Talk:Climate change

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faq page Frequently asked questions To view an answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question. To view references used by an answer, you must also click the [show] for references at the bottom of the FAQ. Q1: Is there really a scientific consensus on climate change? A1: Yes. The IPCC findings of recent warming as a result of human influence are explicitly recognized as the "consensus" scientific view by the science academies of all the major industrialized countries. No scientific body of national or international standing presently rejects the basic findings of human influence on recent climate. This scientific consensus is supported by over 99% of publishing climate scientists.[1] See also: Scientific consensus on climate change Q2: How can we say climate change is real when it's been so cold in such-and-such a place? A2: This is why it is termed "global warming", not "(such-and-such a place) warming". Even then, what rises is the average temperature over time – that is, the temperature will fluctuate up and down within the overall rising trend. To give an idea of the relevant time scales, the standard averaging period specified by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is 30 years. Accordingly, the WMO defines climate change as "a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer)."[2] Q3: Can't the increase of CO2 be from natural sources, like volcanoes or the oceans? A3: While these claims are popular among global warming skeptics,[3][4] including academically trained ones,[5][6] they are incorrect. This is known from any of several perspectives: Current human emissions of CO2 are at least 100 times larger than volcanic emissions. Measurements of CO2 levels over the past 50 years do not show any significant rises after eruptions.[7] This is easily seen in a graph of CO2 concentrations over the past 50 years: the strongest eruption during the period, that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, produced no increase in the trend. Isotopic analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide shows the observed change in the ratio of carbon isotopes reflects the isotopic ratios in fossil fuels.[8] Atmospheric oxygen content is decreasing at a rate that agrees with the amount of oxygen being used to burn fossil fuels.[9] If the oceans were giving up some of their carbon dioxide, their carbon dioxide concentration would have to decrease. But instead we are measuring an increase in the oceans' carbon dioxide concentration, resulting in the oceans becoming more acidic (or in other words, less basic).[10] Q4: I think the article is missing some things, or has some things wrong. Can I change it? A4: Yes. Keep in mind that your points need to be based on documented evidence from the peer-reviewed literature, or other information that meets standards of verifiability, reliability, and no original research. If you do not have such evidence, more experienced editors may be able to help you find it (or confirm that such evidence does not exist). You are welcome to make such queries on the article's talk page but please keep in mind that the talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not discussing the topic. There are many forums that welcome general discussions of global warming, but the article talk page is not such a forum. Q5: Why haven't the graphs been updated? A5: Two reasons: There are many images used in the articles related to global warming, and there are many reasons why they may not be updated with the latest data. Some of the figures, like the Global Warming Map, are static, meaning that they are intended to show a particular phenomenon and are not meant to be updated frequently or at all. Others, like the Instrumental Temperature Record and Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomalies, use yearly data and thus are updated once per year—usually in mid- to late-January, depending upon when the data is publicly released, and when a volunteer creates the image. Still others, like Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide, use monthly data. These are updated semi-regularly. However, just because an image is 6 months or a year old does not mean it is useless. Robert A. Heinlein is credited with saying, "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get", meaning that climate is defined as a long-term average of weather, usually about 30 years. This length was chosen to eliminate the year-to-year variations.[11] Thus, in terms of climate change, any given year's data is of little import. Q6: Isn't climate change "just a theory"? A6: People who say this are abusing the word "theory" by conflating its common meaning with its scientific meaning. In common usage, "theory" can mean a hunch or guess, but a scientific theory, roughly speaking, means a coherent set of explanations that is compatible with observations and that allows predictions to be made. That the temperature is rising is an observation. An explanation for this (also known as a hypothesis) is that the warming is primarily driven by greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) released into the atmosphere by human activity. Scientific models have been built that predict the rise in temperature and these predictions have matched observations. When scientists gain confidence in a hypothesis because it matches observation and has survived intense scrutiny, the hypothesis may be called a "theory". Strictly speaking, scientific theories are never proven, but the degree of confidence in a theory can be discussed. The scientific models now suggest that it is "extremely likely" (>95%) to "virtually certain" (>99%) that the increases in temperature have been caused by human activity as discussed in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Global warming via greenhouse gases by human activity is a theory (in the scientific sense), but it is most definitely not just a hunch or guess. Q7: Does methane cause more warming than CO2? A7: It's true that methane is more potent molecule for molecule. But there's far less of it in the atmosphere, so the total effect is smaller. The atmospheric lifetime of methane (about 10 years) is a lot shorter than that of CO2 (hundreds to thousands of years), so when methane emissions are reduced the concentration in the atmosphere soon falls, whereas CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere over long periods. For details see the greenhouse gas and global warming potential articles. See also: Clathrate gun hypothesis and Arctic methane release Q8: How can you say there's a consensus when lists of "skeptical scientists" have been compiled? A8: Consensus is not the same as unanimity, the latter of which is impractical for large groups. Over 99% of publishing climate scientists agree on anthropogenic climate change.[1] This is an extremely high percentage well past any reasonable threshold for consensus. Any list of "skeptical scientists" would be dwarfed by a comparably compiled list of scientists accepting anthropogenic climate change. Q9: Did climate change end in 1998? A9: One of the strongest El Niño events in the instrumental record occurred during late 1997 through 1998, causing a spike in global temperature for 1998. Through the mid-late 2000s this abnormally warm year could be chosen as the starting point for comparisons with later years in order to produce a cooling trend; choosing any other year in the 20th century produced a warming trend. This no longer holds since the mean global temperatures in 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have all been warmer than 1998.[12] More importantly, scientists do not define a "trend" by looking at the difference between two given years. Instead they use methods such as linear regression that take into account all the values in a series of data. The World Meteorological Organisation specifies 30 years as the standard averaging period for climate statistics so that year-to-year fluctuations are averaged out;[2] thus, 10 years isn't long enough to detect a climate trend. Q10: Wasn't Greenland much warmer during the period of Norse settlement? A10: Some people assume this because of the island's name. In fact the Saga of Erik the Red tells us Erik named the new colony Greenland because "men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name."[13] Advertising hype was alive and well in 985 AD. While much of Greenland was and remains under a large ice sheet, the areas of Greenland that were settled by the Norse were coastal areas with fjords that, to this day, remain quite green. You can see the following images for reference: A map of the Eastern Settlement A satellite image of that area today A map of the Western Settlement A satellite image of that area today A zoom in on the general area where the Brattahlíð (Erik the Red's farm) and Garðar farms were located Q11: Are the IPCC reports prepared by biased UN scientists? A11: The IPCC reports are not produced by "UN scientists". The IPCC does not employ the scientists who generate the reports, and it has no control over them. The scientists are internationally recognized experts, most with a long history of successful research in the field. They are employed by various organizations including scientific research institutes, agencies like NASA and NOAA, and universities. They receive no extra pay for their participation in the IPCC process, which is considered a normal part of their academic duties. Q12: Hasn't global sea ice increased over the last 30 years? A12: Measurements show that it has not.[14] Claims that global sea ice amounts have stayed the same or increased are a result of cherry picking two data points to compare, while ignoring the real (strongly statistically significant) downward trend in measurements of global sea ice amounts. Arctic sea ice cover is declining strongly; Antarctic sea ice cover has had some much smaller increases, though it may or may not be thinning, and the Southern Ocean is warming. The net global ice-cover trend is clearly downwards. See also: Arctic sea ice decline See also: Antarctic sea ice § Recent trends and climate change Q13: Weren't scientists telling us in the 1970s that the Earth was cooling instead of warming? A13: They weren't – see the article on global cooling. An article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has reviewed the scientific literature at that time and found that even during the 1970s the prevailing scientific concern was over warming.[15] The common misperception that cooling was the main concern during the 1970s arose from a few studies that were sensationalized in the popular press, such as a short nine-paragraph article that appeared in Newsweek in 1975.[16] (Newsweek eventually apologized for having misrepresented the state of the science in the 1970s.)[17] The author of that article has repudiated the idea that it should be used to deny global warming.[18] Q14: Doesn't water vapour cause 98% of the greenhouse effect? A14: Water vapour is indeed a major greenhouse gas, contributing about 36% to 70% (not 98%) of the total greenhouse effect. But water vapour has a very short atmospheric lifetime (about 10 days), compared with decades to centuries for greenhouse gases like CO2 or nitrous oxide. As a result it is very nearly in a dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere, which globally maintains a nearly constant relative humidity. In simpler terms, any excess water vapour is removed by rainfall, and any deficit of water vapour is replenished by evaporation from the Earth's surface, which literally has oceans of water. Thus water vapour cannot act as a driver of climate change. Rising temperatures caused by the long-lived greenhouse gases will however allow the atmosphere to hold more vapour. This will lead to an increase in the absolute amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. Since water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, this is an example of a positive feedback. Thus, whereas water vapour is not a driver of climate change, it amplifies existing trends. See also: Greenhouse gas and Greenhouse effect Q15: Is the fact that other solar system bodies are warming evidence for a common cause (i.e. the sun)? A15: While some solar system bodies show evidence of local or global climate change, there is no evidence for a common cause of warming. A 2007 National Geographic article described the views of Khabibullo Abdusamatov, who claims that the sun is responsible for global warming on both Earth and Mars.[19] Abdussamatov's views have no support in the scientific community, as the second page of the National Geographic article makes clear: "'His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion,' said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. [...] Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that 'the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations.'"[20] There is no reliable source claiming that Jupiter is warming. However, observations of the Red Spot Jr. storm suggest Jupiter could be in a period of global climate change.[21][22] This is hypothesized to be part of an approximately 70 year global climate cycle, characterized by the relatively rapid forming and subsequent slow erosion and merging of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices that help transfer heat between Jupiter's poles and equator. The cycle works like this: As the vortices erode, heat exchange is reduced; this makes the poles cool down and the equatorial region heat up; the resulting temperature difference destabilizes the atmosphere, leading to the creation of new vortices.[23][24] Pluto has an extremely elliptical orbit with a period of about 248 years. Data are sparse, but two data points from 1988 and 2002 indirectly suggest that Pluto warmed between those two dates.[25] Pluto's temperature is heavily influenced by its elliptical orbit – it was closest to the sun in 1989 and has slowly receded since. Because of thermal inertia, it is expected to warm for a while after it passes perihelion (similar to how a sunny day's warmest temperatures happen during the afternoon instead of right at noon). No other mechanism has so far been seriously suggested. Here is a reasonable summary, and this paper discusses how the thermal inertia is provided by sublimation and evaporation of parts of Pluto's atmosphere. A more popular account is here and in Wikipedia's own article. See also: Climate of Mars and Extraterrestrial atmosphere Q16: Do scientists support climate change just to get more money? A16: No, Scientists participate in international organizations like the IPCC as part of their normal academic duties. They do not receive any extra compensation beyond possibly for direct expenses. Scientific grants do not usually award any money to a scientist personally, only towards the cost of his or her scientific work. There is not a shortage of useful things that scientists could study if they were not studying global warming. Understanding our climate system better brings benefits independent of global warming. For instance, more accurate weather predictions save a lot of money (on the order of billions of dollars a year), and everyone from insurance agents to farmers wants climate data.[26][27] Scientists could get paid to study climate even if global warming did not exist. Q17: Doesn't the climate vary even without human activity? A17: It does, but the fact that natural variation occurs does not mean that human-induced change cannot also occur. Climate scientists have extensively studied natural causes of climate change (such as orbital changes, volcanism, and solar variation) and have ruled them out as an explanation for the current temperature increase. Human activity is the cause at the 95 to 99 percent confidence level (see the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report for details). The high level of certainty in this is important to keep in mind to spot mention of natural variation functioning as a distraction. Q18: Should we include the view that climate change will lead to planetary doom or catastrophe? A18: This page is about the science of climate change. It doesn't talk about planetary doom or catastrophe. For a technical explanation, see catastrophic climate change, and for paleoclimatic examples see PETM and great dying. Q19: Is an increase in global temperature of, say, 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) important? A19: Though it may not sound like much, a global temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) is huge in climate terms. For example, the sea level rise it would produce would flood coastal cities around the world, which include most large cities. Earth's climate has varied significantly over geological ages. The question of an "optimal temperature" makes no sense without a clear optimality criterion. Over geological time spans, ecosystems adapt to climate variations. But global climate variations during the development of human civilization (i.e. the past 12,000 years) have been remarkably small. Human civilization is highly adapted to the current stable climate. Agricultural production depends on the proper combination of soil, climate, methods, and seeds. Most large cities are located on the coast, and any significant change in sea level would strongly affect them. Migration of humans and ecosystems is limited by political borders and existing land use. In short, the main problem is not the higher absolute temperature but the massive and unprecedentedly fast change in climate and the related effects on human societies. The IPCC AR6 WG2 report has a detailed discussion of the effects of rapid climate change. Q20: Why are certain proposals to change the article discarded, deleted, or ignored? Who is/was Scibaby? A20: Scibaby is/was a long term abusive sock-master (or coordinated group of sock masters) who has created 1,027 confirmed sock puppets, another 167 suspected socks, and probably many untagged or unrecognized ones. This page lists some recent creations. His modus operandi has changed over time, but includes proposing reasonably worded additions on the talk page that only on close examination turn out to be irrelevant, misinterpreted, or give undue weight to certain aspects. Scibaby is banned, and Scibaby socks are blocked as soon as they are identified. Some editors silently revert his additions, per WP:DENY, while others still assume good faith even for likely socks and engage them. Q21: What about this really interesting recent peer-reviewed paper I read or read about, that says...? A21: There are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published every month in respected scientific journals such as Geophysical Research Letters, the Journal of Climate, and others. We can't include all of them, but the article does include references to individual papers where there is consensus that they best represent the state of the relevant science. This is in accordance with the "due weight" principle (WP:WEIGHT) of the Neutral point of view policy and the "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" principle (WP:IINFO) of the What Wikipedia is not policy. Q22: Why does the article define "climate change" as a recent phenomenon? Hasn't the planet warmed and cooled before? A22: Yes, the planet has warmed and cooled before. However, the term "climate change" without further qualification is widely understood to refer to the recent episode and often explicitly connected with the greenhouse effect. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we use the term in this most common meaning. The article Climate variability and change deals with the more general concept. Q23: Did the CERN CLOUD experiment prove that climate change is caused not by human activity but by cosmic rays? A23: No. For cosmic rays to be causing global warming, all of the following would have to be true, whereas only the italicized one was tested in the 2011 experiment:[28] Solar magnetic field must be getting stronger The number of cosmic rays reaching Earth must be dropping Cosmic rays must successfully seed clouds, which requires: Cosmic rays must trigger aerosol (liquid droplet) formation, These newly-formed aerosols must grow sufficiently through condensation to form cloud-condensation nuclei (CCN), The CCN must lead to increased cloud formation, and Cloud cover on Earth must be declining. Perhaps the study's lead author, Jasper Kirkby, put it best: "...it [the experiment] actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step."[29] Q24: I read that something can't fix climate change. Is this true? A24: Yes, this is true for all plausible single things including: "electric cars", "planting trees", "low-carbon technology", "renewable energy", "Australia", "capitalism", "the doom & gloom approach", "a Ph.D. in thermodynamics". Note that it is problematic to use the word "fix" regarding climate change, as returning the climate to its pre-industrial state currently appears to be feasible only over a timeframe of thousands of years. Current efforts are instead aimed at mitigating (meaning limiting) climate change. Mitigation is strived for through the combination of many different things. See Climate change mitigation for details. References ^ a b Powell, James (20 November 2019). "Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 37 (4): 183–184. doi:10.1177/0270467619886266. S2CID 213454806. Retrieved 15 November 2020. ^ a b "Commission for Climatology Frequently Asked Questions". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020. ^ Harris, Tom. "Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change". National Post. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2009 – via Solid Waste & Recycling. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 4 February 2012 suggested (help) ^ Arriola, Benj. "5 Good Arguments Why GlobalWarming is NOT due to Man-made Carbon Dioxide". Global Warming Awareness Blog. Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ Ahlbeck, Jarl. "Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming". Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ Kirby, Simon (11 April 2007). "Top scientist debunks global warming". Herald Sun. Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ Brahic, Catherine (16 May 2007). "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ "More Notes on Global Warming". Physics Today. May 2005. Retrieved 10 September 2007. ^ Battle, M.; et al. (2000). "Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and d13C". Science. 287 (5462): 2467–2470. doi:10.1126/science.287.5462.2467. ^ The Royal Society (2005). "Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide". Retrieved 9 May 2012. ^ "Met Office: Climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009. ^ Climate Central (18 January 2017). "2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record". Climate Central. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ^ The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880, English translation by J. Sephton, from the original Eiríks saga rauða. ^ "Cold Hard Facts". Tamino. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.[dead link] ^ Peterson, T. C.; et al. (2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1325. Bibcode:2008BAMS...89.1325P. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1. ^ Gwynne, Peter (28 April 1975). "The Cooling World". Newsweek. p. 64. ^ Verger, Rob (23 May 2014). "Newsweek Rewind: Debunking Global Cooling". Newsweek. ^ Gwynne, Peter (21 May 2014). "My 1975 'Cooling World' Story Doesn't Make Today's Climate Scientists Wrong". insidescience.org. ^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008. ^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (page 2)". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008. ^ Marcus, Philip; Shetty, Sushil; Asay-Davis, Xylar (November 2006). Velocities and Temperatures of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the New Red Oval and Implications for Global Climate Change. American Physical Society. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Goudarzi, Sara (4 May 2006). "New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change". Space.com. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Philip, Marcus S. (22 April 2004). "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter" (PDF). Nature. 428 (6985): 828–831. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Yang, Sarah (21 April 2004). "Researcher predicts global climate change on Jupiter as giant planet's spots disappear". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Elliot, J. L.; et al. (10 July 2003). "The recent expansion of Pluto's atmosphere". Nature (424): 165–168. doi:10.1038/nature01762.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Foerster, Jim. "What's The Difference Between Private Weather Companies And The National Weather Service?". Forbes. ^ Eilts, Mike (27 November 2018). "The Role of Weather—and Weather Forecasting—in Agriculture". DTN. ^ "What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?". Skeptical Science. 2 September 2011. ^ Brumfiel, Geoff (23 August 2011). "Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays". Scientific American.

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We've tackled all suggestions from the featured article review pre-review as far as I'm concerned, and also rewrote the mitigation section. Are we ready for a copy-edit before we ask for a proper FAR? Signing off for a few days. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I vote that we are ready for a copy-edit.Dtetta (talk) 19:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I identified and rewrote a very weak subsubsection. Going to wait till to see if that new version is stable. Femke Nijsse (talk) 05:36, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't any real "see also" section. ~ R.T.G 20:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, see WP:SEEALSO. Because the article is comprehensive, there aren't many internal links that haven't been mentioned in the body of the text. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:40, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Then I am going to take the liberty starting with global warming potential. ~ R.T.G 08:48, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That has already been linked from the article (be it not using that jargon), so that one doesn't work. Per WP:ONEDOWN we shouldn't use any unnecessary jargon in this article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:22, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find it by searching the source text. ~ R.T.G 09:49, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's in this sentence: Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 excluding land use change were equivalent to 52 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FYI at the time of this thread that sentence wikilinked to a redir; on account of htis thread I updated the wikilink to point to the target article, global warming potential. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have signed us up. The current waiting list is about a month. I might rewrite one paragraph before then (or not), but am now quite satisfied with what we've got. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone over part of it, feedback welcome. HLHJ (talk) 04:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article has severe issues. I will highlight just one:
The article for anthropogenic global warming redirects to here.
...yet it gives no indication that the page has this redirect.

It is clear that major things are broken here. This article could use a large dose of transparency.
It does state that "Climate change" redirects here. The proper action to take is to make the same statement about AGW.
I will leave it to others to fix this, as this only scratches the surface on what is broken here. --Concord19 (talk) 13:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This comment contains two parts.

• A - tangibly, you have a complaint about the AGW redirect. In reply.... there's no policy that says articles must list all the redirects that target a given article. The reason "climate change" is mentioned is two-fold, first that among readers (and even editors) there is a lot of confusion over the terms "climate change" and "global warming". In contrast, a microscopically small number of wonky readers arrive here thinking of the phrase "anthropogenic global warming". Second, the former "climate change" article stood for a long time with a different scope but was recently moved to a different title (Climate variability and change) so we try to provide some basic info about all that in a "you are here" sort of way for returning readers. See WP:HATNOTE for background info on the goals and purposes of providing a statement like climate change redirects here.
• B - the rest of this comment is what's known as a WP:VAGUEWAVE, so there's nothing to reply to.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:23, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's no policy? The reason this one example was called out is because this IS the article on AGW. The title has been whitewashed so that the "A" is now assumed. Quote (early statements in the lede):

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that "human influence on climate has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century". These findings have been recognized by the national science academies of major nations and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing.

Yet it gives no indication that there are plenty of scientists who dispute it. Randall Carlson is one person who gives sound reasons as to why the jury is still out on this issue. So this article has FAILED in presenting an NPOV. One obvious way to lower the global temperature is to INCREASE pollutants. This is what the whole nuclear winter thing was all about.

Now look at the statement from the first paragraph:

Collectively, global warming and its effects are known as climate change.

That is a garbage statement. "Climate change" is a term which is inclusive of global cooling. "Change" is not a synonym for "warming".

Then there are the policies you cite to change the very title of this issue I have highlighted. You, and other editors, have been called out on this general problem that this article has. There is no Manual Of Style policy which instructs me to be neutral with a section title I use here in the TALK space. You'be grossly misinterpreted this policy which is used for helping us with how to write Articles.

And there is irony in you citing Vaguewave while not giving specific example.

Anyone who is not clear on the general criticism, there have been multiple articles which have been conflated here:

- Global warming is a distinct issue from...

- Anthropogenic global warming, and both are a separate issue from...

- Climate change.

And it was the lumping of these all together which is what has raised this flag of whitewashing. The article is so broken that it no longer gives the courtesy appearance that you've been redirected. As this article stands today, it tells the public that it is a forgone conclusion that human beings are the reason for climate change. And dissenting views have been silenced. NPOV fail. --Concord19 (talk) 10:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Concord19, it is certain that humans are causing climate change now. We've shown this in the article by citing many high-quality reliable sources (NASA, NOAA, many peer-reviewed scientific articles, IPCC, World meteorological organisation and more). The opinion of one non-expert as Randall Carlson isn't relevant. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Global warming has become a new religion ...because you can't discuss it." ~ Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever

I've already explained that humans have the potential to create global cooling by way of polluting the atmosphere. It was expected that you would readily dismiss Randall Carlson. Now to persist with this whitewashing, you will be required to dismiss this position by a Nobel laureate. And I expect that you and others have already justified doing this. Because these dissenting views are not hard to find.

I intend to LEAVE this article now as being broken beyond repair. I had raised the concern that whitewashing was happening in the article. The immediate response was then someone whitewashing my section title. And attempted to legitimize this by bogusly applying WP. Your reply has made it perfectly clear why this problem here has been persisting. Because a critical mass of editors have stopped looking to present any semblance of NPOV. This fits perfectly with Giaever's assessment, that this has become a religion. --Concord19 (talk) 11:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Concord19, per WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN, it's perfectly valid to make a heading more to-the-point and neutral. Nobel prize winners talking about fields they have no expertise in are about as valuable as you and me in establishing facts. We're discussing it now, but you have not provided any high-quality reliable source (f.i recent review papers in good scientific journals). You might find that contrary to some (US and Australian) media, a disagreement about the cause of climate change isn't present in actual scientific literature. If you're afraid some of us formed a clique, you can always get completely uninvolved editors to weigh in using the Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard, but I don't think you'll get far. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A guy with a Nobel prize in physics isn't smart enough for you? Here is a different guy who worked in the Australian Greenhouse Office as their "main modeler of carbon":

"The climate models ...don't really have a clue about how much warming, or what's causing warming. They're saying it's due to CO2. Obviously it's not." ~ David Evans, PhD

I expect you will have a standard way of dismissing Evans too, as readily as you dismissed Carlson & Giaever.

By the way, some of us remember this big scare from the 70s:

"Climate experts believe the next Ice Age is on its way. ...temperatures have been dropping for 30 years. ...According to some climatologists, within a lifetime, we might be living in the next Ice Age." ~ documentary narrator Leonard Nimoy

Ok, I have said about all that I came to this article to say. --Concord19 (talk) 12:23, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think Concord19 raises half of a valid point illustrative of the multi-year confusion over naming and scope of topic articles "climate change" and "global warming". I say "half valid" because we're arguing about equally valid meanings of the phrase when both are accurate. What the article now says is half true... global warming and its effectives are indeed known as "climate change". But its only half true because that's not the exclusive meaning of "climate change". As Concord19 points out it has a broader technical meaning that encompasses any-and-all climate change, including global cooling. I would not object to adding a footnote making the meaning used here more clear, and in contrast with the general meaning. The footnote could point to the main article on this broader meaning, Climate variability and change. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The position you have taken here strikes me as quite odd. Say that you go look at the Wikipedia article on Natural Numbers, and there you find the lede stating this:

"Natural numbers are known as Integers."

Or you look at the article on Bisexuality, and in the lede there, you find this:

"Bisexuals are people who are attracted only to men."

These are NOT "half valid" statements. These are examples of blatantly erroneous statements. Because they were written by people who clearly have failed to grasp the concept of what they are writing about.

This article on Global warming is laced with blatant errors. And until these bogus statements get fixed, then this will remain a broken article. --Concord19 (talk) 22:02, 14 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The IPCC has stressed the need to keep global warming below 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) compared to pre-industrial levels in order to avoid some irreversible impacts. This lede sentence makes me uncomfortable, but I don't know how to fix it. The word stressed is probably a word to watch (WP:SAID), and should be reworded. If we use a more neutral 'described' or 'stated', the sentence doesn't feel strong enough for the lede, and doesn't fit into the policy paragraph that well. Any thoughts on how to improve that sentence or paragraph? Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:17, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The current reference (Summary for Policymakers) merely responds to an invitation to provide a special report; it isn't the actual source of the "1.5" figure. Based on language ("aspirational") from Carbon Brief, maybe something like the following would work: "The IPCC has studied the impacts of the Paris Agreement's aspirational goal of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) and found that ...." A subject matter expert such as yourself could readily summarize the impacts. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A possibility involving a change of reference....something like....

When the IPCC issued a special report comparing the risks of limiting warming to 1.5 versus 2.0 degrees C, the BBC described the scientists as issuing a "final call" which "says that going past 1.5C is dicing with the planet's liveability". IPCC special report, BBC news story

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:06, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RCraig, you're right that the IPCC is not the source of 1.5. Your sentence also allows us to introduce the Paris agreement into the lede, which I think would be beneficial. I'll work from that one. I'll try to integrate the Carbon Brief article into the body.

NEAG: I'm not keen on introducing the BBC into the lede (or even in the body), as it's a trigger word for loads of people on the right (or in other circumstances left) in the UK. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good point NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NewsAndEventsGuy. The IPCC SR15 report was in response to the Paris agreement, not the other way around, as RCraig09 indicated above. Which makes it more difficult to glue these sentences. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks I'm on it NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dtetta I’ve been doing a review of the literature we cite recently. Mostly to make sure everything checks out and is up to date, but also as a secondary goal to reduce the amount of sources we cite to make the page load faster (so getting more info out of our higher quality sources to delete the lower quality). In 'your' sections about mitigation, I’ve noticed a few things:

• ‘Solar PV and wind in particular (…) last few years cites a 2014 source, which logically can’t tell us much over the last few years (2015-2020?)

I eliminated the older IPCC reference and replaced it with a more recent set of figures from Our World In Data, and combined that with the existing reference at the end of the sentence.Dtetta (talk) 19:08, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:59, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Not sure if Dj Tyson is a reliable source, definitely not a high-quality RS that is expected of most cites in a featured article.

Yes the “reliable source” on this particular sentence is an interesting choice. We could just reference Message 4 in National Climate Assessment Chapter 26, which deals with native villages. But the Pacific Environment article has a nice feel of indigenous perspective, which is why I think it’s a better source than the more academic perspective you get from the NCA. My preference would be to keep the current source, but if you want to change it to the NCA report or some similar source, that’s fine with me as well.Dtetta (talk) 00:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• A TSC Webmaster was probably not the author, you can leave the author empty if necessary. Is there a better source?

I removed the reference to TSC Webmaster, and moved the citation, combining it with the FAO citation at the end of the sentence. Actually the TSC article is based on the same 2018 paper in Science by Curtis that is referenced at the end of the paragraph. I had chosen this depiction of Curtis‘s work because of the way it graphically shows the continued forest loss in the tropics, which is what the statement that it’s referring to is describing.Dtetta (talk) 21:31, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

:). Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• The headbomb script for unreliable sources doesn't like the Oh, Yoo and Yoo cite; possibly a predatory journal. Do you have a higher quality source for that statement? Preferably a review type of source (global?) that also includes vehicle efficiency standards, so that we don't break up the sentence with a mid-sentence cite.

I replaced the Oh, Yoo and Yoo reference with a more basic description of EPA’s Clean Power Plan by the NRDC. I think that simple example, rather than a more detailed academic analysis, is actually a better way of referencing this particular statement.Dtetta (talk) 15:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be able to address some/all of those? Thanks!! Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sure - I will look into those issues.Dtetta (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• And another one; citation 212 (IPCC SR15 Ch2 2018.) doesn't have a page number. I'm noticing they're even asking for page numbers for long papers at FAR, so report chapters definitely need one. I'm sure the executive summary must contain this information. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:59, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Dtetta (talk) 16:48, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• note 207 cites a press release (daily science), which is often biased in favour of the most recent original research done. Is it possible to find a newer review paper (or of not available, cite the original research directly; it will have a review of other literature in its introduction). Per WP:SCIRS (an essay we're allowed to ignore, but which makes a lot of sense), press releases should generally be avoided. Maybe the other cite alone is good enough. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

mea culpa, I probably added some of the Science Daily citations. Thanks for pointing out the weakness in those. I guess I'm late to the party, it seems whatever citations to this source have been removed already, except for one, from May 2020, about CSS. I think I can clean that up later. The point in the text being made isn't that exceptional so there should be plenty of decent alternatives. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:38, 2 August 2020 (UTC) UPDATE.... please review this diff and incorporate the ref into Harv (which I still don't understand) if ya'll think it is an improvement. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:53, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly feel experimental geo-engineering techniques (like direct air capture) are undue in this article. The mitigation section is already bulging. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK by me... it would also be ok by me to reduce the section to a list and links to other articles with almost no text. Personally, I would like to see the world commit to going "all in" on all the options other than nuclear before doing nuclear, but for purposes of our article we need to add that controversial major option. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NewsAndEventsGuy, I don't think a short list would be valid for a FA article. In terms of nuclear; with such long building times, you can't really do it 'afterwards'. You either have to start within 10 years, or it doesn't really make that much sense anymore imo. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I get that, but to talk more about it we'd have to drift off into FORUM-land, and while that would be interesting and I'd enjoy that conversation, for our purposes here... since nuclear is such a big, albeit controversial, topic in fossil fuel alternatives I think that needs to be mentioned. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For a long time... including the (current version (971182934) the lead has concluded with a paragraph that talks about mitigation efforts before talking about government policies to pursue mitigation. Methinks after the science talk about effects we should have the paragraph where governments agreed "Gee, maybe we should do something" and only then go into the policy/engineering stuff about what we can actually do. In other words, I'd like to reverse the order of those two paragraphs. Any objections? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NewsAndEventsGuy, I think both way work, so go ahead. I've been thinking about merging the two paragraphs as well (and maybe delete geo-engineering, as undue?). Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a comprehensive article has to at least mention and link out to subarticles on the nuclear debate, it must do the same for the many ideas of geoengineering. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:07, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the body, yes. In the lead, I'm not convinced. Britannica doesn't do it... Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Previously I was not distinguishing between lead and body, thanks for clarifying. I'll think about that. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Responses to climate change generally fall into three categories: adaptation, mitigation (reducing emissions), and engineering (mostly carbon capture and storage and Solar radiation management). I think it's important that the article mention these. Jmurray1997 (talk) 20:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jmurray1997, CCS is more often than not considered part of mitigation than geo-engineering as it prevents GHG from reaching the atmosphere. All other geo-engineering techniques are very immature, whereas mitigation and adaptation get waaaay more attention from policy makers, academics, and society in general. It should definitely be mentioned in the article, but I think it is now proposed as a solution similar to the other two (in the lede), which doesn't make that much sense to me. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:38, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some CCS technologies aim to prevent GHG from getting to the atmosphere in the first place, others aim to capture and store carbon from the air, which would be a form of climate engineering. I would also argue that the current state of CCS technologies has similar levels of immaturity to that of other climate engineering technologies, given that the current rate of capture of a CCS facility is generally <5 million tons of CO2 per year, which pales in comparison to the 37,000 million tons per year of CO2 output. It would be interesting to quantify but I wouldn't argue the ratios on Google Search Trends necessarily favour CCS to other climate engineering in general (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=climate%20engineering,geoengineering,carbon%20capture,carbon%20capture%20and%20storage). Jmurray1997 (talk) 20:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmurray1997: good to meet you, I don't think I've addressed you before. These are great comments and for now I'll just say I look forward to thinking about this content and possibly talking more. (Same goes, F) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:09, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@NewsAndEventsGuy: It's great to meet you too, I should add that I support switching the order of the last two paragraphs in the lead. I also think it would be important to add one sentence about how the IPCC reported that emissions of carbon dioxide would need to reach 'net zero' around 2050 to limit warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. I think this was an important component of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. Jmurray1997 (talk) 22:39, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to my own comment, that paragraph in the lead ends with two sentences about current policies and emission rates, but I'm very interested to know what you think about having one sentence about potential future policies, namely what are needed to avoid exceeding 1.5ºC. We could include this sentence immediately before the two sentences about current policies and after the "IPCC has stressed" sentence. Jmurray1997 (talk) 04:37, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a good idea to mention net-zero is the lede. The lede is not allowed to get much bigger though, so we also have to scrap a sentence. I believe the sentence ending with 2028 is a crime against significant digits; it could as well be 2025 or 2040.. So I'm keen to replace that one.

Summary suggestions last two paragraphs lede

NEAG, you're willing to work on all of these?

• Mention Paris agreement
• Rephrase 'IPCC has stressed' (see two discussions above)
• Possibly drop geo-engineering
• Add net-zero (preferably in wikivoice, not in IPCC voice)
• Remove sentence ending with 2028. Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think with the edits Guy just made, there’s a good opportunity to replace the sentence about the budget running out by 2028 with a sentence about net zero by 2050 to prevent warming of 1.5°C. We could even link to the wiki article on the ipcc special report. As I mentioned before, I oppose removing climate engineering from lead, I think it works well in the sentence as is. MurrayScience (talk) 14:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed rewrite for last two paragraphs

What do you think of the following? (Murray... I saw your comment about 2050 about the same time as I was ready to post this. The only reason I didn't incorporate that is I ran out of time. Have at it...)

Comments? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:41, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

THere is still the question of moving cites out of the lead. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are you proposing combining the final two paragraphs? I don’t think favor is the right word because that implies supporting those responses instead of, rather than in addition to mitigation/adaptation. I would use ‘are proposing’. I wouldn’t use the word theoretical because, see mt pinatubo, and other experiments, these are not necessarily less theoretical than the other responses mentioned. There’s also much controversy about other responses, see the opposition to carbon taxes, regulating coal, etc. I would just say: through proposals collectively known as climate engineering. MurrayScience (talk) 15:03, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redistributing the concepts but still two paragraphs. I flagged the proposed break. Thanks for comments, I'll wait a bit and look at them with any additional remarks that may be forthcoming. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC) The first proposed paragraph is about mitigation. The other is about adaptation/geoeng NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Thanks :). Quite a few comments.

• By not using Wikivoice for IPCC's conclusions, we are breaching neutrality a bit. It leaves the door open for people to think other experts disagree. This might be stronger for people that have heard some disinformation about IPCC.
• Furthermore, using the word we is almost certainly against the manual of style.
• Before posting this, you'll have to adjust the climate engineering part in body (controversial not in there, nor that some people favor this. Who are those people? Is they actually important?).
• I don't think improving agricultural soils is happening; almost all of them are degrading still. It's more of a proposal. If adding, again find High-Quality Reliable Sources (HQRS) for the body.

I think you're goal of linking up these sentences is making it difficult; much more context will need to be added to the already 'full' body, and many of these links are not supported by the sources we have now. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Femke, I would support small incremental changes rather than large rewrites. I think for now, replacing 2028 sentence with zero by 2050 has consensus. Let me work on a sentence that could work. MurrayScience (talk) 15:16, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I like the general look of the revised text, but am having a hard time figuring out exactly what it says at present. NewsAndEventsGuy and MurrayScience, would one of you be willing to write out the full two paragraph revision here one more time? That would help me provide comments prior to posting. Thanks! Dtetta (talk) 12:00, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I'll take a crack at a second version in light of feedback and post below later today.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:32, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dtetta and NewsAndEventsGuy, please take a look at a small change I am suggesting below. The zero by 2050 sentence was supported by Femke, and it fixes the use of GHG to refer to the carbon dioxide budget. MurrayScience (talk) 15:22, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Real life intrusion I've got three main wiki balls in the air and not enough time, so I'm going to let this part go for now. Thanks to Murray/Femke/Dtetta/anyone else with time to keep at it NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:21, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Zero by 2050 sentence

This is an incremental change to the lead per Femke, please give your approval. MurrayScience (talk) 15:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

New sources:

Comments:

• I changed 'reduce global warming' to 'reduce greenhouse gas emissions' in the Paris sentence to be more precise. 'Pledges to reduce global warming' could potentially refer to geoengineering, CCS, etc. Now we can replace 'average surface temperatures' (probably too wordy for the lead) with 'global warming'.
• I left the part about 'fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030' out in order to be concise. If you think it's important to include, feel free to add it back in.
• By the way, do you think we should avoid using the word 'anthropogenic' in the lead - and use a word like 'human-caused' instead - or at least define 'anthropogenic'? I'm just thinking about the young reader here who may find the subject matter unnecessarily inaccessible by the use of that word. MurrayScience (talk) 16:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • So this layman waded through SR15 section 2.2.2 starting on page 104; I think its saying for 1.5C in 2100 we need net zero by 2050 if we leave out permafrost thaw, but if we factor permafrost thaw in then the budget is reduced by an "order of magnitude", implying (with "medium confidence") that we need to hit net zero much earlier. Is that how you read it? And do you have any recommended secondary references to backstop our reading of this primary source? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:31, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not familiar with the probabilities on the order of magnitude decrease in the carbon budget due to permafrost thaw, perhaps @Femkemilene: can comment. The 'net zero by 2050' is a widely cited figure however, and was listed under a high confidence paragraph in the IPCC Special Report (chapter 2). MurrayScience (talk) 17:42, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Permafrost + wetlands may take about 100 Gt off the 450 GtCO2 budget, so not order of magnitude (poor wording by IPCC on p.105, but if you read close it becomes clear).
      • Net zero is widely cited, no need to cite that to IPCC really (and therefore not perfectly neutral if we do).
      • I agree that anthropogenic is a horrible word, and unnecessary in front of emissions. If we put an adjective there; NASA and Met office are using 'human-made'.
      • IPCC is never a primary source. It is the best secondary, sometimes even tertiary (f.i. summary for policy makers), source we have. They don't do any research themselves. (still on enforced wikibreak till tomorrow because need to finish thesis. Femke).
        • Good point. I will find another citation that is not IPCC, I think it makes sense keeping the link of 'net zero by 2050' to the IPCC report, because it is a IPCC policy summary as well as a scientific finding.
        • We may even have room now to keep the current rate of emissions sentence, unless there is opposition to this.
        • The one use of 'anthropogenic' in the lead is in a quote, so I'm not sure how we can handle that. MurrayScience (talk) 19:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Keeping the IPCC source due to its importance in these policy recommendations, and including a peer-reviewed article that confirms the findings behind the policy recommendations.
        • The current version in the lead is actually technically incorrect (the 2028 sentence should say CO2 emissions but says GHG emissions). MurrayScience (talk) 03:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think the above is an improvement to the current text. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is dropping the word about before 2.8. Uncertainty is often overcommunicated in climate, but here I think it is appropriate to let our readers know this numbers is far from set in stone. Still prefer to drop the last sentence. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting the sentence referring to the carbon budget and 2028 has a couple of problems from my perspective. One is that the lede, for some time now, has had a consistent message amongst the various ideas it summarizes...that we are currently not doing enough to limit GHG emissions to the levels that the IPCC is recommending and to stay within the 1.5 target. It seems like that idea disappears with this deletion. In addition, that sentence was the one part of the lede that summarized some of the ideas in topic 4 -Future warming and the carbon budget. So I think it’s an important sentence to keep. But if the consensus is it should go, I’m ok with that.Dtetta (talk) 20:46, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the current/live version, the 'zero by 2050' sentence encapsulates some of the ideas of limiting GHG emissions, and I think might be easier for the average person to conceptualize than exhausting 'a carbon budget'. Also, zero by 2050 says clearly what must be done to avoid 1.5+, whereas exhausting the carbon budget merely states what is currently happening. I agree though that the idea of a carbon budget is an important concept that we may want include in the lead. If you feel strongly about the 2028 sentence and would like to add it back in, please add back the striked-through sentence directly above as it is a condensed version that works better with the rest. My position is more or less neutral on the 2028 sentence. MurrayScience (talk) 21:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - adding the net zero 2050 idea to the lede is a definite improvement, and of the two concepts probably the more important.Dtetta (talk) 21:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jmurray1997 and Dtetta. Jmurray has been adding information about GHG emissions to the land surface subsection. In a past discussion, we decided to put all greenhouse gas emissions, including those from land use change, into the GHG emissions subsection and other changes into the land surface change subsection. I think the added material is good (except the Agricultural land is typically supplemented by synthetic or manure fertilizer text, where supplemented should probably replaced by another word). A few requests:

• Could you two (Dtetta was the original writer of most material in this area) figure out whether the newly added text should be moved above
• To make clear people have to search above to find info about GHG, we can add the words as described above in the sentence In addition to impacting greenhouse gas concentrations (...), land use changes affect global warming through a variety of other chemical and physical dynamics
• Dtetta, would you have time to put the cites in the complicated structure we use in this article? (Jmurray: in contrast to most articles, we use these citation standards, which is a pain for a beginner.)
• I'm always grateful for less text and less details if possible. Prose is now at 58,000 characters; which is above the informal size limit of 50,000.

Thank you :). Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:32, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Femke, thank you for supporting these additions. I am totally okay with moving them up to the GHG section, with a link to them. I should be able to reduce my paragraph by about a sentence in that case, and change the supplemented word. Let me see what I can do on that. Also I can try making those citations, although I’m not super familiar with the typical format used here. MurrayScience (talk) 13:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jmurray1997, welcome to the group! Glad to have the skills you bring to this. By way of backgound, language like the text you have added about the effects of land use change on GHG emissions was in the original text I created, but it ended up being moved to the Physical Drivers of Climate Change>Greenhouse Gases section in order to make that section more complete (and more consistent with the Radiative Forceings figure that helps introduce this subtopic), and to focus the Land Surface Change section on other effects of land surface/land use change, largely albedo. it seems like what you’ve written would fit best as a one or two sentence addition that immediately follows the sentence in the Greenhouse Gases section that starts with “A further 4 billion tonnes of.....”. The first sentence of your paragraph seems a little redundant with that sentence, so I would start by trying to condense the latter sentences in your paragraph into a shorter one or two sentence statement, and add it there. I would be happy to help you with either the language or the citations if you’d like. Also, is it Jmurray1997 or MurrayScience that you prefer? Thanks! Dtetta (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dtetta, I think you make some good points. Later today I'll work on moving my paragraph into that section as you say, and I think that will allow it to be condensed by about two sentences. I think the content describing the basic science of the emissions from soil and fertilizer/NO2 should be kept, given its significance in global warming. I'll also work on the citations too. Feel free to call me Murray, as some here have been doing. :) MurrayScience (talk) 20:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Murray - I think that, unfortunately, the sentences that you added to the GHG section are still much more detailed than the text in the earlier part of the paragraph, and make it rather disjointed. For instance, there are several components to the 52 Gt of CO2 that’s referenced in the first sentence. Each of those components could merit a more detailed explanation like you’ve given to the deforestation/agriculture aspect. We could explain how fossil fuel combustion causes CO2, or provide a more detailed statement on how cattle production and rice farming produce methane emissions. I would suggest that your cocepts be incorporated in the following way, shonw in the next paragraph (I include additions based on your text in italics, and some related deletions in strikeout). I think the additional references you bring to the paragraph could also be included at the end of the clauses I’ve added.

——————————————————

Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 excluding land use change were equivalent to 52 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Of these emissions, 72% was carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and industry, 19% was methane, largely from livestock, 6% was nitrous oxide, largely from global use of fertilizers, mainly from agriculture, and 3% was fluorinated gases. A further 4 billion tonnes of CO2 was released as a consequence of land use change, which is primarily due to deforestation, in which CO2 is released from soil and dead tree decomposition, as well as from tree burning.

—————————————————

Another thought is that you your statements might be very helpful in the deforestation article, particularly the Environmental Effects>Atmospheric section. And I think that the Greenhouse gases section of this article should include a reference to that Deforestation article among its “Main article” listings, or in a “See also” section that could be added. Dtetta (talk) 19:13, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is a bit disjointed, I'll work on getting the more detailed information into other articles and making changes along those lines as you have described. I'll get to this within the next two days. MurrayScience (talk) 19:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request to Global warming has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change "uncluding" to "including" in the last sentence of sub-chapter "1.1 Regional variation". BlackDragon17x (talk) 13:07, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:39, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We're now missing a paragraph decidated to CC in popular culture. I've been mulling over this for a few weeks, but find it difficult to find the words. The Weart book we're citing has quite a long story about how documentaries as An Inconvenient Truth, and movies such as Waterworld, The Day after Tomorrow have been important for public awareness, and that climate change has belatedly also made an entry in literature culminating in the cli-fi genre. Any takers to improve the section Global_warming#Public_debate with this information and give it a less polarizing name? Public awareness and debate for instance? Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:53, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

After the recent edit by MurrayScience, the lede is now more detailed than the body. I don't mind mentioning methane in the lede, but I think it's better if it would be moved to the body, for brevity. If you guys disagree, we will still need to copy the statement about methane to the body. We can immediately get rid of another cite in the lede; this is not a controversial statement, so it's better if there is no cite in the lede per WP:LEADCITE and consistency. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Paris covers a wide range of GHGs. In article 4 it states for instance, they want to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:36, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I think you’re right about Paris, let’s see what other people think about the lead. It is now about as long as it was before. We mentioned methane and carbon dioxide as the primary emissions earlier in the lead and it so the sentence connects back to that. MurrayScience (talk) 13:04, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve been thinking that the mitigation part of the body needs improvement anyways. MurrayScience (talk) 13:06, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

the mitigation part of the body needs improvement agreed; With the ANI I filed now done, I'm focused on the rename proposal for now. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:08, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Improve mitigation section

Dtetta was responsible for a recent rewrite of the mitigation section. I like it as it is, but I'm sure you can think of further improvements to make. I'll try to give feedback, but might not have time for that before holiday. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:06, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can't promise that I can work a lot on it, I'm busy with other things right now. If I start working on a re-write I'll do it here in the talk page before posting it to the article. MurrayScience (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Murray, you may also want to look at the archived discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming/Archive_82#Proposed_Changes_to_Responses_Subtopic. There was a lot of discussion on various issues associated with the rewrite that would help inform any further changes you would like to propose.Dtetta (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The two areas that I am thinking need to be improved/included would be a sentence or two on energy efficiency, as well as a section on Cost (investments) and Benefits (opportunities).There was C/B language in some of my earlier proposals, but for a variety of reasons it did not end up being included. For me the most important would be a sentence or two on energy efficiency in the "Technologies and other methods" section. Dtetta (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A radical idea that doesn't want to leave my mind. Would it be a good idea to split the responses section into mitigation (maybe renamed curbing emissions/curbing climate change..), and put the adaptation section next to effects. This would be similar to the IPCC structure, and also gets rid of the vague Responses section. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm worried that adaptation would then get lost as a response. I do agree that there should? be a better term than the vague 'Responses'. For improving mitigation, I've listed some important areas. Note that they reflect the latest understanding from the literature on this topic. MurrayScience (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Electricity

• For intermittent renewable sources (wind, solar), large scale storage is important (https://www.innovationreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/EIRP-Deep-Decarb-Lit-Review-Jenkins-Thernstrom-March-2017.pdf), this is an important area of research and includes batteries.

This is a good reference. The point about the challenges getting harder the more we move to completely renewable energy might be worth mentioning in the Obstacles paragraph of the Technologies section, and perhaps point 4, regarding lock-in, might be useful in the the Strategies for 2050 section.Dtetta (talk) 22:13, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Also for intermittent renewable sources, the continent-scale transmission is important https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009912)

This reference is difficult for me to assess, as it is behind a pay wall. But it seems like the general NREL report that it’s based on is fairly comprehensive. There are probably a few aspects of its analysis regarding a highly renewable-energy focused grid that might be useful to incorporate as statements in the mitigation section.Dtetta (talk) 01:29, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for looking into these sources, it seems like you will be super helpful in writing the paragraph, which I plan to seriously begin work on here this weekend. That source does look similar and I will look into in more detail during the writing process. The challenge is to condense the key concepts into a few highly informative sentences, preferably with links to relating wiki articles. I'm optimistic though that we can make some great improvements. And yes, that's a great paper that used to not be paywalled. You can access it on sci-hub. MurrayScience (talk) 02:22, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Electrification of home heating, stove, and dryers.
• The importance of base load, which could be provided by nuclear if not storage and transmission. Mention Generation IV reactor.

Industrial Emissions

• Electrification of currently flame-heated processes.
• Mention current research into eliminating chemical emissions from concrete, Haber-Bosch. (https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-ammonia-production-emits-CO2/97/i24). CCS goes in nicely here.

What about putting adaptation in its own section as well? That's what the German wikipedia has done. That would promote instead of demote it.

I'd venture that most, if not all, of these issues are either already covered (storage), or overly technical (large-scale transmission instead of other modifications to the energy grid. Generation IV reactors are almost certainly undue: f.i, it is mentioned once in the 630 pages of the IPCC SR15 report in the sentence "Low-emission hydrogen can be produced by natural gas with CCS, by electrolysis of water powered by zero-emission electricity, or potentially in the future by generation IV nuclear reactors."

There is sooo much new exciting literature about solutions, so we have to make sure we can determine what is DUE is this article, or which technologies need to go a level below to climate change mitigation. Determining what is DUE can be done by reading summaries of highly reliable sources that span the entire topic, or a big chunk of it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:24, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that many of these are certainly undue, I mainly wanted to give context to fellow editors :). I think improvements should be incremental. Here's what I think is important to have in the article to get up to date with the literature on mitigation: One mention of the word 'nuclear', one mention of the word 'transmission', a removal of the sentence 'Combined, they are capable of providing...' as it suggests a common but potentially harmful misunderstanding, one mention of the word 'intermittent' to refer to intermittent sources (see Variable renewable energy), a pairing of the words 'electrification' and 'heating'. (Incremental stuff.) MurrayScience (talk) 19:40, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, we mention carbon pricing, which is very good. We should also mention research and development of zero-carbon technologies, which was a major component of recent political platforms - e.g., Sanders, Warren - and in the European Union, so it has precedent. It's important that we not forget that solar/wind are primarily relevant to the 25% of emissions that are electricity. Aviation, shipping, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. make up a much larger share, and require major innovations in chemical processes, electrification, and, for transportation, battery storage. There's a ton of literature on this, we should - briefly - represent it. Also intermittency is vastly important because it's the major obstacle to massive solar/wind deployment - the literature overwhelmingly emphasize this point. I can start turning this into a real paragraph and hope to begin a draft soon, which I will post in the talk page. Again, any inclusions would be incremental, brief, and important. MurrayScience (talk) 20:29, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with nuclear, not sure about transmission (keeping the article simple), disagree with removal of combined, but curious what misunderstanding you think is implied by it, okay with adding variable, okay with pairing electrification and heating, but afraid it will become too technical.

Both heating and transport can be partially electrified, and a big chunk of it without new technology... About 20% of emissions fall in difficult to abate sectors, meaning that the technology isn't really there yet, so it makes sense to mention this. We now put quite a lot of attention on negative emissions, which I'm somewhat sceptical about and whose importance I believe is an artifact of flawed economic modelling in Integrated assessment modelling (often based on neo-classical assumptions of equilibrium, even when talking about a massive transition). So I'm okay to have a slight refocus there. Note that we already mention electrification, and storage (albeit not battery). Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:05, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Murray - Thanks for your efforts on this. I am generaly of the same opinion as Femke regarding these proposed edits, and would offer these sugestions as well:

• Although they may not always address the specific Electricity and Industrial Emissions issues you refer to, for me, the following reports are still the best general references for figuring out how to frame the text in this section: UNEP Emissions Gap 2019; IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change - although this is admittedly dated by now; IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C; RENEWABLES 2019; IRENA-2050 Roadmap; and Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals, UTS-Sydney.
• It’s important to keep in mind the challenges of managing the word count for this section, which went from about 500 words to something like 1200 words when the early June rewrite was done, and which the Talk Archive link I posted was about.
• One of the guiding ideas for the “Technologies and other methods” section I argued for during the discussion of the June rewrite is that the technologies coverage should: briefly mention the principal mitigation technologies available; describe what they’re able to do in terms of either moving us away from fossil fuel usage; lowering GHG emissions, or lowering GHG concentrations; describe their strengths, downsides and potential barriers to their usage, and briefly mention measures that can minimize those downsides; and give each option relatively equal treatment. I don’t think there was any real pushback to these principles, so I think it would be helpful to keep these ideas in mind when proposing your edits. I do worry that some of what you are proposing would lead to an overemphasis of certain options.
• Think about what is better put here in the GW article, or what would be better done as an edit in the Mitigation or Renewable Energy articles
• I would appreciate it if you could write out the complete paragraph or paragraphs you’re planning on editing and present the edits in an underline/strikeout fashion. It makes it much easier to track exactly what changes you’re proposing. Dtetta (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think we could say something like: Studies have emphasized the importance of electrifying heating, which is most commonly provided by the combustion of fossil fuel in a furnace or boiler.^[1] We already talk about heat pumps, by the way, which is arguably way more specific and technical than just saying electrification of heating.

I agree with you completely on negative emissions.

I think that one sentence has the potential to suggest the common misunderstanding that only sufficient land area of solar and/or wind need to be built, which is strongly contrary to the academic literature. I think it could be rephrased to say something like: The available solar and wind power on Earth is sufficient to supply several times the world's current energy needs. The main physical obstacles to capturing this available power include the daily and seasonal intermittency of solar and wind energy, as well as the significant land areas required to capture this power due to low surface power densities.^[2] These obstacles can primarily be mitigated by large-scale energy storage systems and continent-scale electric transmission.^[3] By the way, a lot of this is repeated elsewhere so it's mostly a rephrasing, rather than an addition.

I think that 20% figure would be very helpful, and would work well in connection to a sentence on research and development; if you can drop your source for it here that would be super helpful. By the way, my sample sentences are written on the fly, so they can be improved and I haven't perfect citations.

Also, I forgot to respond but I think adaptation in its own section would be fine. It should definitely include one mention of seeds too! (https://news.trust.org/item/20190913095309-cdbhx/) (https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/cassava-and-climate-change-boosting-the-iq-of-a-naturally-climate-smart-crop/). Would you want to rename the 'Responses' section, and if so to what?

I'm trying to take a WP:BREAK until the weekend and then I'll try to develop a draft of mitigation here. MurrayScience (talk) 15:27, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't respond anymore, and work on thesis (and RSI is playing up), but let me respond to one point. I think the surface power density is utterly and completely irrelevant to the question of whether power sources can mitigate climate change. One may argue that it's bad for sustainability in general, but this is not the article about that. You won't find this prominently in sources about climate change mitigation, but instead in sources about engineering, energy transition and other related topics. (And try to avoid sources about a single country) Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree we don't need to make any mention about the environmental impacts of requiring large surface areas. By the way we already have this sentence: Environmental and land use concerns are sometimes associated with large solar, wind and hydropower projects.. The sentence of surface power density is extremely widely agreed on as a primary obstacle to solar and wind and therefore fits into the category of "costs, downsides, and potential barriers", per Dtetta. And yes, we can get international sources, which are about solar and wind power. MurrayScience (talk) 16:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In 2011, some researchers published results showing that use of "global warming" vs "climate change" produced statistically significant differences in belief/urgency among a lay audience. A replication study^[1] (in the USA/UK/Australia) has just returned different results -- to a lay audience there is no longer any difference in belief/urgency just because of the word choice. Political identification still has a strong correlation, but word choice.... nope. I will note this in the concurrent rename thread. I made a new thread so this will be easier to find in the archives in the future.. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:00, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]