" and "internal variability" and although we've got external "forcing" sources of CO2 from humans and volcanos (and other?), does IPCC call CO2 related to climate change feedback a "forcing". I realize the RC blog does do that, and they are certainly experts in the field. Comments? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

FYI I created a draft, beginning with the external links section, here. prokaryotes (talk) 14:25, 16 April 2014 (UTC) While I might have overstepped WP:TPOC, I inserted a section heading and slightly tweaked Prokaryotes text so it makes sense with the new section heading. Please revert if objectionable NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:46, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Any comment on the external links? I'll wait till you are back. prokaryotes (talk) 15:03, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Ext Links - Descriptive text

Prokaryotes draft would omit the descriptive text for the various ext links. I don't have super strong feelings about it. It seems sorta helpful, but it does add bytes to an already long article. Thoughts, anyone? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:14, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Please use my draft version, you forgot links and deleted a link i moved. I could adjust the formatting. prokaryotes (talk) 14:59, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
I haven't yet compared the old-version/new-version links under "education" heading. May do that tomorrow. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2014 (UTC) Now done.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Ext Links - education section

I think Prokaryotes wants to delete these five, which I have cut and pasted from the article.

Comments? Should any/all be restored to the article? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Reverted changes to feedbacks and models section

Diff to this series of edits

  • I tweaked the section heading and added Climate sensitivity as an additional "main" article like you wished.
  • For starters, what do the RSs say about "internal forcing". IPCC seems to use the phrase "internal variability" a lot. In the RSs, is there a difference between "internal forcing" and "internal variability", or are these phrases synonyms used by different scientific writers as we try to firm up the technical meaning of the vocabulary we use? Any insight, @William M. Connolley:?
  • I think I have more to say, depending on the answer to the prior question.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:42, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Abrupt climate change section

Reasons

  • Permafrost is not exclusively in the arctic circle. Resist desire to cram in favorite WP:OVERLINKS
  • Whereas IPCC said "liklihood is low" in a prior report, and in AR5 said there is "low confidence and no consensus" on liklihood under existing research, and while IPCC did identify various things that could be impacted and ways they could be impacted, the reverted text injects much more certainty than IPCC stated. I'm happy covering these things and the efforts being made to establish "high confidence and consensus" about them in NPOV fashion. But this edit doesn't do that.
  • Prior wordsmithing was just fine

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

1st paragraph, rise in air temp

This is a WP:FORUM and is not about article improvement by the IP's own admission. Click "show" to read anyway

"Since the early 20th century, the global air and sea surface temperature has increased about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980"

The graph to the right clearly show a 1.0 change (from below -0.4, 1905-1910) to 0.6 (2000-2014) The value for 1980 is 0.2, making the changes 40% since 1980, and not 66%.

Just another lie for the GWH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.182.117.192 (talk) 00:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

ah, I see that the season for picking cherries has started early this year! Slight point in that it's 2/3 since the 1970s, not necessarily since 1980. Sailsbystars (talk) 04:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I take that to mean that you admit, that the article overview contains lies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.182.117.192 (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Did you notice the citation at the end of the sentence you quote: 'America's Climate Choices. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. 2011. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-309-14585-5. "The average temperature of the Earth's surface increased by about 1.4 °F (0.8 °C) over the past 100 years, with about 1.0 °F (0.6 °C) of this warming occurring over just the past three decades."' --Nigelj (talk) 21:46, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Again: A simple math argument shows the claim in the first paragraph to be wrong. Yes, I've noticed the citation, which is irrelevant, because the claim is still WRONG. Notice that the replies to my claim do not invalidate it, admit it in fact, than calls ME cherry-picker. hmm.

I'm not trying to fix this, because the whole article is clearly biased to anyone going outside of wiki's scope. I'm just documenting, for prosperity, just how bad scientists can distort facts and how useless wiki has become on any current-research issue. what a shame. this is also why I'm not using signing the comment. Its about wiki, not me.

About 2 years ago I've added into "talk" a question about how long of a period of no warming is needed so that it will actually be discussed in the main article. We're now up to 18 years, so any high school graduate can see from satellite data that there was zero trend since he was born. Of course, it is STILL not here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.25.121.195 (talk) 16:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

New GW Article "Climate Resilience"

Please visit and comment at Talk:Climate_resilience#Scope of article "Climate resilience" vs "Adaptation to global warming" NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Continuing?

Given none of the graphs on this page show a warming after 1998 in what sense can the intro honestly say "continuing"? I am not a climate change skeptic and I think warming is ongoing on theoretical grounds but the fact is that strong evidence for warming after 1998 is currently lacking and no empirical evidence for warming post 1998 is shown on the page. The intro should be agreement with presented evidence within the pageTullimonstrum (talk) 09:52, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Drawing your own conclusion from the image, instead of relying on what the experts say in the RSs, is WP:Original research, isn't it? Please see Global warming hiatus.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:16, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
An aside, that trope may die an ugly death this year. El Nino looks like it may be back with a vengeance. Of course, then we'll have the "no warming since 2014" trope. Sailsbystars (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Needs disambig. I assume you mean this kind of trope, since there has been no "pause" in earth's out-of-whack Radiative balance. For the OP, see e.g. this and thisNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
It's probably too late in the year to set a record this year, but maybe 2015.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Maybe we should add this table (the warmest years), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Warmest_years - prokaryotes (talk) 14:19, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
It's important to remember that Wikipedia is based on consensus. On issues like this, that means the consensus of what the active editors say that the broader consensus is. Arriving at logical conclusions based upon widely-available facts is considered original research, and is therefore repugnant to the principles of Wikipedia. Dispassionately reporting facts that might lead a reader to reach a contrary conclusion, especially on controversial topics, is similarly to be avoided - lest the reader be misled as to the consensus view of the truth. John2510 (talk) 15:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Also be clear that the famous "hiatus" is in surface temperatures over a very short timescale, it's not evenly distributed with the fastest surface warming in areas which don't show in some series, and ocean temperatures have continued to increase. As the "hiatus" article indicates. Also, the "hiatus" has been a slowdown in the rate of increase of warming, but it's still been warming last I saw. . dave souza, talk 16:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I am not saying the last decade isn't the warmest on record, I am not saying that the radiative balance has suddenly improved. I am not saying there has not some southern oscillation effect going on. I am just saying as a matter of empirical fact that there is no observed upward trend in the unadjusted data since 1998/2000 so saying "continuing" RIGHT NOW is a trifle misleading "Dispassionately reporting facts that might lead a reader to reach a contrary conclusion, especially on controversial topics, is similarly to be avoided - lest the reader be misled as to the consensus view of the truth." I though dispassionately reporting facts was NPOV. But even ignoring that, wow, just wow... Tullimonstrum (talk) 16:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

John tries to be sarcastic. As for "no observed upward trend in the unadjusted data", I'm not quite sure what you mean. You need some kind of adjustment just to arrive at a global temperature. If you mean the data plotted in File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg, that depends entirely on the smoothing process. The NASA temperature reconstruction has a known problem with covering the polar regions - if one corrects for that, the "hiatus" vanishes. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:18, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Tries? I thought I was reasonably successful at being sarcastic. The fact that one could confuse my sarcasm with the reality of Wikipedia (at least on controversial political articles like this one) says a lot about the proximity of my snark to the reality of Wikipedia. The suppression of materials setting forth the minority view, even where clearly labeled as such, hurt its credibility. John2510 (talk) 20:16, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Pardon? Regrettably, my irony meter is broken and I'm unable to see how your snark has contributed anything to improving this article. Better to read the weatherunderground article linked below, which neatly covers some of the points I discussed. . dave souza, talk 21:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
My contribution is to suggest that folks consider the benefit of including, at least in passing, objective statements of opposing views, even if they don't concur with them. It should scare anyone, especially in a science article, that people seem literally afraid to mention arguments in support of an opposing viewpoint. The "consensus" is against such objectivity. Editors don't believe that their proofs stand on their own merits and the reader can find the truth. Instead, the reader must be protected from somehow straying from the consensus view. I accept that I'm not going to change that in the current pool of active editors. John2510 (talk) 17:39, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
I'd advise editors proposing changes to comply fully with WP:TALK and provide good sources supporting specific suggestions for article improvement. Your vague hand-waving seems unduly simplistic, but without draft wording backed by good third party sources it's hard to tell what you're proposing. . dave souza, talk 19:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
Here is weatherunderground's discussion of the hiatus-is-an-error-in-the-data point Stephan raised. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
@Tullimonstrum (talk · contribs) I grant our article's lead & images in the lead might do better job of covering the "continuing" nature of the warming, but you've left me quite confused with your approach. Since for you the issue is our treatment of RIGHT NOW, and since you value NPOV, then let's rewind the thread, let's do a good job of focussing on RS content. Thus far, you haven't discussed any RS content, and so I can't tell if you have read them. (I'm generally not persuaded by mere claims of familiarity.) SUGGESTION: After you yourself have read the major RSs in Global warming, Global warming hiatus, and this very thread, what does your statement "I am not saying that the radiative balance has suddenly improved" mean ? Do you somehow think we're still gaining energy at 4 Hiroshima bombs per second without warming up? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
His point, as I understand it, is that the very graphs appearing in this article (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg) show flat temperature change over approximately a ten year period. Maybe the whole Hiroshima bomb hyperbole is wrong (and, BTW, can anyone imagine a more inflammatory, fear mongering metaphor?). That, or the graph's broken. I'm betting it's the latter. John2510 (talk) 03:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
See Global warming hiatus, and note that by "flat" you apparently mean the temperature record between 1997 and 2012 showed only a very slight warming trend of about 0.05 Celsius degrees per decade. Only relatively flat. As Masters says, "filling in the temperature record gaps brings the trend up to 0.12 Celsius degrees per decade, in line with the long-term climate trends, and You shouldn’t just focus on periods of 10 or 15 years when you look at climate change," .... "Climate is defined as a period of 30 years or longer, and we expect to see ups and downs in 10- or 15-year periods. So we shouldn’t pay too much attention to slowdowns or speed-ups during these relatively short periods of time." Perhaps you'd like to see a graph showing Cowtan and Way's assessment filling in the gaps? Alternatively, wait a bit. . . dave souza, talk 06:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Huh... Yeah, flat wasn't really the right word, because it actually seems to have gone down between 2001 and 2012, unless yall's chart is wrong. Just out of curiosity, when did this "you can't just look at 15 years" theory first get proposed? Because I can remember when there were all these straight line progression predictions 10 to 15 years ago, and no one was saying anything about that then. I always thought science worked on making a hypothesis and then seeing how the data worked out, not the other way around. The climate change folks are starting to sound like the religious nuts who say the world is going to end on such-and-such a date and then, when it doesn't, they start making excuses and explanations about when it's really gonna end. Keep in mind, I'm old enough to remember when earnest young folks were quite certain that the earth's core was undoubtedly cooling, and the numbers removed no doubt that we were entering another ice age, and we were morons if we didn't see that. They didn't write about it on Wikipedia though. John2510 (talk) 03:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Your eyeball is clearly not a suitable statistical tool for evaluating trends. From what I understand, the statistical requirement that "you can't just look at 15 years" goes back to the 1970s or earlier. Your memory of that era seems to be fading, like mine! There don't seem to be any straight line progression predictions in the IPCC TAR around 10 to 15 years ago: would you like to check that out? The global cooling issue was in the popular press rather than in science, and had nothing to do with arguments that the earth's core was undoubtedly cooling which are more associated with Lord Kelvin in the 19th century. Of course we're still heading for another ice age, in around 10,000 years time as scientists such as Hubert Lamb indicated in the early 1970s. Unfortunately current anthropogenic global warming will more than offset that cooling for quite some time. . dave souza, talk 04:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
@John2510 (talk · contribs) Despite my requests that you discuss content of reliable sources you keep standing on your soapbox. This thread should probably be collapsed because per WP:TALK we don't use them to hold forums for pontification. So please discuss RS content and how it can improve the article. (Third or 4th request). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 07:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
There's a catch-22 with reliable sources here. Any source that varies from your narrow view is wrong as it differs from the overwhelming consensus of professionals whose livelihood depends on expanding concern about climate change, and wrong things clearly cannot be reliable. See what I mean? That's why I've stuck with your accepted chart as a source. Here's an idea, let's start out with the statement, "Global warming has remained flat over the last ten years, and global temperatures actually went down between 2001 and 2102 (see nice chart). However, .... " and then you can fill in whatever Hiroshimo scare tactic references you like? Let the reader decide. Trust them to read for themselves and make their own decisions. Let's do that instead of trying to protect the casual reader from being mislead by truth and reason. John2510 (talk) 23:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

My only point was the presented info does not match the intro. How that observation can be categorised as “original research” when it refers to the internal consistency of a page and how that internal inconsistency disappears by virtue of the fact there are plausible explanations of the hiatus elsewhere, I don’t fully understand. A time series with a flat lining 5 year moving average is not showing continuing change, you don’t have to be George Box to figure that out. It is just bizarre to claim a continuing change if the graphs on the same page don’t show it. If I altered it without discussing it first you'd delete my edits so I merely pointed out there is a mismatch. So either different data should be presented or the intro should change. Otherwise one gets the situation that got me here, people referring to “continuing climate change” and presenting a flat-lining graph as evidence. I am not a climate change skeptic but I am beginning to understand John's position!! (Sorry I missed the sarcasm before BTW)Tullimonstrum (talk) 14:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good point and reflects the confusion caused by short term noise or cyclical changes obscuring the longer term trend. Possible options: show a graph based on Cowtan and Way's study allowing for the faster-warming Arctic, or superimpose longer trends on the surface temperature graph at the head of the page. We could show File:Enso-global-temp-anomalies.png but that really needs explanation and context so it's probably better where it is. Any other ideas? . . dave souza, talk 16:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
[11] For a simple option... HADCRUT4 with 10 year moving average. Sailsbystars (talk) 16:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Simple yes, but it is a bit of a cheat to generate an apparent change by widening the window of the moving average. Surely better to source one of the corrected time series or remove "continuing" or concede there is a *apparent* hiatus and suggest possible explanations.Tullimonstrum (talk) 17:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
How is that a cheat? The point of the first illustration in the article should be to illustrate long term temperature trends, we can follow that with detail of shorter term fluctuations and discussion of how that can give the impression of a so-called hiatus. . . dave souza, talk

e/c

  • John's remarks address a graph of SURFACE temps
  • In this thread's opening post the OP opined, "strong evidence for warming after 1998 is currently lacking and no empirical evidence for warming post 1998 is shown on the page", which is an RS free statement of personal opinion that is polar opposite what the sources say, since >90% of warming goes in the sea.
  • Suggestion -

(A) Move the temp anomaly pic in the lead (to where I don't know)

(B) In its place add the image of total heat content (see thumbnail in this thread); for more info on that graph click the thumbnail to go to the image page

  • While I appreciate Sailsbystars suggestion (that's a nice rendering) I strongly think we should add something with ocean heat content, whether it is the one I found or some other better one.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow... Since the chart doesn't support your POV, you want to move it someplace less obvious? Amazing. Simply amazing. John2510 (talk) 23:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
The introductory graph on this page surely must reflect the primary observations (i.e. some sort of temperature time series) rather than model outputs (i.e. estimated total heat content). If the former shows a hiatus, so be it, or use corrected data suitably justified. Do it any other way is setting the cart before the horse. As in all science the only truth we know for sure, is what the data says. Tullimonstrum (talk) 10:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

@Tullimonstrum (talk · contribs) in this thread, we have noted (and RS content backs this up) that the first graph in the article is about SURFACE temps; that >90% of global warming's energy goes into the sea; we have referred you to RSs cited in Global warming hiatus, and to a Jeff Master's article talking about issues with the surface temp graph related to arctic data analysis. Unless I missed it, I don't think you have specifically discussed the content in any RSs. I think you've just been looking at the graph, and have been floating questions based on what you think you see in that graph. Well, OK. Question As far as your concerned, can we close this thread or do you still have a pending suggestion for article improvement based on RS content (and if so, please re-state your suggestion with discussion of the RS content on which it is based). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The text says the "continuing rise in the average temperature of Earth", the nearest graph does not show that (nor in fact does the NOAA one). This isn't about sources but internal consistency. But if you want sources about why the hiatus might not just
a) be an artifact
b) solely be caused by southern oscillation caused deep water heat sequestration
just read anything by Mike Lockwood (not sure, I agree his timing works though). But the point is that the intro of the article must surely reflect the actual patterns in the presented data. No detached observer could look at the first graph and say "yep, that is a ongoing continuing rise". But I accept that this apparently bizarre controversial opinion is in a minority here so I will give up. Tullimonstrum (talk) 14:36, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Evidently the first graph gives a misleading impression, so that reinforces the need for a clearer graph in that place. One possibility is the image of total heat content as shown above. We could then note the various fluctuations in surface temps, and mention the short term "hiatus" in that context, not sure if that's worthwhile in the lead. . dave souza, talk 16:26, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
What's unclear about the NOAA chart? Would it have been unclear if the numbers hadn't leveled off? John2510 (talk) 14:23, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Sentence and Citation to Number of Scientific Entities that Support Consensus

I propose adding the following sentence both to the intro section of the article and also separately to the lower down "scientific discussion" section.

"Nearly 200 worldwide scientific organizations hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action."

The citation is here: http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php

In that citation, the California Governor's Office of Planning and Research lists 197 organizations, and provides links to their websites. Unfortunately, the links are not to the specific parts of the websites where they evidence their support, but in my view the original page should be trusted as an authoritative statement, due to the scrutiny such an office would face for posting such a statement and list on this topic. I believe citing this number adds to users' understanding of the topic, because while the current version talks about the percentage-support in the literature, it does not discuss the number of important organizations that support this view. Please let me know your response and if the answer is yes, edit the page accordingly.

Thank you.

TheDumbMoney (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2014 (UTC)TheDumbMoney

Hi Money, thanks for the link and suggestion. Initially I was in favor, but now I'm dubious because the source doesn't tell us what filter they use for "scientific organization"? I mean, gee.... the Dept of Biology at University of Nevada is a "scientific organization" aren't they? If they had a position on climate change (and I have no idea if that is true) then would they be eligible for inclusion on this list? Question Noting that we already link to Scientific opinion on climate change, do you think our related text here could be improved somehow? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:49, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

---

I am sorry, I do not yet know how to do the indent. Looking at the list, the filter is two categories only. 1) Country-specific organizations associated with a whole country and/or sponsored by its government (e.g., Royal Irish Academy); or 2) nationwide or worldwide field-specific associations of scientists (e.g., American Anthropological Association). In other words, the list is limited to the largest groups. This corresponds with the "scientific body of national or international standing" language in the Scientific Opinion on Climate Change article. In other words, the OPR in California is plainly attempting to create a long list, but it is being rather conservative about it, excluding things like the Department of Biology at University of Nevada, because while I'm sure whatever department that is is great, it is not a scientific organization of national or international standing. One way to re-write my original text that might be better and respond to your valid critique is: "By one list, nearly 200 scientific bodies of national or international standing hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action." Using the same citation. What strikes me is that the current "scientific discussion" section in the article talks wholly in terms of percentages, and does not attempt to put a total number of any kind on the status of scientific opinion among organizations. My revision above would qualify the finality of the list, while providing such a service, at least as a placeholder until more data could be found. TheDumbMoney (talk) 17:48, 17 May 2014 (UTC)TheDumbMoney

What about personal experience?

You know, the experience of those who have walked past a smoke-belching factory and seen the temperature go up and the air become thick and uncomfortable as they approached it? The experience pf just watching the waves of heat rise above a traffic jam? Is this collected and documented anywhere? DeistCosmos (talk) 05:24, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I've never been able to think of anything that humans do that produces a net cooling effect in the local environment, but I don't know if the effects have been collected and summed. HiLo48 (talk) 05:31, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Are you asking about the use of personal observation and experience in establishing the existence (or not) of global warming? Such first-person reporting would be in the nature of journalism, a form of a original research, and likely not even a reliable source. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Auto archiving appears to be busted

I have a love-hate thing going with the archival templates. Would someone better skilled than I please figure out why old threads are lingering? ThanksNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:47, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's working right? It keeps 8 threads and only works once/day. There are 8 old threads and two threads updated today so I don't see any malfunction... Sailsbystars (talk) 02:14, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, my bad. I didn't think to check the specific number of oldies to keep. I don't think I've ever noticed a number higher than 4 for that setting, and was just assuming. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:06, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Revision of section on social impacts

As discussed on previous threads [12], I've written a draft revision of the section of the article that deals with the social effects of climate change]:

"The effects of climate change on human systems have been detected on agriculture and indigenous peoples in the Arctic (Cramer et al: Executive summary, pp3-4). The future social impacts of climate change will be uneven (Volume-wide FAQs: FAQ 7 and 8, pp2-3). Many risks are expected to increase with higher magnitudes of global warming (Oppenheimer et al: pp39-46). All regions are at risk of experiencing negative impacts (Field et al: pp27-30). Low-latitude, less developed areas face the greatest risk (Oppenheimer et al: pp42-43). Examples of impacts include:
- Food: Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative (Porter et al: p3). Global warming of around 4.6 °C relative to pre-industrial levels (see note) could pose a significant risk to global and regional food security (Summary for Policymakers: p18).
- Health: Generally impacts will be more negative than positive (Smith et al: p37: FAQ 11.2). Impacts include: the effects of extreme weather, leading to injury and loss of life (Smith et al: pp10-13); and indirect effects, such as undernutrition brought on by crop failures (Smith et al: pp22-24)."

Note: I've converted the reference temperature period in the source from the late-20th century to pre-industrial times (see: SPM: p14: Assessment Box SPM-1).

References: All taken from the IPCC 5th Assessment Working Group II report: Cramer et al (Chapter 18); Field et al (Technical Summary); Oppenheimer et al (Ch 19); Porter et al (Ch 7); Smith et al (Ch 11); Summary for Policymakers; Volume-wide FAQs.

Enescot (talk) 08:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you want to include the notes about the authors and page numbers directly into the article, but these should be in the references - nobody wants to read that (other than nerds, but that is to technical). Crucial findings should be backed up by more than one study. Though maybe mention the IPCC directly, especially refer to the impact study report, maybe even include the website to it https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/. Related video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMIFBJYpSgM prokaryotes (talk) 14:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I'll revise the citations to match the style used in the article. All the text that I've suggested is drawn from the IPCC assessment itself, which is based on many sources. Enescot (talk) 06:26, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Using RCPs instead of SRES

Is there any particular reason the SRES-scenarios, used in AR4 and AR3 are still used in the article? I would like to replace them with the RCPs used in AR5. Femkemilene (talk) 08:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Excellent, please do. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Falsifiability

Could someone knowledgeable on this subject please write a section on the falsifiability of the theory of AGW? If for the sake of argument the proponents of this are wrong and no significant—let alone catastrophic—effects occur within some timeframe (assuming that worldwide C02 emissions have not significantly decreased during that period), would that prove the theory is wrong? If so, what is a consensus timeframe for that please? If not, what could disprove it?

Al Gore has in the past cited models that have already proven drastically off, such as the prediction by climate scientist Wieslaw Maslowski of the entire disappearance of the summer Artic polar ice cap by 2013 as it remains somewhat shy of 1,000,000 square miles strong. I suppose the response to this is that that just means that that particular model was wrong and not the underlying theory: the creator of the model misunderstood the theory and what it signifies and predicts.

I don’t mean to take a position on this highly contentious issue. However, since it is deemed a mainstream scientific theory, then according to such illustrious personages in the history of science as Karl Popper and Albert Einstein, it must be falsifiable. The latter said, “All it would take to disprove my theory [of STR] is one observation to the contrary [of its predictions].” Thus far, there hasn’t been one: clocks really do run slower as speed increases. Relativity dispensed with the perceived need for the invisible “aether” that was once thought to permeate the entire universe and thus provided an absolute frame of reference. That was once mainstream scientific thought.

One way to unequivocally prove AGW right is, unfortunately, to let events run their course and suffer the catastrophic consequences the theory’s proponents suggest will occur as a result. That would indeed be tragic. But if for the sake of argument no meaningful reduction of C02 emissions occurs, it seems to me in that event there must be some point in time where proponents of the theory acknowledge the theory to have been false (or at least its implied catastrophic results) if they have nothing more draconian to show for it beyond the odd category five hurricane or "super storm" that have occurred throughout history. If that not be the case, then can the theory really be called scientific? Therefore, what exactly is that timeframe? Thank you.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 15:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

You cite a single study(or you refer to a opinion) from a few years ago in regards to sea ice estimates, however you do realize that sea ice has dramatically declined in recent years? Also recognize that cherry picking a single item to claim then this disproves the broad amount of data we have is a common denier tactic. In any instance refer to latest science, hence the latest IPCC report for instance. Also read WP:FORUM. Regards. prokaryotes (talk) 15:40, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
As I said, I understand how contentious this issue is. As I also said, I am not taking a postion on the issue. I simply want myself and others to have the tools available to form an intelligent opinion in light of arguments and allegations made by skeptics.
Asking how this theory is falsifiable is not starting a mere forum discussion. Rather, it is making a positive, constructive suggestion that the issue of falsifiability regarding AGW needs to be addressed within the article as it is held to be a scientific theory by its proponents.
As for “cherry picking,” I never said one failed model or prediction proves anything other than that model was false. Likewise, I wouldn't maintain otherwise if several models’ predictions failed. I’m simply asking how the entire edifice of AGW can be falsified as it must be if it is scientific. Being able to be falsified certainly doesn’t make it false, just scientific. A public official can be corrupted. That doesn’t mean he or she has been. Thanks.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 16:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes, for instance, the observations of continued sea ice decline is a good indicator or the continued rise in observed temperatures ( even in La Nina years - which tend to be colder). prokaryotes (talk) 16:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
(ec)I don't think "catastrophic" is an easily quantifiable term, but really a subjective judgement call. So predictions of "catastrophic consequences" are inherently unfalsifiable unless you quantify what you mean by "catastrophic". On the other hand, concrete prediction (like a climate sensitivity of 1.5-4.5℃ per doubling of atmospheric CO2) are at least potentially falsifiable, although over many years. All our scientific theories have implicit assumptions - gravity is pulling on my laptop, but it's not accelerating with 1g towards the floor (luckily) because it sits on my desk. That disproves neither Newton nor Einstein, it just shows that there can be confounding factors. Similarly, if we increase (say) output of sulphur dioxide, that can temporarily mask the climate forcing by increased CO2. Again, similarly, if some of the models of heat transfer to the deeper ocean underestimate this transfer, the transient climate response may well be lower than estimated, even if the equilibrium climate response fits the model. Would that "falsify" AGW in your eyes? In other words, if you want a concrete answer on what would falsify a prediction, your must provide a precise definition of what you think is being predicted. And, if I may suggest so, you'd better fact-check your claims about Maslowski's work, and not take Al Gore's word for it, or even some bloggers word about Al Gore's word. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:16, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Well, you certainly seem knowledgeable. Would you consider adding my requested section to the article to enhance the theory’s scientific stature in the eyes of the intelligent layperson? I do fear, however, that the average skeptic (or perhaps cynic) will allege that you are introducing “fudge factors” to “CYA” should future predictions fail.
As for fact checking, I have never considered the BBC to be merely “some blogger”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm Thank you.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 16:40, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
From your BBC link, emphasis in the first part "could", and i suggest you read Media coverage of climate change. prokaryotes (talk) 16:54, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
HistoryBuff14, if you'd like to get something added to the article, please propose exactly the wording you want, and show the reliable sources which support the addition. Can't see anything like that in this section, did you propose something elsewhere? . . dave souza, talk 16:51, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Dave, I specifically asked if a section on the falsifiability of the theory of AGW (and its significant consequences) could be added to the article to enhance its scientific standing. I also (at least implicitly) acknowledged my own lack of expertise to add the section and thus appealed to someone else who is qualified to do so if interested, as I know many people are passionately so on this subject. If no one is interested in adding such a section, then no harm done in just asking. It seems a reasonable suggestion to evidence how a major criterion of what constitutes science applies to this scientific theory. Thank you.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 17:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
One of the criteria of science, used for example at McLean v. Arkansas. If it's worth adding such a section, then someone will doubtless have published a reliable source covering the point: we need such a source for any inclusion in the article, see WP:NOR. By the way, global warming is a group of facts, various scientific theories explain these facts, as shown in the article. . . dave souza, talk 17:41, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

The time is now, of course. See Earth's energy balance and this talk. We already know that a petite coed knocking back shots nonstop is not going to end well, and we can tell how fast the climate system is knocking back shots of extra solar energy.
Test System Input Result
105 pound coed Add 1 shot per 20 minutes Gets sloppy drunk; in best case she passes out before she kills herself by alcohol overdose
Earth's climate system Add energy of ~400,000 Hiroshima bombs per day, every day Don't let climate drink and drive
Pardon the mixed metaphor
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:29, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

The OP said "I am not taking a postion on the issue. I simply want myself and others to have the tools available to form an intelligent opinion in light of arguments and allegations made by skeptics. " You can look up pretty much any skeptic argument you like and get answers based on the professional science literature. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:35, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I’ve done some limited research from the perspective of one not well-versed in climate matters. I found one article from perhaps a “just some blogger” who has given several ways AGW could be falsified. Some of them seem rather tongue-in-cheek to me, but most of them seem reasonable. If anyone is interested in reading the article and perhaps incorporating some of the author’s points into the article to assert that AGW does indeed meet the falsifiability criterion of a scientific theory, here is the link:http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/is-climate-science-falsifiable/
I’m sorry that I cannot contribute anything of substance to this article, but I do think that establishing falsifiability is an important aspect of this issue. Thanks to all.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 22:12, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Current events confirm global warming. To falsify global warming would be trivial. If, over five year averages, it stopped getting warmer, that would falsify global warming. Since global warming is a statement about averages, one cold day does not falsify global warming. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, a five year average is not the right measure. Determining the right measure is enormously complicated; no one I'm aware of has done so in a formal way. A couple scientists have made some casual claims, but I guarantee no one is saying that a five year period without warming would falsify the theory.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:25, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Revisit article title and Scope

hatted by OP, see instead proposal for tweaking lead para 1 in another thread

The following discussion 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.

Proposal - move from Global warming to Global warming (current climate change)

OP's Reasoning I like the article's current scope and am not suggesting we change the topic, only the name. Here's why

Sometime before my arrival here in 2011 eds had agreed to treat Climate change as a generic topic unrelated to geological time period (and references to non-earth climate changes have come and gone in that article). Meanwhile, we reported on the current climate change here at Global warming. There are two problems with this set up.

First, "global warming" has two meanings. The title doesn't really tell the reader which meaning will be emphasized by the text. The first is the original technical definition (just the increasing trend of global surface temps) now supported with an RS in the lead first paragraph. However, over time, "global warming" also became a WP:Neologism, serving as a synonym for current climate change. Before long so many RSs had embraced the neologistic meaning of the phrase "global warming" that it had became firmly established. So it has these two different meanings. Arguably, the text covers both meanings,,,, I did add some text to the lead's first paragraph awhile back to try to address this problem. However, complaints have still been raised about this article's scope - here is one notable recent thread where more than one ed spoke about revising the article's scope. IN SUM: "global warming" has two meanings, the original narrow one and also as a synonym for current climate change. You don't know which one is the emphasis from the current "global warming" article title, and we should recomit to covering the broad meaning here.

The second problem with the article title "Global warming" is that it is susceptible to claims of POV (whether POV exists is besides the point). Since the scope of this article currently encompasses current climate change, several recent studies become relevant. These studies show that there is a difference of public perception whether one says "global warming" or "climate change". (Just one example) Since these terms have import for public perception, and since lots of RSs covering the broad topic use "global warming" and lots of others say "climate change", seems to me that the only way to avoid accusations of WP:POVNAMING is to move this article to Global warming (current climate change).

Reworking the lead is overdue, but I think we should get a consensus on this title/scope issue first. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:01, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the title. Attempts to change the title are imho counter productive. prokaryotes (talk) 15:07, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Counterproductive compared to what goal? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:14, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Seems inappropriate to me. I suppose we could do that, but we would need to delete the article climate change, in order to prevent it being a WP:POVFORK. In addition, it would make the Michigan Kid's effort to place "global warming" wherever "climate change" occurs, and the reverse, almost reasonable. It isn't. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Neither proposition is blatantly obvious. But I suppose we could clarify by also moving Climate change to Climate change (generally) or something like that. Again, the scope of these articles would not change. The only change is that the article titles would tell people what the scope is, instead of us having to constantly explain that we arbitrarily decided to use these terms the way we do. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:47, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Re NewsAndEventsGuy, essentially the topic is summed up in the first sentence "Global warming is the unequivocal and continuing rise in the average temperature of Earth's climate system.". However, we could (or rather should) add that it is also referred to as the current climate change. Actually this is missing now. But, i see no reason to reflect that extra in the title when we could just mention it. A title with an addition appears to me as a complication, rather than a simplification, which is important in communication. prokaryotes (talk) 16:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Replying to "i see no reason to reflect that extra in the title", please see WP:POVNAMING and the link I already posted "Just one example". The public reacts differently to these synonyms. Thus, we need a really really good reason to adopt one for our article title and not the other. Without such a reason we might be seen as POV pushing. Please see this additional example too - "It's all in a name: 'Global warming' versus 'climate change'" NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:19, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Ok thanks NewsAndEventsGuy. I just read http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html, and indeed from this perspective the name should be global climate change. However, peopel will still refer to just climate change in discussion, but it becomes more accurate with the "global" as an addition. prokaryotes (talk) 16:30, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Except that phrase of neologistic wordsmithing (or if you prefer scientific jargon) never really caught on in the hundreds of thousands of RSs, so that "global climate change" won't work. In addition, that phrase could easily mean the PETM as much as it means today. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
From the NASA link i posted above, we could at least stick to basic definitions, quote - "Global warming: the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases. Climate change: a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on Earth." And then we dedicate a part to explaining the proper meaning (scope of entire article). Additionally we could create other terms and link here to the main site. The naming issue can be explained without creating a lot of additional content. prokaryotes (talk) 17:36, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I remember at least one long discussion a while back, and after a lot of evaluation of sources and original research counting of names in newspaper articles and Google searches and general tantrums thrown this way or that, a reasonably strong consensus emerged that "global warming" is the WP:COMMONNAME for the current episode of anthropogenic climate change. I don't think this has changed significantly --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I can't see the point. The proposed new title is clumsy; the existing one is fine William M. Connolley (talk) 18:07, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree (although I am unclear why Schulz's post was removed)--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:19, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Guess I'll be collating the research that shows there is a difference in public perception of these terms, and then broadcasting an RFC to non climate eds to weigh in whether we can pick one name or the other name without appearing to be POV pushing. It's interesting that none of my fellow climate regulars have commented on the merits NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:21, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
NewsAndEventsGuy, please focus on improving the text and related explanations rather than renaming of a high profile title to something not used in public discourse. As i mentioned above i would support a few other semi solutions but there are really more pressing issues with the article. prokaryotes (talk) 18:44, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
No. Please respond to the merits of my argument - "global warming" and "climate change" are both abundantly used to describe the same thing, with significant differences in public response. Er go, using one but not the other for an article title looks like WP:POVNAMING; moreoever, the longer we go with kneejerk dismissals of my reasoning the more it looks like there's an investment in using one and not the other, which changes the mere appearance of POVNAMING to a belief that there really is a POV push behind the name. I think I've asked you 4 or 5 times to take up the substance of my reasoning. Your reply is what? "Let's not go there"? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:52, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
It has been pointed out that the title is WP:COMMONNAME and i suggested to you to focus on the text explanation. There isn't really much to add at this point. prokaryotes (talk) 18:56, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
No, say rather that Stephan mentioned a vague memory of a discussion that arrived at that conclusion, which I emphatically disagree with. As of 2014 there are thousands of sources that go either way, thus we can not say that in 2014 either "global warming" or "climate change" clobbers the other as being "right" and the other "wrong". I have asked Stephan at user talk for a link to that discussion. Without a specific pointer to the past consensus we can't even discuss whether the past consensus should change. So that's a redherring at this point, and just another way to ask me to shut up, which - it should be readily apparent - I don't plan to do. So you might as well respond to the substance of my reasoning if you want to move things forward. I'll be glad to be wrong, but I don't plan to just go away. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Both terms you mention are used and the lead should explain the details. You suggest something entirely new, and not used in discussions. Also you seem to take comments today a bit personal. Maybe sleep a night and think again about the necessities and how to progress to a solution. Also you need to acknowledge arguments made and maybe start from there. prokaryotes (talk) 19:16, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
If we set aside the variants of IDONTLIKE, to which specific substantive arguments do you refer? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Alright. Arguments against a title change
  • Current name reflects a common usage in public discourse.
  • New name addition is already in the lead explained (though can be improved).
  • There appears no reason for a sudden title change
  • The term global warming is used for current climate change on Earth, there are no two meanings, just that the name doesn't fully reflect the impacts. prokaryotes (talk) 19:53, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
True or false, "climate change" is also a common name for the subject of this article? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I can answer your suggestive question with yes. prokaryotes (talk) 20:44, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Progress! Thanks for answering directly. Next question, on what basis do we name this article by one of the topic's common names ("global warming") and not on another of its common names ("climate change")? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:46, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
On the basis that, whatever we call this article, the name global warming will still exist in the Wikipedia namespace, and will still be extremely popular and visited by 10s of thousands of people per day.[13] All we will have done is move the debate: we will still be debating what article global warming will redirect to. In the meantime, the most important GW article will have moved to a made-up name, and a prime piece of namespace real estate will have become a redirect (or worse still, will have some crappy little article about varying terminology take its place). We can't just move this article around because Americans have developed an allergy to some words they don't like, or because some US politician or pollster thinks they've hit on a new angle. --Nigelj (talk)
(1) "still be extremely popular and visited by 10s of thousands of people per day", and that won't change, it would just be redirected to the new neutral and more precise name
(2) "We can't just move this article around because Americans have developed an allergy to some words they don't like" Of course, part of the basis for this proposal is peer reviewed scientific literature regarding the import of these phrases; hard for me to understand how understandable antipathy to politicians and pollsters is a rebuttal to the professional scientific literature. Can you shed light?
(3) I think you're implying that a name change would be a massive clerical bomb in the wiki servers in terms of article interconnectedness. I don't see that.... I'm proposing a run of the mill name change and redirect. Happens every day. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
The suggestion you made is "Global warming (current climate change)" - just think of the hassle to type that into your mobile for instance), i don't see from your cites or what i came across involving the topic, that people have problems to make a connection between global warming and current climate change. Also the term climate change is used more in general terms and global warming is just the common phrase which is used for today, as well as just climate change (in context to a specific time and more scientific). You did not responded to the argument that we could just improve the article content. prokaryotes (talk) 22:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
The discussion of terms and references belong under the etymology section of this article. prokaryotes (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
New points, following some user-talk discussion.

(1) The archives do not contain any discussion of the point I am raising, which is POV and confusion in the title, based on published research. I'll be organizing those sources and quotes sometime this week.

(2) Among the archives' threads containing "commonname", and eliminating my own references to that guideline (unrelated to the current point), most threads were debating whether we could use "global warming" to specifcally refer to the current warming instead of limiting ourselves to the generic meaning first used in the sci lit. The consensus was "yes" and I think we should keep doing that.

(3) The couple remaining archive threads compared "global warming" to "global warming in recent years" and "global climate change". To the extent reasons were given, the questionable google hit count method was used to show that at the time "global warming" wasthe hands down google-hit winner.... but those threads were old.

(4) Updating the admittedly dubious GoogleScholar hit-test... lets start the tally in 2008 since AR4 was released the year before. Google Scholar - uncheck patents & citations - years 2008 to 2014.... the results are

"Global warming" 163,000 hits
"Climate change" 774,000 hits

(5) So not only are there multiple published research reports discussing import of saying "global warming" versus "climate change", but since AR4 the professional literature appears to be embracing "climate change" over "global warming". Of course, without reading all the sources one can't know the context, so it's a shaky test. Just seemed like we were relying on that test to get where we are, so if we're going to ignore the essentially same test's different results today we should have a reason based in logic.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:39, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

The number comparison is flawed, since climate change covers a much broader area. If you mention old threads it would help if you link to them too, thanks. prokaryotes (talk) 11:46, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
On the opposite side of the ledger, this article is about global warming and not about climate change. Which, as an important aside, highlights an issue with this article.

For example, the term climate change includes issues such as:

  • droughts,
  • flooding (due to rainfall rather than sea rise)

Curiously, the term "rainfall" occurs in the lead, but not in the body of the article. Similarly, "drought" occurs in the lead, but not in the body.

Given that the lead it supposed to be a summary of material in the body, it appears that the article has been primarily about global warming, but someone decided to add some aspects of climate change to the lead, without adding them to the body.

In addition, the article barely mentions issues such as tornado frequency and intensity or hurricane frequency and intensity, both of which are prominent aspect of climate change but understandably not emphasized in an article referring to overall warming.

In other words, if the consensus were to change the title, it would require a substantial rewrite, as this article is primarily about global warming, and doesn't have adequate coverage of climate change issues. Addendum: It didn't sink in until after I posted that my point is largely an expansion of the point made by User:Prokaryotes--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:35, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

(A) If Stephan will pardon me picking on him, this article has been about the current climate change, not just a slice of the issue, for a long time. In this 2008 thread, it was proposed to change the title to "Global climate change". No one disputed that this article covers that entire subject. Rather, they opposed on the basis of "global climate change" being not a well used common name. In particular, Stephan Schulz (talk · contribs) defended using "global warming" to describe the entire subject, saying "While GW concentrates on just one effect, it is the name under which the current climate change is best known."(underline added)
(B) I agree there are various mis-matches between the lead and body, and a lot of things could be said about the current climate change this article has not included. It's a huge subject after all. These are editing problems and not really evidence of a consensus one way or the other.
(C) Assume we form a new (or reconfirm an old) consensus to only cover the warming-related aspect of the current climate change here. I'm having trouble defining a line of demarcation for what goes in and what does not. Being a systemic problem of many interconnecting components, in my view the issue isn't really amenable to bifurcation. But assuming your view that we should only talk about warming-related stuff here, and put the rest of the current climate change issues in Climate change, where would draw the line? (See also Dr. Gavin's Ted Talkwww.ted.com/talks/gavin_schmidt_the_emergent_patterns_of_climate_change. "You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing.")NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:29, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
PS Although I'm abundantly trying to rebut, I thank everyone for their comments. In light of Sphilbrick (talk · contribs) and Prokaryotes (talk · contribs) comments above, and maybe others, and definitely others from other threads in past 12 months, should we break out a section just to talk about scope, regardless of title, lead-body matching, and other editing issues? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:38, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
The scope thus should be to best outline current climate change. As i mentioned above, we could add links to this page redirected from "Current climate change" and "Global climate change" and maybe then we decide to rename the title to "Current climate change". The lead can always be used to clarify the different terms, one way or another. prokaryotes (talk) 14:46, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Picking either synonym ("climate change" and its variants versus "global warming" and its variants) does not solve the problem I think I see. If I'm correct, it just shifts the cargo from one leaky boat to another. Only putting both common names in the title solves the alleged problem. (With appropriate redirs that won't create any navigation problems, either.) Since my cursory remarks haven't gotten traction I'll elaborate on the alleged problem later this week, but I'll need some research and writing time.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Is there any dispute here besides what NAEG is generating? Was there any dispute more than ten minutes before he tagged the article? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

(A) JJ, please change "generating" to the Assuming-of-good-faith and more civil "alleging".
(B) Answering your question, yes. We have established that some editors think this article is about something they conceive as the global warming component of the current climate change rather than being the top main article about the entire subject current climate change. At least, that's how I read this comment from Sphilbrick (talk · contribs), and in a not so ancient thread, DHeyward (talk · contribs) was making a similar argument (Apologies to both of you if I misunderstood your statements). Obviously before we can agree on a lead outline we need to reconfirm the scope of the article.
(C) JJ, please remember to de-personalize your earlier remark. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:29, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm puzzled by the intense interest in renaming this article. I get that there is a general desire to name article correctly, but this doesn't come down to a correct versus incorrect, not even in a narrow technical sense. Most casual observes, which includes most of our readership, and I daresay a large proportion of our expert readership, use the terms almost interchangeably. In fact, it is my belief that some of the push for one term or another is politically motivated, and ought to be resisted. That further puzzles me, as I have seem no evidence that NAEG has pushed for politically motivated changes, as opposed to working in the best interest of getting the content right. When an article has reached Featured Status, and has been in existence for a long time, I think one needs quite strong reasons for making a change. I haven't heard any compelling reasons that would convince me that readers are misled by the current title. --S Philbrick(Talk) 21:56, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Agree. As far as I can tell, it's still perfectly common to talk about "global warming", and pars pro toto take the term to refer to the current episode of climate change, not just the increase in average surface temperature. If the context is clear, it's similarly common to talk about "climate change" and use that to refer to the current episode only. But note the condition. For global warming, the presumption is that it is the current episode (unless otherwise specified). For "climate change", that presumption is not there (or not as strong). For me, this is enough to consider the current title adequate, and certainly better than any parenthesised construct. Yes, some people play up the names against each other, effectively playing an etymological fallacy for political reasons. But that's not a good reason to abandon a perfectly (or even imperfectly) good name. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:36, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick, I am confused. I in your earlier remark, were you saying this article should cover the entire scope of the current climate change, or just a subpart(s) related to increasing temperature? I think this article should cover the whole gamut of current climate change, and I understand remarks my several others to generally be in agreement. But I think I heard you say that it should only cover a smaller subset, the "global warming" subset. Is that right and if so where does the rest of the material about the current climate change go, in your opinion? (Arguments about lead outline/name changing are all premature until we clear up the issue of scope.)NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:27, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
We have an article called Climate change It covers a number of topics such as thermohaline circulation, and orbital variations which are either not covered, or covered much less in Global Warming. I accept Schultz's observation that global warming is a pars pro toto term, covering more than the narrow issue of temperature, so I am not troubled by the fact that the current article goes beyond narrow coverage of the term, but if the title were to be Climate Change or some variation, then I would expect far more coverage of many issues. Some of those things are covered elsewhere, so moving that coverage here would be enormous work and disruptive. I don't see the value in changing an acceptable, albeit imperfect title to one that is also imperfect and would require enormous work. if all that material were already in the article, I think the evidence would weigh more heavily in favor of a title change, but it isn't, so I think the current title is an acceptable description of the contents. Ultimately though, my main point is that we are spending time on a trivial issue, when there are articles to write.--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
NAEG:
A) I think I'm fine with "generating". To "allege" a dispute at its first mention is rather self-referential, and carries the common connotation of "without definite proof". I would think "generating" is more gentle in regard of your intentions. It certainly does not arise to any assumption of bad faith, as you are alleging.
B) "Some editors"? Ah, what editors? You cite Sphilbrick's comment, but that isn't disputing the adequacy of the current title. You mention DHeyward, but I don't see that he has commented here in a long while. So which editors currently dispute the adequacy of the current title?
C) De-personalize what remark? That you are the one, ah, alleging a here-to-fore non-existent dispute? I believe your involvement is adequately documented in the edit history. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

For the record, my comment was that this article was so screwed up, it became "Climate Change" while the "Climate Change" article became global warming. That hasn't changed. This article should be about the increase in global mean surface temperature. That's the definition of global warming. Climate change is broader than surface temperature. As long as the OWNERS of the article insist on ignoring the scientific litereature (i.e. Hansen's very distinct use of the terms), this is just more deck chair shuffling. I in no way support an article title change and infact, would prefer that the article on Global Warming be written to reflect Global Warming and the article on Climate Change focus on Climate Change. --DHeyward (talk) 05:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Having just skimmed this article, it seems pretty focussed on global warming. Of course it also has to include enough info about the broader topic of climate change to show the context. If there are any specific points you'd like changed or moved, please set out detailed proposals in a new section on this talk page. . dave souza, talk 07:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
For starters, the opening sentence is dead wrong from scientific literature. That's the definition of Climate Change. GW is the rise of Global Mean Surface Temperature, not the "climate system." An encyclopedia should enforce proper lexicology. As long as this article cannot distinguish between climate change and global warming, it's useless and changing the title to make it less distinct doesn't help. --DHeyward (talk) 09:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)


Naming of global warming

While climate change has long covered variation over many centuries, Spencer R. Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming consistently uses this term to refer to the current changes: he specifically notes that Wallace Broecker wrote in 1975 Climatic change; are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?", taking the lead in warning in an influential Science magazine article that the world might be poised on the brink of a serious rise of temperature. "Complacency may not be warranted," he said. "We may be in for a climatic surprise."[14] So, a clear distinction. What's the problem? . . dave souza, talk 22:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate the comment, but confess to thick headedness. Can you please explicitly say the X and Y about which there was a "clear distinction", and then explain how that relates to the question I'm asking about the scope of this article? Are we trying to have main top article about the current climate change across the board, or just a subpart that is explicitly warming related, leaving the remainder of current climate change to go somewhere else? Personally I think it is the former, because I think the terms at least in the common language are now synonymous. I think that's what you think also, so I am confused about the "clear distinction". Help please? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:33, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
This article is about current climate change (Global warming is the name given to current climate change), if something is missing (as you mentioned about floods), add it. If it is a lot of content link to the main page. prokaryotes (talk) 23:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
For example, "It was in a newspaper account of Revelle’s scientific work that the phrase "global warming" was published for the first time and "climate change" for almost the first time, although neither phrase would become common until the late 1970s." [15] Phrases first published ("a large scale global warming, with radical climate changes may result" in The Hammond Times (Indiana), Nov. 6, 1957, from the Global Warming Newspaper Archive. Only one earlier relevant use of "climate change" is found there, from 1952. The archive shows only scattered uses of "global warming" (and little more for "climate change") into the 1970s, with a significant rise for "global warming" after 1975. The publication that brought the phrase into widespread use was probably Broecker (1975) (titled, "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?"), although a Sept. 1976 statement by M.I. Budyko that "a global warming up has started," as quoted by the Soviet news agency TASS, was more widely reported.[16] . . dave souza, talk 07:52, 18 June 2014 (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.

OP proposes a compromise that also addresses this thread here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:27, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Changes to hat notes at GW and CC and GW title discussion

"This article is about the current change in Earth's climate." This sounds much better, see also my recent talk page reply to you. prokaryotes (talk) 16:41, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Sounds much better than what, and what should we do about it? As for your talk page, you just vaguely waved back to this thread. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:36, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

DHeyward (talk · contribs), thanks for this comment at a user talk page. In response, do you agree/disagree with the existing hatnote (in place since at least 2011) which reads "This article is about the current change in Earth's climate."? If you disagree, how would you change the hatnote? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with the hatnote. We have a Climate Change article. It has some strange contortions to make it different from Global Warming but the hatnote seems to imply we have two articles on the same topic. That should not be. Scientists have long established the difference in GMST (Global Warming) and Climate Change. It is fair to simply say in the lead that this article is about GMST and for the broader topic of Climate Change see Climate Change.

"Global warming refers to the rise in the observed land and sea surface temperatures. More than half of the observed warming is attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases from such activities as fossil fuel consumption and cement production. Since <date> the mean global surface temperature has risen <X>. IPCC AR5 has adopted four Representative Concentration Pathways to estimate the effect of different greenhouse gas emission scenarios on future climate change including temperature. The estimated range of temperature increase for those scenarios in the year 2100 is <Y>. The term "global warming" is often used to describe the broad aspect of Climate change." For definition and why it's better to delineate the two terms, see NASA essay [17]. They seem to have grappled with the same issue and chose scientific meanings so that confusion is easily corrected and not cluttered. It makes dealing with topics like the so-called "pause" or "hiatus" so much easier because when someone says "Global Warming Pause" and they have lots of sources that have used the term, it's not contradictory to the article and it's never "Climate Change Pause". Scoping it narrowly and pointing out where "global warming" is not representative of "climate change" then becomes easier. --DHeyward (talk) 22:03, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

To avoid confusion and with the recent reorganization, I want to be clear that my italicized quote is not a hat note. It is a proposal for the lead. There is plenty of factual surface temperature measurements (after all it is our longest recorded measurement). Proxies and reconstructions as well ice cores, glacial history of expansion and contraction, tree rings, urban heat island, ocean surface temperature record and alternate methods like the new arctic reconstruction (I forget the name but WMC subscribes to it and can name the authors). There's also GMST that's affected natural variability of ENSO, volcanic eruptions, aerosols. That's plenty of background for a single article on how all of those things affect our longest recorded measurement and most felt change in climate: the place where people live. Secondary effects of climate change like deep ocean heat content, sea level rise, isostatic adjustment, stratospheric changes, long-term land use change, changes in storms, drought, floods, etc, are where this article goes off into the weeds because those are not directly tied to GMST. By narrowly scoping the content to the scientific use, can direct the reader to specific articles that address their interest but not at the expense of conflicting information about what "Global Warming" is because the colloquial usage is too broad to not conflict with scientific usage. --DHeyward (talk) 03:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
"Global warming refers to the rise in the observed land and sea surface temperatures." What RS do you propose citing for that definition? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:30, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
See OHC per ARGO, IPCC and or GISS? prokaryotes (talk) 16:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I provided it. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html NASA. They provide the entire history of terminology including first usage, Hansen's usage, the scientific debate in the 1970's about whether there would be cooling or warming ("Inadvertant Climate Modification"). That article provides a side box, and even more references.
1 Wallace Broecker, "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" Science, vol. 189 (8 August 1975), 460-463.
2 For example, see: MIT, Inadvertent Climate Modification: Report of the Study of Man's Impact on Climate (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971).
3National Academy of Science, Carbon Dioxide and Climate, Washington, D.C., 1979, p. vii.
4U.S. Senate, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, "Greenhouse Effect and Global Climate Change, part 2" 100th Cong., 1st sess., 23 June 1988, p. 44.
Side bar -
Definitions
Global warming: the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases.[18]
Climate change: a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on Earth.[19]
--DHeyward (talk) 20:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


There's also the dictionary [20] --DHeyward (talk) 20:38, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
And Encyclopedia Brittanica [21]. global warming, the phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures near the surface of Earth over the past one to two centuries. ... Global warming is related to the more general phenomenon of climate change, which refers to changes in the totality of attributes that define climate. In addition to changes in air temperature, climate change involves changes to precipitation patterns, winds, ocean currents, and other measures of Earth’s climate. --DHeyward (talk) 20:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
NASA's "Climate by Any Other Name" (Dec 5 2008) has two problems. First, it is internally contradictory because it provides two definitions, the one quoted (which does not mention humans) and a second definition (which does). Second, it is also an RS supporting 'global warming' as a synonym for current climate change.

What's your reply to the argument that in the last couple years "climate change" is abundantly used to talk about climate changes both past and present, whereas "global warming" in the last couple of years is almost exclusively used to talk about the current climate change? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:51, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
My reply is to simply state that it is often used to refer to the broader field of Climate Change but stick to a strict definition. Otherwise we end up in the weeds. You asked for sources for "Global Warming" being defined a certain way. It is much more difficult to support almost exclusively and current. There are sources that explain "Global Warming" in a broader context than GMST but those are evolving views, not universally accepted and usually in the context of political discourse. No one disagrees that "Global Warming" includes GMST. No one disagrees that "Climate Change" refers to the effect of anthropogenic changes that are warming the planet in various ways including GMST. Once you wade into the "Global Warming" is bigger han GMST you have to continually battle the narrower definition that is still used in reliable sources. Including more than GMST invites all sorts of tangents better dealt with in other articles that we already have.
It would take a lot of twisting to say the NASA article on the differences between Climate Change an Global Warming is a reliable source that they are the same thing. They are stating the exact opposite. GMST change is an effect of Climate Change. They are explicitly not the same thing and the article explains why they are careful not to confuse them.
--DHeyward (talk) 05:13, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Is it OK with you to have articles for Younger Dryas and Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum and Little ice age ? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
We already do. Be clear though, that Global Warming is the period starting from about 1850 for GMST and Climate Change is the post industrial beginning around 1750. Again, Global Warming is a subset of Climate Change. --DHeyward (talk) 20:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC) --DHeyward (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
They obviously exist but that wasn't the question. Asked another way - Do you oppose having an article for the Younger Dryas, another for the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, and yet another for the Little ice age ? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:43, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that once you let people separate 'global warming' from 'climate change', by saying that the first is only a measured rise in global mean surface temperatures, whereas the latter is all the storms and droughts and suchlike, then you have a dozen new ways of confusing the issue. Which one is caused by increased anthropogenic CO2 levels, for example? Maybe that causes one, but that doesn't prove it causes the other. If the author of some paper uses one phrase and not the other then does whatever she says have no bearing on that other, until we get further studies? In the past, maybe not having being warmer for X million years means nothing, now scientists will have to prove that it's never been stormier, or dryer, or windier. I can see why people want to drive a wedge in here, but I can't see the scientific benefit of doing so. --Nigelj (talk) 21:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't understand the relevance to this article which is distinct from Climate Change. I don't oppose "Global Warming". Nor is "Global Warming" an epoch period within anthropogenic climate change as as we normally start the current anthropogenic era as starting in 1750 while GMST records start around 1850. --DHeyward (talk) 21:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
GW is an observable. Much like CO2 concentration, sea level rise and OHC. It is the output of the models as a temperature. Encylopedia Brittanica and NASA and IPCC have done it. Wikipedia is the novel approach that they are the same based off dubious reasons unrelated to science and presuming that the reader wouldn't understand the difference. --DHeyward (talk) 21:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@DHeyward, Do you oppose having an article for the Younger Dryas, another for the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, and yet another for the Little ice age? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Once again, what's the relevance other than WP:OSE? Do you or not and what is the relevance to this article? --DHeyward (talk) 22:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
It's directly relevant and seems to flag an inconsistency in your argument. On the one hand you seem to be opposed to an article dedicated to discussing the current climate change as our hatnote calls this article. Instead you want to cram the non-GMST current climate change info into the generic top-level article climate change. What about articles dedicated to other climate change events? We should be consistent in our treatment, do you agree?

All four articles Global warming, Younger Dryas, Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, and Little ice age attempt to discuss the overall climate change situation in their respective time period. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your silence so far suggests you think it's a good idea to cover the overall climate change situation for those past events in their dedicated articles. If dedicated articles for those past events is better than mashing them together in the generic climate change article, logic would suggest its a good thing to do for the current climate change as well. For a teensy moment, let's set aside article title, lead text, wording in the body.... would you be OK dedicating some article to detailed coverage of current climate change, without trying to smoosh that coverage into the top level generic article climate change? If you say "no" then please address the apparent inconsistency with articles dedicated to other climate change events? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:24, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
And it's idiotic to maintain that the Climate Change article should be anything other than the anthropogenice change since 1750 (i.e. the IPCC isn't convened to address prior epochs - the "CC" isn't all encompassing and it's well defined and delineated). It's a lot like the the "hiatus" article starting with "A GW hiatus" as if anyone is ever talking about the current one. No other sources have a problem with identifying Climate Change with anthropogenic causes starting around 1750 and Global Warming being the record of Global Mean Surface temperatures since 1850. Why make it difficult or convoluted? Prior to 1850, climate is mostly paleoclimatology and no confuses Climate Change with extraterrestrial climate or anything on earth before 1750. Writing from these odd perspectives is why these articles suck. Other sources get it right. --DHeyward (talk) 07:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Great! We agree that we should dedicate some article to detailed coverage of current climate change.

You want that article to be called "climate change". I disagree. Although you say the phrase is "well defined and delineated" there are two different definitions of "climate change" in the IPCC AR5 WG1 glossary! WG1's definition says nothing about time (now vs paleo) nor necessarily including humans; "Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer." Then WG1 goes out of its way to articulate the different definition used by UNFCCC (which specifically says human causation). And of course, google scholar is full of sources talking about paleo climate change.

The trouble is, the paleo events all have names that everyone pretty much agrees on. The current event doesn't have a name that everyone agrees on (witness this thread and recurrence of others like it). You say potato, I say potatoe. But I'm not silly enough to say either of us is all right and the other is all wrong.

What do you think of Sailsbystars' soluition below? Could you tolerate such a compromise?
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:37, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
You misrepresented what I said. This article should be about GMST as I, NASA, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Hansen, et al, have stated very clearly. Climate Change article should be about current climate change and not so obtuse as to think the current, overwhelming use of the term, both scientifically and in popular speech is, anything other than current climate change. Past climate change is referred to as events or epochs. The only phrase we have today is "Climate Change". Someday, it may have an epoch, but today both the terms "global warming" and "climate change" refer to the current and future effects of greenhouse gases and each term is different in scope and meaning. Global warming in nearly every context is from about 1850. Climate change in almost every context is from 1750. Wikipedia seems to be the only place that can't grasp this concept and has to reinvent the lexicon to chase politics and sceptics. No other sources have the problem of "global warming" and "climate change" being delineated. Increasing the scope of this article through its title helps nothing. It needs to be trimmed in scope to GMST, not expanded. --DHeyward (talk) 00:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Google returns millions of hits for each one, so definitive knowledge about how they are used "in almost every context" is a rather spectacular claim, especially since you and I have both cited sources that say common speech frequently uses them interchangeably. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Crazy idea... how about we rename this article to Global warming and anthropogenic climate change I'm sure there's someone somewhere will come up with some policy reason why it's a horrible idea. However, it's readily apparent that many, many reliable sources conflate the two (along with climate change as a synonym for both) such as the IPCC. However, under my suggested title, we can clearly subsume both the rise in surface temperature and the inextricably linked changes to the climate that follow. And then it's very easy to differentiate our climate change article from global warming and anthropogenic climate change. "For general changes in the climate see climate change." "For the ongoing human-created climate change, please see "Global warming and anthropogenic climate change." I'm just throwing this out there because it's clear that editors above have reached an impasse and I'd like to try to break that. Sailsbystars (talk) 01:22, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Great idea I can get behind Global warming and anthropogenic climate change just as much as my first suggestion of Global warming (current climate change). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
There is also the phrase AGW .... much more common than ACC :) If you want anthro, use AGW prokaryotes (talk) 01:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Wouldn't Global warming (anthropogenic climate change) be better suited? I don't see what role the and is playing in the above suggested title. Regards. Gaba (talk) 20:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
That is equally OK with me and is much better than using just "global warming" and much better than using just "climate change". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
In my opinion the title shouldn't be longer than three words, without any special characters. Because people typing the name into mobile phones and such. prokaryotes (talk) 01:21, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Redirects,man, redirects. The actual title of the article doesn't have to be short. I still use a short version of a horrifically long title to get to the page even though the shortcut would be an inappropriate name for the page itself. As for why "Global warming and anthropogenic climate change," it's superior to the parenthetical suggested by NAEG above because it implies that Global warming=anthropogenic climate change, which isn't necessarily true. Also, anthropogenic global warming is redundant. In any serious source, global warming always means the anthropogenic phenomenon, whereas "climate change" is ambiguous. My suggested title ain't short, but it appropriately described the content of the article. Although I suppose anthropogenic climate change could be a separate but broader article from global warming. Global warming is basically post 1970ish in most sources, whereas the ACC could encompass land use changes going back pretty far (at least 10,000 BP). The ACC associated with GW might make a whole separate article from the rest of ACC. So maybe splitting into 3 articles would also work? Anyway, just thinking out loud here, pardon my rambling. Sailsbystars (talk) 01:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
But the problem with short versions is that most readers probably don't know them. Why can't we just explain everything in the hat note and leave the title as it stands? prokaryotes (talk) 02:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

edit conflict

Although my POV guess is that humans are the cause instead of merely being the "dominant cause", I think we should still follow the sources and omit "anthropogenic" from this proposed name change. IPCC is quoted in the current lead

It is extremely likely (95-100%) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. (bold added)

If our article is about the full scope of the current climate change, including ongoing research into Attribution of climate change, then let's pick a title that covers the full breadth of the subject, instead of just the human part. At least until we have RSs that say humans are the cause, instead of just the dominant one. Dropping the A-word produces Global warming and the current climate change inspired by the title "Current sea level change"or succinctly Global warming and climate change. Another reason to omit "anthropogenic" is that it is redundant with "global warming", at least for those who hold the view that "global warming" necessarily means human induced climate change.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Sailsbystars (talk · contribs) a relevant alternative to renaming is proposed here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:30, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Lead too long

While the content of the introduction is of a high quality, it does not "briefly summarize" the article. I hesitate at putting this template in the article itself, due to its scientific nature and Featured status. However, the introduction is bloated and should be at most four paragraphs. Thanks, Greggydude (talk) 09:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, way to much information in the lead atm. There shouldn't be a wall of text. prokaryotes (talk) 11:36, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

OK. Let's look at it collaboratively. The lead should summarise the article's main points, so first here is a list of the main headings of the body of the article:

  1. Observed temperature changes
  2. Initial causes of temperature changes (external forcings)
  3. Feedback
  4. Climate models
  5. Observed and expected environmental effects
  6. Observed and expected effects on social systems
  7. Proposed policy responses to global warming
  8. Discourse about global warming
  9. Etymology

Here is my own outline of the paragraphs of the existing lead:

  1. Global warming is... definition, plus some observed figures
  2. Causes, per AR4
  3. * Quote from AR5
  4. Projections per AR4
  5. Effects and impacts globally
  6. Proposed policy responses - mitigation, adaptation etc
  7. Emissions growth (brief)

It is clear that there is some correlation, but some room for improvement. Perhaps we should aim for something like the following:

  1. Global warming is... definition, plus some observed figures
  2. Causes: Forcings and feedbacks, plus models
  3. Observed and expected environmental and social effects
  4. Proposed policy responses - mitigation, adaptation etc
  5. Discourse

It's still five paras, can anyone propose a better outline? Then we just need to write the paragraphs, based on the article text. Anything important currently in the lead, and referenced there, that is not in the body, should be merged into a better place rather than lost in the changes. --Nigelj (talk) 13:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort; I had in mind going back to the day this article appeared as a featured article and compare what's changed since then, and what should be updated, but have not done that yet. As a preliminary matter, the subject of article title & scope has been on my mind since a January talk thread linked in the "revisit" subsection below.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:01, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I think the latest IPCC statement needs to be in the lead. Other than that i agree with Nigelj's proposed improvements. It is also a matter of how many details we include in each paragraph. prokaryotes (talk)
Which of the multiple statements on the thousands of pages are you talking about? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:17, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Ofc, i refer to current lead content - the main findings. prokaryotes (talk) 16:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Suggestion for quick result, move the part from the lead below IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policymakers, to a new section called "General". This way readers are not confronted with a "wall of text". prokaryotes (talk) 21:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Reminds me of when Mom told me to clean my room and I just shoved everything under the bed en masse. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I am very much of the opinion that the lead is bloated and does not read well - I feel it is one of the weakest areas of this article, which is a shame since it is probably the most important. I fully support NigelJ's analysis and suggested structure. One dreadful example - in the very first sentence the use of the word "unequivocal" is terribly grating (much discussed, but inexplicably still present) - this is not part of a definition of global warming, which the opening sentence should be, but a comment on attitudes of scientists to global warming. Global warming is the identical phenomenon, regardless of whether it is seen as unequivocally true or not. Atshal (talk) 09:44, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposed replacement for Lead paragraph

(A) I agree the lead is bloated.

(B) Before fixing the lead, we should look at the body

(C) Before reviewing the body, we should all be on the same page about article scope and to focus discussion I propose changing lead paragraph 1 so that it is consistent with the hatnote in place since 2011 ("This article is about the current change in Earth's climate.")

CURRENT TEXT

Global warming is the unequivocal and continuing rise in the average temperature of Earth's climate system.[2] Since 1971, 90% of the warming has occurred in the oceans.[3] Despite the oceans' dominant role in energy storage, the term "global warming" is also used to refer to increases in average temperature of the air and sea at Earth's surface.[4] Since the early 20th century, the global air and sea surface temperature has increased about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.[5] move the rest to body of article- Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850.[1]

PROPOSED NEW FIRST PARAGRAPH

In common speech, "global warming" is often used to describe the climate change Earth is now experiencing.see RSs below It's an accepted scientific fact that the planet's climate system is warming up.[2] The oceans, which provide a large buffer, have absorbed about 90% of the energy added to the climate system since 1970.[3] Much of the rest heats the atmosphere, where global surface temperatures have increased by about 1.4 °F (0.8 °C) over the past 100 years, with about 1.0 °F (0.6 °C) of this warming occurring since 1980.[4]
In addition, add text (not yet drafted) to etymology section to include the narrow meaning of "global warming" related to increasing global surface temps

POSSIBLE RSs FOR SENTENCE 1

[T]o sum up, although the terms are used interchangeably because they are causally related, 'global warming' and 'climate change' refer to different physical phenomena. The term 'climate change' has been used frequently in the scientific literature for many decades, and the usage of both terms has increased over the past 40 years. Moreover, since the planet continues to warm, there is no reason to change the terminology. Perhaps the only individual to advocate the change was Frank Luntz, a Republican political strategist and global warming skeptic, who used focus group results to determine that the term 'climate change' is less frightening to the general public than 'global warming'. There is simply no factual basis whatsoever to the myth "they changed the name from global warming to climate change".

The two terms are often used interchangeably but they generate very different responses, the researchers from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communications and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communications said.

We use both "climate change" and "global warming" interchangeably.

The term scientists prefer is actually "climate change," because that encompasses effects other than warming, such as changes in rainfall patterns, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. There are several scholarly journals using the term "climate change," such as Nature Climate Change and Climatic Change and the International Journal of Climate Change. The 1992 treaty that governs global warming is called the "Framework Convention on Climate Change."

Global warming is a familiar term, so we feel justified in using it as a more concrete, but less complete, expression of the phenomenon.

I strongly doubt whether Wally Broecker realised that when his 1975 Science paper was titled "Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?" he knew that the term would go on to gain such international traction. I doubt, therefore, that he gave it much thought whether it would withstand the rigours of intense scrutiny and debate that it would attract over the coming decades. * * * [T]he two terms are largely interchangeable in common discussion, even though climate scientists will rightly argue there are subtle, but important distinctions.

[Q.] What is climate change? [A.] Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that there have been changes in the global climate since the early 1900s, and that these climate changes, and future climate change predicted over the next century, are largely due to human activities and excessive greenhouse gas emissions, which are warming up the Earth. This is climate change, often referred to as "global warming".

IN SUM This change would make the first paragraph consistent with the hatnote and better reflects the articles content. If the consensus is to use "global warming" to mean something other than the current climate change (e.g., being "just" about rising surf temps) then I think eds like DHeyward (talk · contribs) have a good point about the article going beyond its agreed scope. So what do YOU think? Is this about the current climate change, or just that part of the current climate change dealing with rising surf temps? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I have two problems with this, straight away. First, WP:NOT says "Encyclopedia articles are about a person, or a group, a concept, a place, a thing, an event, etc. In some cases, a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic subject, such as Macedonia (terminology) or truthiness." We are not writing an article about the phrase 'global warming', and that (the phrase) should not be the subject of the first sentence. The phrase is the topic of the hatnote, but that is what the hatnote is for. The article is about the warming of the globe, and should start on that topic straight way. Secondly, there is a serious false dichotomy in the question, 'Is this about the current climate change, or just that part of the current climate change dealing with rising surf temps?' A planet's climate depends on the total amount of energy in its climate system. If a planet's climate is going to change, there is only one possible axis of change, and only two possible directions of change: more energy or less energy. We use the shorthand 'warming' or 'cooling'. (Planets' global climates also depend on other things such as the size of the planet, the arrangement of liquid, solid and gas, the amount of free gas in the atmosphere and so on, but if our planet was changing size or shape, we would be unlikely to refer to that as a change in climate). Therefore when we see, for example increased storminess, a slowed jet stream, or increased flooding, these are not something other than global warming. They are part of global warming. They are part of the overall phenomenon. The global climate is changing, the change is in the direction of global warming, and this is the top-level article about that change, that warming. I don't know what nonsense American industrial advertisers have been putting onto US TV screens about this to lead to such confusion, or how American talk-show hosts and other media personalities have been trying to spin it, but here to me it still seems quite simple. And I don't think we have to alter our position away from describing and explaining the simple facts, per the scientific sources. --Nigelj (talk) 16:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Nigelj, do you agree with the hatnote's assertion that this article is about the current climate change, regardless of article title or verbiage in the first paragraph? If you say "no" then please identify a single aspect of the "current climate change" that does not belong in this article. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:10, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
I do agree with the hatnote's assertion. --Nigelj (talk) 10:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Me too, thanks for the direct answer.

You gave two reasons for opposing
Reason A - "(the phrase 'global warming', should not be the subject of the first sentence. The phrase is the topic of the hatnote, but that is what the hatnote is for. The article is about the warming of the globe, and should start on that topic straight way."
ANSWER - If "subject" means like in grammar, we at least agree the topic is accurately stated by the hatnote (current climate change), which is named twice in the first sentence... first with "global warming" operating as the grammatical sentence subject, and secondly as "current climate change" operating as the grammatical subject of the subordinate clause. So both subjects (grammatical) appearing in the first sentence identify the topic. The rest of the paragraph expands on it. This proposed text was written in an attempt to introduce this subject to a non-specialist, most of whom have no clue about technical niceties and etymology of "global warming" vs "climate change". See Wikipedia:LEAD#Opening_paragraph.
Reason B - "...false dichotomy..."
ANSWER - Moot, since you were replying to talk page commentary not the proposed article revision.
Any response?
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:55, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Well if I answered you again, I'd only be responding to further talk page commentary, so you would just say it is moot again. So I just say 'no' to your suggested text, and move on. --Nigelj (talk) 13:40, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Nigelj (talk · contribs)
At first I did type a reply, which I redacted when I couldn't see how it related directly to the proposal. But since you apparently feel that it does directly relate, I will re-enter it.
Reason B - "there is a serious false dichotomy in the question, 'Is this about the current climate change, or just that part of the current climate change dealing with rising surf temps?'"
ANSWER - This source defines "false dichotomy"

The fallacy of false dichotomy is committed when the arguer claims that his conclusion is one of only two options, when in fact there are other possibilities. The arguer then goes on to show that the 'only other option' is clearly outrageous, and so his preferred conclusion must be embraced.

By that definition, there has to be a third unlisted possibility or else there is no false dichotomy. You did not identify a third possibility. Instead you appear to have embraced one of the two options in the question, as evidenced by (A) our agreement - setting aside the wording we use - that the hatnote "This article is about the current change in Earth's climate." is accurate, and (B) the rest of your post appears to lump into one pot both rising global surface temps and the myriad of interconnected responses permeating throughout the climate system. So what false dichotomy? We apparently agree - whatever words we use - that we're going to cover the whole shaking spider web of climate system stuff now underway. There is no third unlisted possibility making question a "false dichotomy". Is there?
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:15, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I can't see how the proposed first sentence is an improvement, it appears to be much more confusing (with referring to RS's and uncommon wording). Also i do not agree with the approach of NAEG. We should focus on reducing the wall of text in the lead and not the context, or change definitions.The content is good as it is, just move some parts to improve readability. As i wrote above, the discussion about "Global Warming" belongs into the etymology section. prokaryotes (talk) 14:22, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
We can't just shove EVERYTHING about "global warming" down into the body because that would not comply with Wikipedia:LEAD#Opening_paragraph, and whatever we do say in that paragraph about "global warming" needs an RS. Although I wrote the current first sentence I've changed my mind about it and think it is not supported by the RS I used. So something needs to change, it needs to be verified with RS, and it needs to introduce this article's topic (articulated in the hatnote "This article is about the current change in Earth's climate." ) to nonspecialists per Wikipedia:LEAD#Opening_paragraph. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:13, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

A new proposal is here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC) Bump, since this thread has been referenced today. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Piping "human activity"

Trackteur wants to pipe the phrase "human activities" in the lead to some other article. I've reverted a link to human behaviour, because that mostly deals with individual behaviour and not with the large-scale industry we engage in as a society. The user then piped it to anthropic principle, which I find a even less plausible (it's a cosmological principle basically saying that the universe is as it is because if it were different, we would not be there to observe it). Before we get into an edit war, I'd like to hear more opinions about the need for piping that term, and if that need exists, a suitable target. Please comment. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

And it continues....
This edit by a newcomer to this page and relative new editor is an WP:EGG, because the article that is linked talks about all sorts of human activities, but the source we're using is cited after a subsequent sentence in this paragraph to identify the specific human activities. I'd revert, but I already did that once today.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:47, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

In a spirit of compromise I've piped it to Attribution of recent climate change which lists the specific human activities causing a climate forcing. If you'd rather I reverted to an unlinked phrase, just say so. . dave souza, talk 19:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
That's good! Though I haven't looked for the same link nearby, which would be WP:OVERLINK NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:41, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Did check with a search while editing and it doesn't seem to be linked in the lead. . dave souza, talk 19:50, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposed new paragraph 1 (NAEG Ver 6)

Archive note - This is a continuation of a long conversation that was not archived in chronological sequence. The order is...

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:29, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Apologies if you think you made an important suggestion that I overlook in the following summary. Please bring it up again.
  • Suggestions after ver 5 that I did not include because I think they are not actionable
  • Forum-like discussions that petered out without RS based suggestion for article improvement
  • Suggestions after ver 5 that are incorporated
  • Suggestions after ver 5 that are actionable but were not included and therefore might remain pending
  • Suggestions after ver 5 that are actionable and resulted in changes in this version though I'm not sure whether the changes resolve the original issue or raises new ones
  • Toss out "also known as" in first sentence and make it clear that we're using "global warming" in first sentence in its COMMONNAME form. Add a footnote that explains the TECHNICAL meaning. These changes are in response to the discussion at Talk:Global Warming#IncorrectFirstSentenceInVer5.
  • Other
  • After NAEG v5 It was observed that we shouldn't say "unprecedented changes" in the lead unless the body supports that. After looking, I found several examples so I have preserved that sentence in this version.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:44, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Global warming - (NAEG Ver 6)

This page is about the current warming of the Earth's climate system. "Climate change" can also refer generally to either cooling or warming trends at any point in earth's history. Discussion of that general topic is at Climate change. For other uses see Global warming (disambiguation)

Draft-Reviewers - Footnote alert! Please notice the suprascript letters, which are new in this version.

In common speech, global warming and climate change[a] are both used to refer to the current warming of Earth's climate system and its related effects. Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming.[5][6] More than 90% of the additional energy stored in the climate system since 1970 has gone into ocean warming; the remainder has melted ice, and warmed the continents and atmosphere.[7][b] Many of the observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented over decades to millennia.[8]

Notes

a. Insert this as a hidden inline comment DO NOT WIKILINK THIS! This use of "climate change" is the colloquial sense and means the current climate change; this is the article about that topic. A short explanation and wikilink for the article titled "Climate change" is in the hatnote right before this sentence.

b. Insert this in text using Template:efn Scientific journals use "global warming" to describe an increasing global average temperature just at earth's surface, and most of these authorities further limit "global warming" to such increases caused by human activities or increasing greenhouse gases.

Have at it, Folks. Thoughts?

I'll add one off the batt.... I tried long and hard to find a smooth way to explicitly mention we're using the COMMONNAME form as well as link to climate change in the first sentence, but - despite trying long and hard - I failed miserably. Then I realized the hatnote just linked to climate change a sentence or two before, so instead I inserted what will become (if this is approved) a hidden inline comment explaining what I just said. Its footnote [a] in this draft. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:44, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Because of the excellent use of the phrase "are both used to refer to", I would drop the more than slightly awkward "In common speech" and just start at the meat. Because of WP:COMMONNAME combined with WP:BEGIN, all our articles use the most common name, and then go on to bold other frequently used (i.e. common) phrases that refer to the same thing. We don't need to be explicit about that in the opening sentence of any other articles I can think of, so why here? I think we finally got there, but - 'less is more' - we can remove the scaffolding now. --Nigelj (talk) 17:21, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm afraid we're not there yet. There is a reason "in common speech" is used here. Without turning this article into a narrow article about GMST, "in common speech" (or equivalent) is the only way I see to address the main issue raised in Talk:Global warming#IncorrectFirstSentenceInVer5. In that thread I advocated explicitly telling the reader we are using the COMMONNAME. Unless I misunderstood or he has changed his mind, I think at least DHeyward (talk · contribs) agrees, because in response he said " I wholeheartedly agree that mentioning the common speech usage is necessary. It's then necessary to correct it.." (with the scientific meaning that "global warming" is only GMST) I think this draft does that. Though to be fair to DHeyward's viewpoint, in the comment I just linked he went on to say after we satisfy the first part, we should then go on to overhaul the article topic entirely. I'm not ready to go that far, but he and I do think we solve a lot of problems with explicitly talking about the common vs scientific meanings of these words. Nigelj, If see something that is arguably wrong then we definitely need to know, but if you are opposed to "in common speech" just as matter of style could you live with it to move things forward, since others think it is important? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:41, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it's a deal-breaker. It just seems unnecessary to me. --Nigelj (talk) 17:56, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for fast answer, let's see what others think.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
We all know what this sentence means ("Many of the observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented over decades to millennia.") but will an uninformed reader understand that the changes are happening much faster than usual? The sentence sounds incomplete. Yes, I did check the reference, which is actually on page 4, not 2 -- it's a summary for policymakers who probably know something about GW. Raquel Baranow (talk) 19:56, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Good point and one which could link to clarify the broader meaning of climate change: "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia and have happened much faster than in earlier episodes of climate change." . . . . dave souza, talk 20:02, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
@Dave souza:, a followup please Dave. In your opinion does NAEG V6 resolve the main issue discussed at Talk:Global Warming#IncorrectFirstSentenceInVer5? I think lack of additional discussion on that point implies you're ok with the solution I'm floating in V6, but would like to ask to confirm that impression. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC) \\
Ha, all this pinging. While I'm happy to use global warming for the changing climate since 1900 and climate change for the general topic, including ice ages, it seems plausible that the phrases are used interchangeably and in that case then the opening sentence works ok. Hence my suggestion to use climate change later in the paragraph when discussing pre-20th century changes. . . dave souza, talk 22:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
sorry if I got your ears ringing! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:41, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
@Raquel Baranow: in my copy of the SPM pdf, at the bottom of the page (like it would come from a hardcopy printer) it says page 2. Although some aspects are indeed reported as going faster than they have before (so far as we know), I don't know of IPCC statements that overall climate change is faster than ever. Certainly that is not in the little colored bubble in the SPM from which this quote comes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:58, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

It is probably about time to wrap this up. I agree with dave souza about dropping "In common speech". I still think the sentence with "decades to millennia" is easily misunderstood and should be dropped. But unless you agree, I say go with what we've got. Rick Norwood (talk) 23:02, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced of the following sentence: Climate change" can also refer generally to either cooling or warming trends at any point in earth's history. Two points. 1. Climate change, when used generally, refers to a broader concept than temperature: changes in precipetation, humidity, extreme weather events and so forth are also part of the general term climate change. The second difficulty I have with this sentence is that it only refers to climate change in earth's history, while again the term is broader and is not bound to a certain time.
I cannot find which points are addressed if you change this compared to This article is about the current change in Earth's climate, but this certainly sounds better to me. Femkemilene (talk) 11:30, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
@Femkemilene: Regarding your first paragraph - technically I agree of course. Climate change could hypothetically happen with zero change in earth's energy budget. It's only a hatnote. Please say something about the reason for the current drafts text. You can find that at the thread Talk:Global warming#hatnote. If we change to address the point you raise, we need a solution that also makes the hatnote and the first sentence read well, when read together. Any ideas?

Regarding your last paragraph/sentence - my apologies but I don't understand what you wrote. Try again? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:27, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

An essay I was reading makes the excellent point that hidden inline comments like the one in this draft are not controlling (no ownership) and should point to the discussions where the reasons for whatever were previously decided. So we should add a thread pointer if this goes live and update when archived. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:31, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

References

References

  1. ^ "Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850." p.3, IPCC, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, Observed Changes in the Climate System, p. 3, in IPCC AR5 WG1 2013.
  2. ^ "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal" p.2, IPCC, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, Observed Changes in the Climate System, p. 2, in IPCC AR5 WG1 2013.
  3. ^ "Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010." p.6,IPCC, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, Observed Changes in the Climate System, p. 6, in IPCC AR5 WG1 2013.
  4. ^ America's Climate Choices. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. 2011. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-309-14585-5. The average temperature of the Earth's surface increased by about 1.4 °F (0.8 °C) over the past 100 years, with about 1.0 °F (0.6 °C) of this warming occurring over just the past three decades.
  5. ^ [Chapter 2: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface] Hartmann et al. 2013 http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter02_FINAL.pdf FAQ 2.1, "Evidence for a warming world comes from multiple independent climate indicators, from high up in the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. They include changes in surface, atmospheric and oceanic temperatures; glaciers; snow cover; sea ice; sea level and atmospheric water vapour. Scientists from all over the world have independently verified this evidence many times."
  6. ^ "Myth vs Facts..." EPA (US). 2013.The U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have each independently concluded that warming of the climate system in recent decades is 'unequivocal'. This conclusion is not drawn from any one source of data but is based on multiple lines of evidence, including three worldwide temperature datasets showing nearly identical warming trends as well as numerous other independent indicators of global warming (e.g., rising sea levels, shrinking Arctic sea ice).
  7. ^ [Chapter 3: Observations: Ocean] Rhein et al. 2013 [1] p 257. "Ocean warming dominates the global energy change inventory. Warming of the ocean accounts for about 93% of the increase in the Earth’s energy inventory between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence), with warming of the upper (0 to 700 m) ocean accounting for about 64% of the total. Melting ice (including Arctic sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers) and warming of the continents and atmosphere account for the remainder of the change in energy."
  8. ^ IPCC, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, Observed Changes in the Climate System, p. 2, in IPCC AR5 WG1 2013. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia."

Observed and expected effects on social systems

While I personally welcome the recent edit of the 'Observed and expected effects on social systems' section by Enescot (talk · contribs), I did think that our coverage of the executive summary of AR5 WG2 Chapter 18, 'Detection and Attribution of Observed Impacts', was a little too brief:

The effects of climate change on human systems have been detected on agriculture and indigenous peoples in the Arctic.

Not only a little brief, but could also too easily be misread as if we were saying that "The effects of climate change on human systems have only been detected in the agriculture of indigenous peoples in the Arctic." Therefore I have carefully extended our coverage, mainly of their section beginning 'Substantial new evidence has been collected on sensitivities of human systems to climate change.'

The effects of climate change on human systems, mostly due to warming or shifts in precipitation patterns, or both, have been detected worldwide. Production of wheat and maize globally has been impacted by climate change. While crop production has increased in some mid-latitude regions such as the UK and Northeast China, economic losses due to extreme weather events have increased globally. There has been a shift from cold- to heat-related mortality in some regions as a result of warming. Livelihoods of indigenous peoples of the Arctic have been altered by climate change, and there is emerging evidence of climate change impacts on livelihoods of indigenous peoples in other regions. Regional impacts of climate change are now observable at more locations than before, on all continents and across ocean regions.

While this is certainly about 100 words longer, I hope Enescot and others will agree that it is a more rounded summary of that important document. If not, of course, further suggestions for improvement are always welcome. --Nigelj (talk) 11:38, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, Nigelj (talk · contribs). I agree with most aspects of your revision. I am, however, slightly concerned that some of your edit contains findings that are only made with "medium" or "low confidence," for instance:
"Economic losses due to extreme weather events have increased globally, mostly due to increase in wealth and exposure, with a possible influence of climate change (low confidence)" - IPCC AR5 WG2, Ch 18, p.3: [22]'
I notice that you restored the sub-section on "food security". In my opinion, it should be deleted. I'll start a new thread to discuss this.
Enescot (talk) 07:37, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Food security

I would like to delete the section on Global warming#Food security. I've previously written a critique of this section [23]. In my opinion, Global warming#Observed and expected effects on social systems already provides an adequate and brief summary on food impacts. There are sub-articles (effects of global warming and climate change and agriculture) that go into more detail. Enescot (talk) 07:42, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Global warming is first energy take-up then temperature rising

I would suggest to start the article with: Global warming is the unequivocal and continuing rising of the average heat content in the Earth's climate system, which may or not reflect in a continuing rising of average temperature of Earth's climate system. Or alternate: Global warming is the unequivocal and continuing rising of the average heat content in the Earth's climate system, which may reflect in a continuing rising of average temperature of Earth's climate system. If you have in hand a glass filled with ice cubes, you are (heating or warming?) the glass, even if the temperature remains constant, as long as there's melting ice. I know the IPCC document title, but if you fully read the papers you understand that the correct meaning is "rising energy content". Otherwise anyone explain me if common usage of heating has a different meaning as warming ? --Robertiki (talk) 03:13, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I deleted: "The dips are related to global recessions." because it implies the only way to have a stronger economy is to make more CO2. This is inaccurate because there are many ways to improve the economy without emitting more CO2. One way is to increase wind energy generation. NewsAndEventsGuy reverted my edit and I'm now asking for support from the community to delete this statement again on this page and on climate change mitigation. Thank you. Brian Everlasting (talk) 20:49, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it should stay. The dips (past) were caused by major global recessions leading to a drop in demand for fossil fuels. End of argument. The future we can talk about too, but when describing the past there's no reason to change the correct description of the past based on speculation about the future. Sailsbystars (talk) 21:56, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I tend to agree. It's factual information, and it shows how changes in human society leads to changing CO2 emissions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:27, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Interwiki link to quiz specific to this article

With your permission, I wish to add an interwiki link to a quiz specifically targeted to the first two sections of this article:

Learning materials related to this article (Quiz) at Wikiversity

The intent of the quiz is first, to give students with limited scientific literacy a pre-reading activity, and then to provide teachers with a testbank that contains randomized versions of the quiz.

If you approve, I will write at least one more quiz to cover subsequent sections. Also, I noticed that you already have a generic interlink to Wikiversity's global warming page. It's more than a bit weird, and I would prefer to have a separate interlink to my quizzes.

What do you think? --guyvan52 (talk) 18:36, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The wikiversity crank-article v:Global warming is a crank article look alike, and we should not be replicating there what appears here. Doing something over there that works with the material found here is an interesting idea. But duplicating (then hacking up) this material is not. I realize that wasn't your doing. I have no opinion about the quizzes at this time, as wikiversity is a new concept to me NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:18, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
This is the sixth quiz I have placed on a Wikipedia article in the past few days. So far the other five have "stuck". I'm still waiting to see if anybody uses them in a classroom (other than mine). --guyvan52 (talk) 21:17, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Glad you are here to contribute. Wikipedia needs more PhD's. I think adding a quiz for this article is a great idea. I took the test (version A) and scored 21/26. Is that passing? Brian Everlasting (talk) 14:21, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to review the quiz. I'm glad you approve. I usually score higher than 21, but usually miss a one or two because I don't carefully read my own questions. I will now clean up the wikiquiz node by breaking it into four quizzes plus a cumulative exam. Regarding your next posting about external links, I made the Wikiversity interlink a lot less embarrassing by putting the weird stuff at the bottom, below a capitalized disclaimer. I hope my edit "sticks".--guyvan52 (talk) 18:18, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Probably should delete most or all external links because although they provide good background, they don't add anything to our Wikipedia article. Brian Everlasting (talk) 14:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Just an idea: You could move some of the educational links into the Wikiversity page???--guyvan52 (talk) 18:19, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
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