Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2014 Swedish heat wave

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Not all the arguments for keep are great, but the discussion of sources in particular is convincing enough for me — and some participants — that there's a consensus to keep. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:44, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2014 Swedish heat wave

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2014 Swedish heat wave (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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WP:INDISCRIMINATE catalogue of local weather reports and temperature readings. Wikipedia is WP:NOT#NEWS. The whole article could be summarized by "Sweden experienced a hot summer in 2014." No long-term notability. — JFG talk 08:55, 13 July 2018 (UTC) Full AfD list of non-notable heat waves:[reply]

Thanks for participating. — JFG talk 11:41, 13 July 2018 (UTC) — Last updated 19:36, 12 September 2018 (UTC).[reply]

  • Random. The entirety of the northern half set record monthly means in July 2014 by significant margins as seen here [1] That is definitely a noteworthy weather event. Having said that, it could definitely be expanded into a 2014 Nordic heat wave article since the entirety of mainland Scandinavia was severely warm and Norway beat their records with an even greater margin. Having said that, I can just hide the weatherboxes into collapsable. As for being "news items" that is just disrespectful, as is the push to delete a legitimate, sourced article of a real record-crushing weather event, and I don't know why you would waste your time doing that? Just because weather events don't happen in English-speaking countries doesn't mean they're not notable on English Wikipedia.

References

  1. ^ "Temperature & Wind July 2014" (PDF) (in Swedish). SMHI. 3 August 2014. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
Lommaren (talk) 09:27, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lommaren is the creator and practically sole contributor to the contested article. -The Gnome (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No disrespect is meant to Swedish or Scandinavian people. This wiki has a {{Heat wave}} navbox with dozens of heat wave articles, and in order to provide the most correct encyclopedic information for our readers, we should keep only the most significant ones. If you have sources that document the 2014 Nordic heat wave phenomenon, you are welcome to bring them to the table. Regarding "not notable on English Wikipedia", is there an article for this heat wave in the Swedish Wikipedia? That would perhaps be a place to find better sources than local weather reports. — JFG talk 11:25, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Tyw7  (🗣️ Talk to me • ✍️ Contributions) 10:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. Tyw7  (🗣️ Talk to me • ✍️ Contributions) 10:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sweden-related deletion discussions. Tyw7  (🗣️ Talk to me • ✍️ Contributions) 10:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Lol this is terrible sourcing. Selections from weather databases does not equal notability. We do not need a Wikipedia article on every time some weather records are broken. Lasting notability from local events not established. Reywas92Talk 21:27, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep them all We don't need to write Wikipedia at all, but still some of us prefer doing it. The difference between Wikipedia and a news servie isn't the topics, but how the articles are written. J 1982 (talk) 11:17, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"I like editing Wikipedia" is not a valid argument to keep an article. See WP:ILIKEIT, WP:INTERESTING, WP:VALUABLE, WP:HARMLESS, etc. — JFG talk 12:56, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By Jimbo, some inclusionists don't even bother with arguments any more. -The Gnome (talk) 08:25, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep It's very good official sourcing, but in a foreign language to most Wikipedia editors don't mean it's "terrible sourcing", especially in the era of online automatized translation. The entire northern half of Sweden crushed all previous heat records for a full month, which makes it as notable as it can get. In relative terms, as can be seen in the source I provided avg temps for July 2014 in Northern Sweden were similarly above averages as in the Midwest during the 1936 North American heat wave. Almost 26 °C (79 °F) avg highs in Kvikkjokk near the Arctic circle is an outrageous anomaly and extremely notable. Lommaren (talk) 11:37, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Lommaren: If you want a chance to keep this, please bring in journalistic or academic sources discussing the WP:LASTING effect of this particular summer. Currently, 100% of your 26 citations are statistics from the Swedish Metereological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), meaning the narrative around this phenomenon is entirely your own original research and synthesis. Again, do we have an article in Swedish that may cite appropriate sources? — JFG talk 12:51, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, again, I cannot locate any article in the Swedish-language Wikipedia about the alleged phenomenon. Apparently, the "2014 heat wave in Sweden" was notable all over the English-speaking world but not in Sweden!.. -The Gnome (talk) 08:27, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment : Wikipedia editors are explicitly and strictly prohibited from posting up their own, personal work, no matter how well written and sourced the work might be. If we want to have an article about subject X, for example about a period of extremely high temperatures in Sweden, then we cannot take a bunch of sources on high temperatures and hot weather, all reliable and solid, and then construct an article about "heat waves." We have to have the sources explicitly referring to a "heat wave!" And done in a manner that satisfies verifiability. Anything else is our own interpretation of data so, as such, it has no place in Wikipedia. And I believe I do not have to go into the ideological can of worms allowing such a practice would open. We have had enough hot discussions on Climate change-related issues, as it is. Pun intended. We do not need more. -The Gnome (talk)
  • Keep or merge - Keep or merge into List of heat waves. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:30, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Jax 0677, you are making exactly the same suggestion in every heat wave AfD, copying & pasting really, without invoking any kind of guideline and irrespective of whatever has been already said. This kind of contribution is not acceptable in Wikipedia. According to WP:AFDFORMAT, a pattern of groundless opinion, proof by assertion, and ignoring content guidelines may become disruptive. -The Gnome (talk) 18:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Article seems to be well sourced. As per the above, I think this would be something that would interest english speaking readers as well as swedish. Though the sources are of a local nature, what is interpreted as significant can be open to wider shades of grey. In principle I don't see a problem with it. Whitewater111 (talk) 10:19, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The subject matter is certainly interesting, but that is not a criterion to maintain an article at Wikipedia. If I am passionate about statistics of hydroelectricity production, that does not allow me to create Summer 2010 hydropower peak in Switzerland out of a collection of production figures and lake levels, no matter how well-sourced to various dam operators and government agencies. This is a case of WP:SYNTHESIS largely created by a single editor, and WP is also not a blog. The fact that there is apparently no "2014 heat wave" article on the Swedish Wikipedia casts extra doubt on the WP:LASTING effect of that particular hot summer. Per WP:NEVENT, it does not belong here. — JFG talk 12:44, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Once again: The "interpretation" of data is beyond our mandate, as Wikipedia editors. Any interpretation of data, culled from local or international sources, is to be done by others, i.e. by third-party, secondary, independent sources, whose account we are then free to reproduce here. Well, such sourcing simply does not exist. -The Gnome (talk) 07:03, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Nothing out of the ordinary for a heat wave. Even the notability section doesn't satisfy GNG with just a handful of records being broken (which again, happens with many normal heat waves). You generally need a severe heat wave that causes widespread blackouts, death (beyond a handful of people already vulnerable to heat exposure), etc. to meet the notability bar for a severe heat wave. The style and translation issue is problematic too. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:27, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - “Sourcing is great”...no, no it is not. The weather was reported on by the usual agencies at the time of its existence. That is not “great”, that is routine. By the same logic, we must offer a daily weather report because, hey, the some news agency reported it too.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 18:20, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (and keep) : If the data of the SMHI (which is the official source for this kind of information in Sweden) is not deemed sufficent, here's a summary of the weather during July of 2014 published on the website of Swedish national television (SVT): [1]. /FredrikT (talk) 20:37, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me, FredrikT, my Swedish are dead rusty, so I might be very mistaken here, but the title of the article you just cited, translates in English to "Norwegian record heat," and, well, this AfD is about an alleged Swedish heat wave. Sweden is mentioned only in this : "Den 4 tog värmen över i Sydsverige, och från dygnet därpå har det varit varmare eller mycket varmare än normalt i så gott som hela landet dag efter dag efter dag," which roughly speaks about southern Sweden having weather "much warmer than normal." I would not dare to call that the description of a "heat wave." Are you really basing your suggestion on such a text? Or am I missing something? -The Gnome (talk) 22:57, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, this SMHI link is not much help either: "Flera stationer med långa mätserier överträffade med god marginal sina gamla månadsrekord. Rekorden för absolut högsta temperatur blev dock relativt få utan det som utmärkte årets julimånad [2014] i norr var den långa och jämna värmen." -The Gnome (talk) 23:10, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Norwegian" is a mistranslation. The headline speeks about a "norrländsk" record heat, which refers to Norrland, that is the northern part of Sweden, and the rest of the article is about the rest of the country as well. The first sentence you quote translates "On the 4th the heat took over in southern Sweden, and from the day after that it has been warmer or much warmer in practically all of the country day after day after day." The second quote (from SMHI) translates "Several stations [that is places where meteorological data are gathered] with long measuring serieses had their old records for the month surpassed with large margains. The all time highest temperature records where, however, relatively few; what characterized the month of July this year was the long and stable level of heat". It can also be noted that the article from SVT several times uses the word "värmebölja" which is Swedish for "heat wave". /FredrikT (talk) 09:45, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the correct translations. So, again, "Sweden had a hot summer", which is by itself not worthy of an article. See WP:NEVENT. Switzerland is having a hot summer right now, yay! — JFG talk 11:05, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
FredrikT, we can quite comfortably discard the evidence of one popular mass medium as evidence and stick with the SMHI assessment, which I hope you can agree it's not very exciting. "Long and stable levels of heat" during summer months are typical, expected, and non-notable. We still have nothing and I still cannot understand the basis for the suggestion you made. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 12:07, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really understand your resasoning. I had hoped that my translations above would have made it clear that the average temperature during the entire month of July 2014 was in large parts of the country significantly higher than had ever been recorded before (and Sweden has meteorological records going back to the 18th century). If that is not the definition of a heat wave - what is? /FredrikT (talk) 15:04, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, FredrikT, the first time you translated the Swedish into this: "Several stations with long measuring serieses had their old records for the month surpassed with large margains" [sic]. I could not reasonably assume this to mean what you're now saying it means, i.e. that "the average temperature during the entire month of July 2014 was in large parts of the country significantly higher than had ever been recorded before". The reason is that averages are different than outliers: A temperature of one or two days of a month marking a record is something very different from the average temperature of the month marking a record. A report stating that "old records for the month were surpassed" could mean either that the arithmetic average was a record high or that the temperatures for days x, y, and z were daily records for that month.
Also, the mention of "old records" has an unclear meaning. You're saying the reference means that the temperature marked an all-time high going back to the 18th century, but, again, the original text is not as clear as that. I have no problem accepting the meaning you give, although I'd prefer one from an independent source. -The Gnome (talk) 14:46, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
All this international coverage was about the forest fire. I still don't see a separate article about the heat wave even on Swedish Wikipedia. We could include a few temperature records in the article about the fire. By themselves, they are not significant. — JFG talk 19:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Coverage does not have to be in the form of a free-standing article to be significant.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
However, see: Heat Wave–Associated Vibriosis, Sweden and Finland, 2014 , and Top ten European heatwaves since 1950 and their occurrence in the coming decades, Warning level raised as heat wave intensifies, and Why 2014 was Sweden's hottest year in history. The closer I look, the more notable and impactful this 2014 heatwave appears to be. I agree that too much of the sourcing now in the article is primary, but WP:DELETIONISNOTCLEANUP, and, more to the point, our duty when we comment here is to determine whether the topic is noteworthy, and whether sources to establish significance and impact exist. I think the sources I have brought establish that this was a notable heat wave, and that sources to support this topic do exist. E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:01, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In re impact, see Center for Disease Control: "An extreme heat wave in northern Scandinavia during summer 2014 led to unprecedented high sea surface temperatures, which appear to have been responsible for the emergence of Vibrio bacteria at these latitudes." E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:01, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have access to the Wall Street Journal texts you are citing, E.M.Gregory, but I also have no reason to doubt their content as you describe it. -The Gnome (talk) 14:56, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the IOP analysis which compares this to other historical heat waves in Europe. Finally something to rely on besides weather reports and advisories to stay cool. Article should be entirely rewritten based on this study, and renamed "2014 Scandinavian heat wave" indeed. — JFG talk 21:23, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You are very welcome. Indeed, it is a pleasure to work with a Nom who not only demands solid sourcing, but who acknowledges such sources when someone them to the AfD.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:35, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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