Talk:Climate change

New Chart

Is it time for a new chart of global temperatures? The one we are using is now four years out of date. Stephen W. Houghton II 70.150.94.194 (talk) 16:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Which one are you talking about? The main chart includes 2007 data. 2008 data will not be available before 2008 is over. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The main chart at the top of the page is the one I mean. It seems to be out of date if I am understanding the text associated with it on its page. That seems to say that the data set ends in 2004. Stephen W. Houghton II 70.150.94.194 (talk) 17:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I see. No, the chart is up-to-date. It uses the dataset from the Hadley center. That data set is continuously updated, as is our chart. The last description of the data set and methodology is from 2003 (I don't know where you see 2004), but the data is current. Count the blue dots (2000 is the local minimum). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Clathrate Gun

Does this point to Clathrate Gun Hypothesis? http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-39973-113.html

To be honest, with paragraphs like "Methane accounts for roughly one-fifth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, though its effect is 25x greater than that of carbon dioxide. Its impact on global warming comes from the reflection of the sun's light back to the Earth (like a greenhouse)" the article is so muddled that I would not take it as evidence for everything. If you are interested, look at the Geophysical ReviewResearch Letters paper. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Its an obfuscated rewrite of this press-release: [1]. And a good example as to why you should always take science reporting in the popular press, as (at most) providing a hint. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

GRL = Geophysical Research Letters. Not Review. Link to pre-print, just in cases. - Atmoz (talk) 04:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Tangents

Does anyone else think that the article has accumulated more tangentially-relevant details than are appropriate for a "big picture" overview article? We don't need to include everything here; that's why we have links to related articles. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. This article is absolutely baffling for the nonspecialist. It has presumably been bogged down with scientific detail to appease and impress the "doubters." Would an article on global warming really look like this in any other general encyclopedia? Oh, and I just that wikipedia considers this to be one of their best articles. Wow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.199.21.97 (talk) 12:33, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's hard to find the most important parts. Looking at it as a layman, the subsection on methane in the Greenhouse effect section seemed to raise more problems than it solved. One part (Thawing permafrost) was based on very recent research in a press release and newspaper reports (misspelt as "The Independant"), another (Clathrate gun hypothesis) didn't say what the probability of the process is. One help to the lay reader would be to put the rough figures (with verbal qualification) in the introduction and the numerically qualified ones in the article, rather than the other way round. N p holmes (talk) 16:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Um. I think I agree. Ive taken those two sections out (who put them in?). Is more pruning required? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:18, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

More on readability: I've evaluated the introduction using several measures of readability. The Gunning fog index works out to 18, and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level is 15. These scores are comparable to scores for the Harvard Law Review, and are atrocious for writing that is supposed to be broadly accessible. Only about one in three U.S. adults are comfortable reading at this level. [2] Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:52, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

It could be worse; see linear regression for example. How far should the article be dumbed down? Who sets the standard? ~Amatulić (talk) 22:15, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Writing clearly is not at all the same thing as "dumbing down." Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Facts may be misconstued

In the 1960s the "facts" presented were that we were coming upon an era of overpopulation (from 3 to 6 billion), which would bring certain catastrophe. It turns out that the population more than doubled and there has been no such catastrophe, though there are certainly some shortages or misdistribution of global resources. The same is likely true of global warming. Though, there is certainly threat of pollution, greenhouse gasses, et al that need to be dealt with ASAP, even doubling our efforts, there are no hard facts that it will lead to a form of global warming that will have catastrophic effects or destroy the planet. In fact, the warming (or cooling) of the globe may have positive effects that we are not even considering, or are at least the shifting of climates around the world from warm to cool and cool to warm, as well as other natural or non-lethal changes. In other words, global warming may not only not be catastrophic, but may be beneficial, just as increased population can be seen as an asset that created more diversity, more power for emerging nations and cultures, etc. The truth is we just do not have enough information on global climate change to pronounce on it rationally. Special:Contributions/71.139.165.161|71.139.165.161]] (talk) 15:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Considering this article [3] has IMO put a huge dent in the man-caused any significant global warming 'theory'. How will the article be edited? The IPCC or rather the data they use seems to have been called into question in a very serious way here... or will the article just be deemed "not a peer reviewed source"?~concerned citizen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.239.204 (talk) 23:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, got it in one. It's not only "not peer-reviewed", its shamelessly biased crap. It may surprise you, but the IPCC reports are not based on October 2008 data. If you are concerned, why don't you read some real science? The IPCC reports, especially the SPMs, are quite readable, and have extensive bibliographies. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

That article could be used for attributed opinion, possibly. Definitely, it is biased reporting, full of POV language. Global warming is a long-term trend, not something continuously maintained at all times and in all places, and it is entirely possible that more extreme weather, which would include some places being colder, could be a result of overall warming. Climate is complex. I recommend that the IP editor read the IPCC reports, they are generally written very carefully, and do, indeed, fairly represent scientific consensus. Which includes doubt, by the way, they are much more sophisticated than reporting a supposed "fact" as a "scientific consensus." Rather, they report estimated probabilities that, say, global warming is caused by human activity. (90%-95%)

They consider, though, that there *is* a global warming trend, to be a practical certainty. The very silly error of the Telegraph article is that this isn't contradicted by contrary local trends. Weather goes one way, then the other.

As to global warming being, possibly, a good thing, that's beyond the scope of this article. There is another article on effects. Climatic changes, in general, while we may be able to accommodate ourselves to them, are disruptive and can seriously harm vulnerable populations. The rise in sea levels that is happening can wipe out entire nations, in a few cases. An increase in hurricane activity can finish off New Orleans, for starters. There are costs to these changes. If the change is natural, well, we'd just have to accept it, but we put thermostats in houses because it's useful to keep certain things the same. (There are ways to engineer climate control, being seriously proposed. They are not cheap and may have side effects, plus, they could fail.) If the change is being caused by human activity, and is imposing costs on some, while the activity benefits others, then there is a social inequity, and, I'd think, even Libertarians might recognize that something is off about this. We do not know how much damage a few degrees more will wreak, and if greenhouse gas emissions were frozen today, the models show temperature will continue to rise for a long time. Even if this is incorrect, in the end, in some way or other, it would be silly to ignore the general scientific consensus based on what seems to be wishful thinking and political bias. So, fine. You may be in a position to benefit from global warming. Most people probably are not. I live in Massachusetts, the western part of the state. The effect of global warming here, perhaps: milder winters (nice). More hurricanes and tornados (not nice, but perhaps still unusual). More mosquitoes, possibly more West Nile virus transmission (ugh!). But I'd expect my area to remain quite livable. That's not true for many millions of people. When it happens over thousands of years, not much problem. When it happens in short order, as it seems it might, very harmful. --Abd (talk) 00:01, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I see nothing about the flaw in the warming data. Now called a y2k bug (not really) And I see nothing about studies that have not been corrected with the new data. I see nothing about the US temp stations in cities found to be corrupted by external heat. And adjustments being made to rural monitors to make them match the flawed city ones. I also see nothing about NASA correcting satellite data that did not show warming. This website is a must read. [4] and surface station surveys After reading all of this its clear to me that flawed data was used in all the studies this page is quoting. The UN report was a rubber stamp based on no science and not peer revued. If your going to have this page I think both sides should be displayed and right now they are not--Sattmaster (talk) 04:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yawn. Same crap, different day. -Atmoz (talk) 05:33, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll suggest that this dismissive approach, besides being uncivil, is not effective in broadening consensus on the article, but could, instead, lead to more disruption. In the other direction, I'd ask Sattmaster if he's actually read the IPCC reports. It's true that it wasn't "peer reviewed" because it was created by a process that is above the standard peer review process. Peer review takes place with, generally, a relatively small committee that can sometimes be biased. The IPCC committees were broad; what they were doing is reviewing the literature and generating reports that represented consensus. They were very cautious, they do not, for example, present anthropogenic cause for global warming as a certainty. Rather they say that "most" of the global warming observed is "likely" due to human activity, and that term is defined: it means 90-95% certainty.

The concept of "both sides" is a very narrow approach. It's certainly not scientific. If there are sourced facts presented on the web sites mentioned, and they are relevant to this article, then either try to add them -- carefully -- or discuss them here. The IPCC considers, from review of many sources, global warming to be an established fact. That is, there is a warming trend observed in recent times. However, that does not translate to anthropogenesis, though anthropogenesis is an obvious hypothesis with a known mechanism. There are other forces affecting climate change that aren't under human control, such as solar variation.

I disagree with the approach that excludes opinion, except for peer-reviewed expert opinion, because an encyclopedia is about all human knowledge, interpreted to be all "notable" human knowledge, and the opinions of humans are facts in themselves, and the opinion that global warming is nonsense is notable. The question, though, is where and how to cover this. Not necessarily in this article. A common procedure is that when there is a general scientific consensus on a thing, but contrary opinion that is notable, there is a separate article on the controversy, which is then presented in the "science" article in summary style; thus undue weight can be avoided without repression of unpopular but notable opinion. There is an article on the controversy and a section in this article summarizing it. If that summary is too brief, fix it. The section in the global warming article is "Economic and political debate," and it points to a number of other articles: Global warming controversy and Climate change denial being notable here. If a critic of the "global warming" theories or observations thinks the encyclopedia is incomplete, this is a community project, please fix it. But be careful; this is a controversial topic and other editors will expect contributions to be reliably sourced, balanced, and presented in an neutral manner. The article that triggered this discussion was an opinion piece, hence its conclusions or claims should be attributed; otherwise facts found in that article should be found in more original sources, if they are to be included here or in the articles on the controversy.

Editors who are critics of the global warming theories or observations are very important to our process; they will help us keep the articles neutral, even if sometimes it can be frustrating to encounter the same bogus ideas again and again. I'll point out that if a bogus idea keeps coming back, we need to establish a FAQ or other consensus document that explains why this isn't in the article; then, when a new editor presents it again, we can welcome the editor and point him or her to the FAQ, so that any further comments from them can be informed by prior discussion, without having to repeat it all. If it were all bogus, well, we'd be better off without the critics. But it isn't all bogus, and no editor should be rejected based on an idea that they are pushing a fringe theory. Rather, we should welcome such editors, invite them to participate in our process, warn them when they move outside community norms. We have editors here who are critics of global warming and it is best if warning, if it is to be done, be done by those editors, or at least by truly neutral editors. Being warned by someone you think biased against your views can be less than effective. (I haven't seen any warnings here, just the kind of low-level incivility that can set up the need for such. The history of this article is riddled with edit wars and editors blocked for it, and incivility, edit warring, and blocking do not resolve the underlying issues and improve the project. It's just playing Whack-a-mole, and the faster and more intensely you whack, the more moles show up. See The Starfish and the Spider.) --Abd (talk) 15:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The full IPCC report is an enormous document that thousands of scientists contribute to. But its only the "summary for policymakers" that gets quoted. This part is written by U.N. civil servents and is subject to political oversight. Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of IPCC, has a PhD in economics. Kauffner (talk) 15:37, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The original reports should be read and cited when possible. However, the summary is notable and is citable on its own. A judgment of consensus in a field does not require specific knowledge of the field, but rather of human processes. In fact, the summary report is similar to what we do: consider it a precedent for us. We are just as political a body as the U.N., and language that they have chosen to be broadly acceptable, regarding what the basic reports say, is probably what will be broadly acceptable here. We are not limited to that summary, but it's a very good place to start. --Abd (talk) 16:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I edited Talk:Global warming/FAQ to reflect some of what was said above. It would have been appropriate, right at the beginning of this discussion, to point a new editor to the FAQ; however, the specific issue here wasn't well addressed in the FAQ. That FAQ should develop into a general consensus statement, maximally inclusive; this is what is needed to avoid continued contentious debate. The rules for the FAQ can be less restrictive than standard article rules; in particular, WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTE should not apply there as strictly as in article space. The idea that I have for this is that when new objections to the article arise, that can't be resolved by some editorial consensus here unless there is massive debate, the FAQ be expanded so that a true consensus is built, there. Assuming that this consensus includes critics of global warming who are also experience Wikipedia editors, we then have a means of avoiding re-inventing the wheel every time the same old topics come up. This could lessen the burnout that may be behind some of the incivility that appears here.

In the future, then, when a matter which has been settled there comes up, with a new editor, the task of the new editor becomes, first, to examine the prior arguments and determine if they are complete. If there is a new argument to be presented, it should be presented there, with sources, which may be relatively weak, creating an opportunity to review the consensus. Which might just be a statement added that our consensus is that these sources are too weak to use. This doesn't disallow the new editor from challenging our conclusions, but this, at least, could explain much more thoroughly why the article is the way it is. And, when needed to resolve controversy over the FAQ or the article, anyone may set up an Request for comment to confirm our consensus. But if I see an RfC over a matter covered by the FAQ, with no new arguments presented since a prior consensus appeared, I'd consider interrupting it, until at least a few editors sign onto it. I.e., I might revert it, once; it would then take either edit warring or a new editor to confirm that the RfC should proceed. As to edit warring, well, this article is watched by lots of administrators. But a reversion by an independent editor, that's equivalent to a second in parliamentary procedure, necessary to open up debate on any topic. --Abd (talk) 16:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

No. Where do you people get this crap? The SPM is not written by "U.N. civil servents" nor even U.N. civil servants, nor UN employees. Right on the title page of the document there is a list of the authors.[5] Starting from the top, Richard Alley is the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Penn State. Terje Berntsen is a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Oslo and the CICERO institute. Nathaniel L. Bindoff is Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Tasmania. Zhenlin Chen is a researcher at the China Meteorological Administration. Amnat Chidthaisong is an assistant professor at the Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment in Bangkok. Pierre Friedlingstein is Principal Investigator at the LCSE in France...not only are they all scientists, most of them are tenured and fully independend. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Watch it, Stephan. I accepted the statement of the editor without verification that the summary was written -- or approved or influenced by -- bureaucrats. It's called AGF. The rest of what I wrote did not depend on that. Calling a good faith contribution or discussion "crap" is uncivil, as is, as well, using "you people," in response to me, as if you were faced with some monolithic organization of fanatics dedicated to ruining our articles. Stop it. Stephan, you also reverted, with totally insufficient justification, the work I did on the FAQ. If it's too long, boil it down. If there are errors in it, fix them. Please start working collaboratively instead of offensively or defensively. My goal here is consensus. If yours is the same, we'll get somewhere. If not, well, the situation will be unstable and there will be disruption, you can count on it. Not necessarily from me, I really DGAF. (There has been disruption around this article for a long time; I'm simply predicting that it will continue unless we start doing a better job of establishing consensus.) --Abd (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way, it's also not true or it is misleading that the IPCC documents are not "peer-reviewed." Publication by an academic publisher is equivalent, generally, to peer review, and the IPCC summary report is published by Cambridge University Press. Stephen, the problem isn't the facts; it's entirely appropriate to note and correct errors and misunderstandings of editors, as you did. The problem is the collaborative style, which is poisonous. It was utterly unnecessary and harmful to call anything "crap." Seems I've seen that word in a lot of your edit summaries. Should I check? --Abd (talk) 18:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

New article

Perhaps as a source. I don't have time to add it and incorporate. [6] — BQZip01 — ^talk 05:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Better not. Opinion pieces aren't a good source even when they're not in a rag like the Telegraph. N p holmes (talk) 07:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Also see the previous section. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I responded there. However, the source might be usable, for what it is, notable opinion. We err when we focus solely on peer-reviewed scientific sources. They are best for science. But an encyclopedia article on a general topic should not solely be about science, when there is political controversy over the topic -- even if there is little serious scientific controversy. Rather, the error of the Telegraph article is a common one, and presenting it in the light of that could be, possibly, quite informative to the general reader. How to do it is another matter; specifically how to do it without falling into original research. Here is what I might say if there were no restriction on OR:

Some writers have criticized global warming on the basis of contrary anecdotal evidence, such as cooling trends or cooler periods in some places. Global warming, however, has to do with long term trends, and isn't contradicted by even isolated record low temperatures in some places, nor by short-term cooling trends overall, perhaps caused by solar variation or other effects.

The Telegraph article would be cited for the comment about "some writers." Now, I just wrote this off the top of my head. If there is a source for what I wrote, instead of merely my own opinion, sound or otherwise, we could use the Telegraph article as source for the criticism. That's my point here. The problem with simply putting the Telegraph article claims in the article, without the balance is ... the balance.

It seems that most informed editors here, among "global warming critics," have abandoned claims that there is no global warming, but rather focus on the doubts -- which still exist, to some degree -- about causes and long-term projections. They still exist, that is, but are very much minority opinion among scientists in the field. The IPCC reports, however, estimating 90%-95% confidence in an anthropogenic cause for "most" of the recent global warming, do not specify it more than that, as I recall. I.e., they leave a lot of wiggle room. There may be other causes, for example. Natural effects *might* reverse the overall trend, for a time. And wishes might be horses. --Abd (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of including information from newspapers that are not backed up by peer reviewed publications in this article. A reader of wikipedia should be able to read about the scientific perspective on global warming without being subjected to misleading propaganda, even if that's later rebutted in the article, because then you create the false impression of a real scientific controversy, the reality is that you have a few non peer reviewd comments versus thousands of rigorously peer reviewed articles.

Now, some of the criticisms of the science is notable enough to deserve its own wikipedia article. So, we have the global warming controversy article which reports on the criticism. This is then regardless of the scientific merits of the criticisms, what matters is notability. But each article should have its own scope.

In exceptional cases, you can imagine reporting about non peer reviewed criticism in scientific articles, e.g. in case of scientific fraud. In most cases, however, the top scientific journals have been quick to act, so in practice, you can simply cite some editorial in the science journals itself reporting on retracted articles. Count Iblis (talk) 00:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. I did not address the issue of the most appropriate article for usage of the source. The balance issue exists to some degree no matter where the source is used. It can sometimes be a problem, this is one reason why forking content is somewhat disapproved (but I agree it is necessary). I.e., there may be claims raised by political critics on a scientific issue where there isn't balancing opinion defending the scientific consensus, and even if it is easy to synthesize such, as I tried to do above, that's OR. No matter how obvious it may be. The outrageousness of the Telegraph article is that it treats climate variation, which by definition includes up and down temperature shifts, as if it were proof that global warming is a myth. I haven't, myself, done the research to find out if there is RS or notable opinion countering this, specifically.

What we might be able to do is to note the up and down variations in the temperature record as reported by the IPCC. "However, the temperature record used by the IPCC to show global warming includes local cooling, such as the ...." Global warming, as commonly used, refers to an overall warming since ...." --Abd (talk) 15:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The Telegraph article is published as an opinion piece. It has no value as a source at all. It also has no argument at all, if you read it carefully. About the only thing you can take from it was that there was a mixup with the temperature data (an undisputed fact). All the rest is a mixture of ad-hominems, insinuation, and guilt by association. Just ignore it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Stephan. Your point? I would not take the "only thing" you'd allow from it. It's not a reliable source for that. It's a reliable source only for opinion, and opinions include "ad-hominems, insinuation, and guilt by association." I'm not convinced that the mixup itself belongs in this article at all, either. Your advice to "just ignore it" is uncollaborative and uncivil. If you don't want to respond to what an editor asks in Talk, don't. I.e., take your own advice. I have not and probably don't intend to support sourcing anything in the article from the Telegraph piece, as you'd expect if you can read what I wrote above. However, putting a mention of the Telegraph article in the FAQ might be appropriate. It looks like we got two editors in a short time asking about that article. We'll probably get more in the future. --Abd (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Reversion of changes to Talk FAQ

User:Stephan Schulz simply and baldly reverted my additions to Talk:Global warming/FAQ. That FAQ should be a consensus document; it cannot state as fact what we do not agree upon (excepting vandals and clearly disruptive editors). Otherwise it cannot serve its legitimate purpose of preventing repetitive and useless debate; it should avoid useless debate by confining debate to what is missing from it. If there are errors in what I added, either fix them or set them off or add cn tags or follow some other collaborative path. Otherwise it would seem you are trying to own the FAQ, not to mention the article. I'm not going to immediately revert, I'm going to wait and see what other editors say and do. But there have been editors who have long contributed to a poisonous atmosphere here, and it is about time that the community confronts it. Without that, this article will continue to be a battleground, instead of a representation of clear editorial consensus, and it will need constant defense against vandals and "POV pushers." A little effort toward generating a document that justifies how the article is, that explains our consensus, and invites orderly modification toward wider consensus, will save much later effort, senseless edit wars, and pushing of block buttons.--Abd (talk) 18:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Your edits where A) editorializing ("Our articles should not present as fact conclusions...") B) stating a POV ("There is a problem with scientific consensus in areas...") and finally C) blatantly confused, and wrong (whole second massive text block). You where bold - you got reverted (see WP:BRD). Perhaps you should try gaining consensus, before actually making large scale changes? If you revert - then i'll revert, which i would have done if Stephan hadn't. That has nothing to do with "owning", and everything to do with a complete disagreement about your edit. FAQ's should be short, precise and point to relevant resources - neither of which your edit achieved. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:56, 20 November 2008 (UTC)