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Frequently asked questions

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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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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On 3 August 2020, it was proposed that this article be moved from Global warming to Climate change. The result of the discussion was moved.

Section sizes

Section size for Climate change (49 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	15,012	15,012
Terminology	3,667	3,667
Global temperature rise	69	29,126
Temperature records prior to global warming	4,553	4,553
Warming since the Industrial Revolution	10,548	17,109
Differences by region	6,561	6,561
Future global temperatures	7,395	7,395
Causes of recent global temperature rise	2,597	33,954
Greenhouse gases	10,992	10,992
Land surface changes	3,718	3,718
Other factors	22	16,647
Aerosols and clouds	5,534	5,534
Solar and volcanic activity	4,997	4,997
Climate change feedbacks	6,094	6,094
Modelling	4,013	4,013
Impacts	290	28,834
Environmental effects	4,595	4,595
Tipping points and long-term impacts	5,990	5,990
Nature and wildlife	7,221	7,221
Humans	1,903	10,738
Food and health	2,927	2,927
Livelihoods and inequality	3,049	3,049
Climate migration	2,859	2,859
Reducing and recapturing emissions	3,844	19,433
Clean energy	8,041	8,041
Energy conservation	1,719	1,719
Agriculture and industry	2,365	2,365
Carbon sequestration	3,464	3,464
Adaptation	7,784	7,784
Policies and politics	2,398	15,141
Policy options	1,583	3,848
Climate justice	2,265	2,265
International climate agreements	6,015	6,015
National responses	2,880	2,880
Society	14	7,696
Denial and misinformation	2,550	2,550
Public awareness and opinion	3,564	5,132
Climate movement	1,568	1,568
History	61	11,181
Early discoveries	6,184	6,184
Development of a scientific consensus	4,936	4,936
See also	332	332
References	35	110,262
Sources	366	110,227
IPCC reports	5,383	5,383
Other peer-reviewed sources	50,848	50,848
Books, reports and legal documents	31,144	31,144
Non-technical sources	22,486	22,486
External links	1,161	1,161
Total	287,596	287,596

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90
91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96

/Terminology section /General discussion

This page has archives. Sections may be automatically archived by when more than 8 sections are present.

Food and health section

The RfC is now closed. If there are no objections I will replace the current version with B above. B has more up-to-date sourcing and is shorter than the current version. Bogazicili (talk) 11:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any consensus for version B up above. There was a discussion that I think expressed a preference for B over A, but not for B over what's there now. I would recommend making a new proposal that includes feedback as per the discussion up above, or making incremental changes to the existing text. Efbrazil (talk) 23:34, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We can have a follow up RfC comparing the current version to version B above. But we've been discussing this since February, but I don't think anyone said they would prefer the current version. We also had asked you if you wanted to join DRN, but you had rejected. So I'm surprised you seem passionate about this section even though you had refused to participate to DRN. Can you clearly state why you prefer the current version? Bogazicili (talk) 17:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My edit above dated 22:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC) explains my issues with version B, which somewhat differ from I2K's.

I'm not sure what DRN refers to, but I know I dropped out of things for a while as you and I2K were sorting through things. I was hoping you two would converge on a solution. Efbrazil (talk) 20:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your 22:37, 26 April 2024 message mostly seems to be personal opinions. You said: "Proposal B tilts too heavily towards generalized alarmism". Do you have a reliable source saying why IPCC or other sources are alarmist? Can you provide links, page numbers, and quotes? "Could" is not "wishy washy", it's just scientific writing. Projections do not have 100% certainty.

InformationToKnowledge, do you prefer the current version or version B above? Bogazicili (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In that 22:37, 26 April 2024 comment I listed out 4 specific sentences in the proposal that I don't think add value to the content, and for each sentence I say why. Prior to that, I2K pointed towards several sentences that they didn't think added value. I also got a thanks from EMSmile for my reply above saying there is not consensus for version B. In other words, there is not consensus for version B.

As for the issue of "could", the problem is that it can mean any likelihood between 0% and 100%. Nuclear war could break out tomorrow, or it could rain somewhere on Earth. It is better for forecasts to use terms that are more precise.

Instead of just disagreeing with feedback, please try assimilating it. I've rarely found that feedback is not valid, even if it is sometimes not expressed as clearly as it could be. Efbrazil (talk) 22:56, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"generalized alarmism": Please provide sources for this claim. Why are IPCC's numbers alarmist? Please provide links, page numbers and quotes. Otherwise, I can't take personal feelings, thoughts, and other WP:Forum-like discussions seriously.
"Over 100 scientists writing": This was InformationToKnowledge's suggestion in WP:DRN and I liked it. I like that there a variety of sources, ranging from governmental/institutional sources like IPCC, business community (World Economic Forum) and independent scientists ("Over 100 scientists writing" sentence).
"Could": Scientific writing rarely expresses certainty [1]. But if this is so important to you, we can change it with "are projected to". There could be other projections though.
"global livestock headcounts": Again, this was InformationToKnowledge's suggestion in WP:DRN. I accepted it to try to find a compromise. We asked other editors to join to WP:DRN.

As for assimilating feedback, InformationToKnowledge seems to have responded to your feedback with a detailed response [2], but you seem to have ignored it [3]. Did you try assimilating that? Bogazicili (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The reason that discussion ended is we both had issues with the text you proposed, but for different reasons. Since you weren't engaged there was no point in continuing with the discussion. The only path forward would have been to propose new text, and I suggested how, and then stepped back. Now that you've seen the feedback (maybe you missed it before?) I'm still not seeing you show any interest in actually incorporating it. You purely seem to be defensive, as though backed into a corner and fighting back. Why not work from a perspective of trying to understand feedback and find consensus?

Addressing the bullets up above:

Generalized alarmism refers to the issues I2K was raising with your text. Statements that are not specific are not helpful in defining a topic.
The over 100 scientists statement is similarly not constructive by being vague and generalized. What type of scientists? What sort of irreversible harms? You could probably write a similar statement about laundry detergent.
Certainty is 100%, and yes, scientistst should rarely say 100%, but they can say things like "likely", meaning over 50%. The IPCC has a defined vocabulary for how certain they are with predictions.
Yep, I disagree with I2K on this issue, and said why.

Again, I think incremental fixes will work best. Just look for the sentences for which there was not opposition and roll with them, then we can discuss any specific disagreements here. Efbrazil (talk) 19:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello to both of you. I feel bad that I am unable to help in any way as I am just so "lost" on all of this. But I do think that the suggestion of Efbrazil is a good way forward i.e. to make small incremental changes on a sentence by sentence basis. This might help to get other people who are watching this article (and who have switched off from the discussion) back and re-engaged. EMsmile (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We've debated this since February so the discussion seems stuck. I think another RfC would be the way to go. Efbrazil, can you state why you oppose B above and support current text with a one sentence summary so I can add it to the RfC? Bogazicili (talk) 21:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could we not do small incremental changes sentence by sentence, rather than RfC? EMsmile (talk) 09:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For "small incremental changes", I asked for sources, but no sources were provided. You could have also joined and suggested this at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case. Suggesting small incremental changes without providing any sources and after the lengthy Dispute Resolution Noticeboard process has been completed seems like Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling Bogazicili (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am just trying to help move this process along. I don't think the RfC has helped so far, or has it? Overall, I am not planning to spend much time on this article myself because it's already in far better shape than many of our climate change sub-articles which also get high pageviews (some of them) but which are nowhere near FA or GA quality, most of them lingering only at C class. So that's why I am currently devoting more of my time to them than to this article. Sorry. EMsmile (talk) 20:35, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Efbrazil said new text was "generally alarmist". I asked for sources about why IPCC and other sources used in the text are "generally alarmist". The process will not move along without sources.

The previous RfC did establish preference for shorter length for that section, so I do think it was actually helpful. Bogazicili (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion to condense the section on "causes"

(I've brought this back from the archive because I think this needs to be revisited, now that we have a sub-article on causes of climate change. I think the discussion hadn't concluded yet.) EMsmile (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+++++++++

We talk a lot about space constraints here. And I think that is good; the article shouldn't get too big. Suggestion to generate more space: let's take the plunge and move some content from the "causes" section to causes of climate change. This would free up a lot of space for other content. See also move discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#Requested_move_29_January_2024 (which has been "stuck" and sadly no inputs from uninvolved editors yet (but I am not surprised; it's not easy for an uninvolved editor to get their heads around it; I think we need to resolve it ourselves). EMsmile (talk) 09:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

~~That would be great. But it's a highly technical section, so I'm not sure who's going to do it. It's also been stable for a long time. Bogazicili (talk) 15:58, 6 February 2024 (UTC)~~[reply]

Bold suggestion: Prune, prune, prune the whole chapter down to just a list. No background. Little explanation. No history. No-where-does-it-come-from. No expectations. No what-to-do-about-it. Provide all of that in other chapters, other pages. Move feedback mechanisms to modelling. Keep it simple, no jargon, no abbreviations. Just list the causes.

Sort the list. Main, long term factors first. Put small impact factors last.

Carbon dioxide and methane are the main greenhouse gases that trap heat near the Earth's surface.
Deforestation. Living trees remove carbon and cool by evaporation. Dead trees release CO2 and can't cool anymore.
El Niño causes spikes upto several years while La Niña causes cooling.
Vulcanic eruptions have a negligible impact for just several years.
The received energy from the sun has not really changed since 1880.

The word count will reduce dramatically. Uwappa (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want this section to become "just a list". It's important to have this section be clear and stand alone. We need to lay the foundation before launching into impacts. I wouldn't want to see the overall word count of the section drop by more than half.

Here is a proposal for cut downs on reading through the sections as they are now:

The intro to the section: This is good framing and I wouldn't change it
Greenhouse gases: The first 4 paragraphs I wouldn't change. The last paragraph on the carbon cycle could be merged into the section Reducing and recapturing emissions / Carbon sequestration. We'd then just add one sentence to the first or second paragraph of Greenhouse gases that mentions carbon sequestration as an issue.
Land surface changes: This is the other cause that deserves top level billing and I wouldn't change it at all.
Other factors: All remaining sections I'd stuff into a new section called "Other factors". That includes existing sections called "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback". None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change". I'd reduce all those sections to 1 paragraph each so that "Other factors" is 3 or 4 paragraphs long.

So that cuts 4 or 5 paragraphs total. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 18:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given Attribution of recent climate change is in a poor state, and this article is FA, I'd suggest a conservative approach, certainly not chopping off large portions. Bogazicili (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added the section sizes table to the talk page at the top. It shows that the biggest section is the one on causes (although not by far). This is a hint for me that some trimming of that section could be a good move. The fact that Attribution of recent climate change (possibly future causes of climate change) is in a bad state should not stop us from making such changes.

I like Efbrazil's suggestion of "other factors" (or better wording?) as "Climate change feedback" shouldn't be on the same level as "greenhouse gas emissions" with regards to causes.

The fact that this section has been "stable for a long time" shouldn't stop us from taking a hard critical look at it to see if it can be improved.

I disagree with Uwappa's suggestion. A mere list wouldn't do it justice. But a section with fewer and shorter sub-sections would. EMsmile (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be called 'drivers of climate change' before, which made the feedback section work there. Other factors work if we don't rename the section back to how it was. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For now I stuffed those sections into a new "Other factors" section, to help clarify that they aren't causes. I didn't want to revisit the section title name, as that change was a long debate. Efbrazil (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Promote "3.3 Other factors" to "4 Other factors", so "3. Causes" will be have just 2 subheadings: "3.1 Greenhouse gases" and "3.2 Land surface changes"? Uwappa (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Other factors doesn't make sense as a stand alone section, it would need to be something like "Other factors influencing climate", but then you're getting into a laundry list that is already covered in Climate variability and change. I kind of like it where it is, being subordinate to causes. Makes it clear we aren't forgetting these complicating factors, but also makes it clear they aren't the cause. Efbrazil (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's all not ideal... But maybe we could call the sub-section just that: "Complicating factors"? I think that could add some clarity.EMsmile (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I don't see "complicating factors" as better than "other factors". All it means to me is other + complicated. The other factors are not really "complicating" as they can, in fact, be ignored. They are just background noise or feedbacks that complicate modeling, but don't complicate understanding the cause of climate change. Some stuff like solar variability we're discussing mostly because it's been a red herring used by climate deniers. Maybe you could clarify what you don't like about "other factors"? Efbrazil (talk) 01:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How about same terminology as

and move feedback to Modelling?

3. Natural variability

3.1 El Niño & La Niña

3.2 Solar and volcanic activity

3.3 Aerosols and clouds

4. Human forces

4.1 Greenhouse gases

4.2 Land surface changes

5. Modelling

5.1 Climate change feedback

Describe Natural variability first, before Human forces? Uwappa (talk) 10:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aerosols are human caused, clouds are not. Also, this is an article on climate change, not natural variability, so I don't think that topic deserves top billing.

I thought about combining other factors with modelling but I think it's best to keep all the factors influencing climate grouped together. How to model those factors is really a separate topic.

The only idea that kind of makes sense to me is renaming "Other factors" to "Other factors influencing global temperatures". That would help with clarity but is wordy. I also don't know if that scratches your itch, as you didn't jump on that idea when I suggested it in edit comments.

So, again, I just don't see the problem with things as they are now. It is an appropriate hierarchy that makes it clear what's important, plus it groups all forces influencing climate. Can you please clarify what the problem is, instead of looking for a solution? Efbrazil (talk) 15:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is (but it's maybe only a minor problem) that things appear under "Causes" which are not actually causes. Namely these: Aerosols and clouds; Solar and volcanic activity; Climate change feedbacks (as Femke pointed out earlier, they are drivers and the section used to be called drivers). Now perhaps it doesn't matter for lay persons (drivers and causes are kind of similar...) or perhaps we want to make sure we make it very clear (?) (even for me as a layperson I have to think twice if aerosols is a cause or not; since the aerosols are also emitted by human activities...).

So therefore, a sub-heading 1 with the title "other factors" glosses over this too much. Maybe "Other factors that act as drivers but are not causes " as a section heading (too long, I know). Or "Other related drivers". Or "drivers that interact with causes". Or lift it up to become its own main level heading called "Drivers apart from causes" or "Other drivers"?

And since Uwappa mentioned ENSO: the articles does mention climate variability a few times but has no dedicated sub-heading 1 for that. I am wondering if we need one. Could also be a sub-heading 2. EMsmile (talk) 14:42, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we should get that article renamed and fixed up before doing much to this article. Maybe some edits here could be moves of content to that article though. Regardless, the renaming should happen first. Efbrazil (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please indicate at Talk:Attribution of recent climate change which of the proposed options you favour? I am just trying to move things along. It's been stuck for a long time (and no uninvolved editors have shown up yet). EMsmile (talk) 23:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, thanks for the ping Efbrazil (talk) 01:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By now, I would actually support something much closer to the suggestion of @Uwappa then what the other editors seem to be proposing. This is because I have done my best to combine this section of this article and the relevant parts of the "attribution" article in my draft of the article on "Causes of climate change", which can now be viewed at my sandbox. Editors are encouraged to comment on that draft wherever they find it convenient, or even edit it directly. If there are no strong objections to the structure of that draft, then I would like to reduce the section here to a cogent summary of that article once it goes live. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:16, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(moved from above to keep this all together) EMsmile (talk) 22:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EMsmile: I think we should be cautious about cutting causes section. First of all, this article is FA. Causes of climate change is a long way from FA quality. So I'm cautious about sending readers to lower quality articles. Also consider the massive difference in page views. When there is still so much scepticism about science, the most important information should still be in the main article. Btw only "about 0.09% or one out of every 1,050 articles" in English Wikipedia are Wikipedia:Featured articles. So I'm cautious about changes in FA articles in general. So I think we should proceed with caution in cutting causes section and expanding other sections. Bogazicili (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Much of Causes of climate change, as currently written, was based directly on the exact section of this article we are trying to condense. In particular, the sections on Land cover changes, aerosols and feedbacks are exactly the same, word-for-word, between the two articles. "Solar and volcanic activity" section is another example. It had been renamed to "natural variability", but is otherwise very similar. If that content is FA while it is here, how does it become less so by simply being moved elsewhere?

Further, those are the sections where a lot of sentences go well and beyond "the most important information". You can argue that they already provide too much detail for a high-level article: i.e. how many people need to see a fairly detailed paragraph on cloud feedback and why it can be different in models when they are simply trying to learn about climate change in general? This is why they are the prime candidates for condensing here, now that they are already replicated in a separate article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need to cut from causes of climate change again? What is being proposed to be expanded? Bogazicili (talk) 09:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the reasons that I2K gave as a good motivation for condensing some of the content about causes of climate change (even if we were to not expand any other section). Overall, the CC article is definitely on the long side and "less is more" in this case. (I tried to check the page size with the page size tool but am getting this info at the moment: "Prose size (text only): undefined B (undefined words) "readable prose size""). EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see 8,929 words, it's actually at the recommended length (under 9k). I don't think it expanded much since last FAR either. If there is no proposed expansion, cutting from causes of climate change is completely redundant. Bogazicili (talk) 12:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree: cutting content (or rather condensing content) is not "redundant" if one doesn't expand at the same time in another section. There can be other reasons for condensing content, and I think I2K spelled out those reasons quite well. E.g. they said You can argue that they already provide too much detail for a high-level article: i.e. how many people need to see a fairly detailed paragraph on cloud feedback and why it can be different in models when they are simply trying to learn about climate change in general? EMsmile (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How are we assessing DUE weight? It also seems summary style to me as most sections have their own articles, except "Land surface changes" and "Aerosols and clouds" sections. Bogazicili (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have brought the above discussion back from the archive a second time because I think it still hasn't been resolved. I hope someone will have the energy and time at some point to move the discussion above forward on condensing content about the causes of climate change and relying more on the new sub-article on causes of climate change. Interestingly, that article is getting an uptick of pageviews since March of this year (see here); not surprisingly as that was the time when we changed the name of the article from "attribution of..." to causes of climate change on 13 March 2024. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As the person suggesting this, can you say what doesn't comply with WP:Summary? Not to mention this article passed FA review, so WP:Summary wasn't an issue before. Bogazicili (talk) 21:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's mainly the section called "other factors" that is not adhering to summary style and that goes into too much depth for a high level article. This was also pointed out by Efbrazil in their post above on 6 Feb 24 where they wrote: "Other factors: All remaining sections I'd stuff into a new section called "Other factors". That includes existing sections called "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback". None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change". I'd reduce all those sections to 1 paragraph each so that "Other factors" is 3 or 4 paragraphs long. So that cuts 4 or 5 paragraphs total."

The fact that the article passed FA review 3.5 years ago (January 2021) should not be seen as a stifling argument to making other small incremental changes (like we have done for many of the other sections in the meantime). Climate change is a fast moving topic so there will always be room for improvement. As it currently stands, the section on "causes" is the largest section of the article (see the table of section sizes above) and I think it would benefit from condensing. EMsmile (talk) 09:21, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, that's the personal opinion of one editor. Climate change is also not a that fast moving topic. The causes of climate change haven't changed in 3.5 years.

As the person suggesting this, can you provide us reliable overview sources about climate change? What percentage was devoted to the causes? What percentages were devoted to "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback" compared to overall causes? And what are the percentages for this article? Maybe a table with these percentages and links to the sources would help, so we can assess WP:PROPORTION.

This is an FA-class article, so some level of conservatism should be expected. You are also suggesting a major change. You have been suggesting this since February, but I have yet to see the sources. Bogazicili (talk) 18:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I could do that analysis but I am not sure if it's worth my while. Let's first see what others think. From the discussion above you can see that it's not just one editor who has suggested that (me) but also Efbrazil and InformationToKnowledge. Let's hear from them and others. I won't push for it if there is no chance that it would get consensus anyway. Note also the complication that was highlighted above that "None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change"" (which is why that section became "other factors"). Another good reason for condensing and reworking that section. EMsmile (talk) 13:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging User:Efbrazil and User:InformationToKnowledge: would love to hear your thoughts on this. EMsmile (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Possible student assignment

Housekeeping edit: there was an announcement about an upcoming student assignment here before (for this course) which has since been deleted. EMsmile (talk) 07:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Mirafloree: I am not sure if this article is a suitable article for a student assignment. For once it is protected and cannot be edited by new users. Secondly it's already a featured article so probably not really in urgent need of improvement right now. Whoever guided you to this article, I recommend you go back to them and suggest to rather work on a sub-article, like maybe causes of climate change or climate change in Africa (or any other country or region). Good luck with your assignment! EMsmile (talk) 09:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Food and health section 2

Which of the following versions should be used in the Food and health section? A is the current version in the article and B is the new version. This is a follow-up RfC. A previous RfC was conducted after a Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case. Version B below was preferred over another suggested new version, mainly due to length. In the previous RfC, the current version wasn't given as a specific option. Bogazicili (talk) 21:14, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A. Current version, 243 words

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.^[1] Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life.^[2] Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria.^[3] Crop failures can lead to food shortages and malnutrition, particularly effecting children.^[4] Both children and older people are vulnerable to extreme heat.^[5] The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year. They assessed deaths from heat exposure in elderly people, increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, and childhood malnutrition.^[6] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity.^[7]

Climate change is affecting food security. It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010.^[8] Future warming could further reduce global yields of major crops.^[9] Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative.^[10] Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts.^[11] Climate change also impacts fish populations. Globally, less will be available to be fished.^[12] Regions dependent on glacier water, regions that are already dry, and small islands have a higher risk of water stress due to climate change.^[13]

B. Suggested new version, 235 words

The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[4] Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[5] Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[6][7]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[8][9] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[10]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[11] [12] According to the World Economic Forum, 14.5 million more deaths are expected due to climate change by 2050.[13] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[14] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[15]p. 988

While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children.[16] With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

C. Something else - Please provide a complete section.

Please enter A, B, or C (with the text) in the Survey. Please do not respond to the statements of other editors in the Survey.

Survey (Food and health 2)

B as the nominator. Version B uses updated sources. It also uses a wide range of sources, such as IPCC, medical professionals (WHO), business community (World Economic Forum) and other scientists ("Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet" sentence). Some of the changes were made to accommodate concerns during the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard process, such as the livestock headcounts sentence. Bogazicili (talk) 21:26, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Food and health 2)

It might be helpful to provide a list of the exact differences between versions. I'd also separate out those that are minor or likely to be uncontroversial (e.g. the removal of the acronym WHO in the first sentence), and either add them to the current version first, or leave them out until afterwards. These are edits that probably don't need an RfC, but including them could mean that it's less clear what editors are being asked to evaluate. I'd also recommend formatting the references in the proposal to make it easier to compare them between versions. (This is a general comment on RfC structure, not related to my role as the closer of the previous RfC.) Sunrise (talk) 02:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sunrise, because we use short in-line references in this article, changing the references in the current version is a hassle. Some are also bundled references. So, honestly, I don't want to spend too much time on it. The references in the new version are directly accessible. If the new text is adopted, the reference format will be changed accordingly.
About the differences, feel free to ask questions. To me, the main differences are:
- Better summary in the new version.
- Using 2024 World Economic Forum study in the new version.
- Added baseline for the "By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions..." sentence into the new version: "30% of the global population currently live in..."
- I dropped any mention about global hunger projections in the new version. "Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts" comes from a 2019 IPCC source. Newer IPCC Sixth Assessment Report is more measured. But even Sixth Assessment Report contradicts a newer review article [17]. And that review article is published in Nature (journal), so it's a very high quality source. As such, any mention of global hunger in Wiki voice is dropped. I don't think there is any space to go over the differences in WP:Summary style, so a more limited and measured sentence is used ("An increase in drought in certain regions" )
- "reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans" is dropped because it contradicts [18] Bogazicili (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a binary, please add wikilinks to Option B as well. (Climate change and fisheries a good new link to add.) Option B flows more smoothly, but there are some changes I wouldn't make. "Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses" doesn't seem worth including, it provides no information to the reader other than 100 scientists agree climate change is an issue. Tangible examples of broad concepts, such as specific mention of diseases such as "dengue fever and malaria" help ground the general point. B also has two separate sentences on climate-related deaths, one per paragraph, which feels redundant. CMD (talk) 03:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Will add wikilinks if the text gets adopted.
- "Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet...": They are from different research institutions, not necessarily affiliated with IPCC, WHO, or governments. Using a wide variety of sources was one of my goals.
- "two separate sentences on climate-related deaths" One is midterm (by 2050), the other is more long term (by 2100). Bogazicili (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good idea to use newer sources and I like the overall flow of Option B. I agree with u:CMD that there's no need to mention "100 scientists", I'd replace it with "that poses irreversible harms." Alaexis_¿question? 09:36, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sunrise, Chipmunkdavis, Alaexis, any comments after explanation of changes above? Bogazicili (talk) 20:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For my part, I don't intend to comment on the merits. My intention was to give advice on how I think the RfC could be improved to make it more likely to be successful. I agree with CMD's comment that wikilinks should be added as well. Sunrise (talk) 22:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chipmunkdavis and Alaexis, I implemented some of the changes you suggested. What do you think of below?

The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[19] Scientists have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[20] Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[21][22]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[23][24] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[25]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever and malaria.[26] [27] According to the World Economic Forum, 14.5 million more deaths are expected due to climate change by 2050.[28] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[29] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[30]p. 988

While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children.[31] With 2 °C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7–10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

Bogazicili (talk) 19:49, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd shift some tenses, but otherwise it reads well. CMD (talk) 05:20, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good! Alaexis_¿question? 08:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great, I'll make the changes after a close request. Bogazicili (talk) 12:46, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ WHO, Nov 2015
^ IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch11 2014, pp. 720–723
^ Watts et al. 2019, pp. 1836, 1848.
^ Costello et al. 2009; Watts et al. 2015; IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch11 2014, p. 713
^ Watts et al. 2019, pp. 1841, 1847.
^ WHO 2014: "Under a base case socioeconomic scenario, we estimate approximately 250 000 additional deaths due to climate change per year between 2030 and 2050. These numbers do not represent a prediction of the overall impacts of climate change on health, since we could not quantify several important causal pathways."
^ IPCC AR6 WG2 2022, p. 988
^ IPCC SRCCL Ch5 2019, p. 451.
^ Zhao et al. 2017; IPCC SRCCL Ch5 2019, p. 439
^ IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch7 2014, p. 488
^ IPCC SRCCL Ch5 2019, p. 462
^ IPCC SROCC Ch5 2019, p. 503.
^ Holding et al. 2016; IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch3 2014, pp. 232–233.

revert of lake warming story

This is with regard to the revert of claim about lake warming ...

I suggest considering this article in Smart Water Magazine as a possible alternative source. Fabrickator (talk) 23:24, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting - perhaps Effects of climate change on biomes might be a good place for you to write about this Chidgk1 (talk) 18:32, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the current short description?

The current short description of the article is "Current rise in Earth's average temperature and its effects". Firstly, it's on the long side (59 characters and spaces). Secondly, it's limited to temperature but e.g. ocean acidification is not happening because of the temperature increase. Mind you, the first paragraph of the lead is also focused just on temperature. Anyhow, this is my suggestion for a more succinct short description: "Human-caused changes to Earth's climate system". For those not familiar with these short descriptions, see here: WP:SDESC. EMsmile (talk) 21:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep current description. Previously discussed: the word "current" importantly distinguishes today's CC from ancient climate changes described in Climate variability and change. Also, the first sentence of the lead is not "limited to temperature" but recites its follow-on effects in the very first sentence. Further, though acidification is mentioned in the article,^{(in keeping with various sources, like 'em or not)} a short description need not encompass each parallel concept mentioned in the article. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:46, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the current short description is too long and is trying to be too specific. The guidelines for short descriptions are that they should be short and concise (WP:SDLENGTH):

"More than 80% of short descriptions use fewer than 40 characters (including spaces).
Fewer than 3% of short descriptions are longer than 60 characters, and short descriptions longer than 100 characters will be flagged for attention.
Short descriptions exceeding 40 characters may be truncated in some contexts.
Because they are intended to be scanned quickly, longer, more specific descriptions can be less useful."

I think our current short description is not concise enough and tries to cram in too many details and focuses itself on temperature. My proposal avoids that by saying: Human-caused changes to Earth's climate system. Another option is "Current changes to Earth's climate system" but I think mentioning the human-caused aspect also sets it apart from Climate variability and change. EMsmile (talk) 07:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While I do agree that the current description is quite long, the points raised by RCraig09 lead me to believe your proposed SD isn't a good replacement. Furthermore, the wording can imply that climate change is completely caused by humans, which is false. I think you should find another way to condense it. _ZZ^Z 'S 13:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yet again, you EMsmile promote formal guidelines over substantive content. Nevertheless, a shortened title would be "Current global warming's effects on climate", which reflects how the "GW" article was finally moved to "CC" in August 2020: the article covers both concepts. I can't believe we're counting letters (but it's 43 in my proposal vs 46 for EMs' proposal). —RCraig09 (talk) 19:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, User:ZZZ'S, whilst climate change in general (as per the content of climate variability and change) could be caused by all sorts of things, including e.g. meteor strikes, this article on climate change is focused on the current, human-cased climate change. It says so also in the third sentence of the lead "The current rise in global average temperature is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution".

As to the short description, we need to understand that the short description has a different function to the first sentence of the lead. It serves more as an identifier.

The style guide suggests: "It provides a brief indication of the field, an annotation, and a disambiguation in searches, not for any Wikidata item but for the encyclopedia article itself." Some examples from the style guide: "For an organism: "[type of organism] of [common name or description]" (Examples: "Species of moth", "Group of flowering plants", "Extinct group of molluscs") or Miscellaneous: "Type of [noun]", "Concept in [academic field]" (Examples: "Type of steam locomotive", "Concept in statistics").

So for example the short description, if it was about a person, would not be "Football player from Kenya who won the world cup twice" but simply "Kenyan football player".

So it's not just about length per se but also the type of description how a short description should be set up.

I see the benefit in the proposal by RCraig09 "Current global warming's effects on climate" but wonder if it does justice to the broad nature of our article which also covers politics, mitigation and so forth.

Would this be a possibility for the short description: simply: Contemporary climate change? Or (a bit longer though): Causes and effects of contemporary climate change. EMsmile (talk) 20:49, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current SD is far too long at 59 characters, and too specific. I suggest Current long-term changes to global climate. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:08, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It should refer to human activity rather than it being a natural phenomenon. How about Current human-induced changes to climate (40 characters)

or Current human-induced global warming (36 characters)? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those would work, too, as the article does focus on human-induced. MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:31, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the additional inputs to this brainstorming, much appreciated! I used to make the mistake all the time to make those short descriptions too long and detailed - I am now trying to improve it for those articles that I've been involved with. How about this: Human-induced changes to Earth's climate? I am thinking "Earth" is worth mentioning because it could otherwise be some other climate. And human-induced might make current superfluous. Human-induced is indeed the more important adjective here than current. Or human-caused, might be easier than induced? EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am alarmed by the thought that humans may have already damaged climates other than Earth's — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 12:46, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those would work, and I agree that your wording avoids the need to include "current". I know you’re aware, but for others who might want to contribute here - bear in mind that since the SD is not a definition of the topic (WP:SDNOTDEF), this shouldn’t be decided by arguing about how much climate change is or is not human-induced. The SD describes what’s in the article, not the underlying topic. It provides among other things a very brief indication of the field covered by the article (WP:SDPURPOSE). MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can leave out 'current' as there is no previous human-induced global warming. So "human-induced global warming" would suffice. Alternative, skip the human-induced and just stick to: "current global warming".

When describing "Climate change", avoid the words "climate" and "change". And yes, you can leave out "Earth". Uwappa (talk) 12:48, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm against using "global warming" in the short description for the same reason as why we changed the article's title from "global warming" to "climate change". There is so much more to this phenomenon than just "warming".

And @User:GhostInTheMachine with other climates I meant e.g. Political climate, Organisation climate. Not so commonly used though. - So my poposal is Human-caused changes to Earth's climate. EMsmile (talk) 14:20, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that I knew that, but could not resist. Sorry — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 15:04, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could we substitute "Anthropocene" for Human-caused (or would that beget another long discussion)? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:51, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please no – Anthropocene has enough controversy of its own. Best to stay with simple words where possible. I also have a mild dislike of apostrophes, so how about Human-caused changes to climate on Earth (40 characters) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 15:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Also, per WP:SDDUPLICATE, the repetition of both "climate" and "change[s]" from the article's title seems like a missed opportunity (albeit a minor one). Could we say Contemporary global warming? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:46, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Human-caused changes to climate on Earth" is better". "Contemporary" is a tricky word with several meanings, and doesn't always mean "modern". It can also mean "something belonging to the same time period as something else". MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:54, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I actually grabbed the word from our {{About}} tag just below the SD This article is about contemporary climate change. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to have inched towards a mild consensus. Therefore, I've just changed the short description to Human-caused changes to climate on Earth (40 charactes with spaces). I think it's a very suitable short description. I've also changed "contemporary" to "current" in the two places where it appeared. Thanks to those who participated in the discussion so far, especially those editors who don't normally participate in this article (perhaps drawn from my talk page message at WikiProject Short Descriptions). If consensus has actually not yet reached and you're unhappy, feel free to discussion further. EMsmile (talk) 06:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2300

@RCraig09 [Updated] It turned out that I mixed up a century and a millennium. Sea level rise will probably occur at another time. For the rest, on the end of the page 632, there is the beginning of a detailed description of extreme scenarios: "It is therefore likely that GSAT will exceed 2°C above that of the period 1850–1900 at the year 2300 in the extended SSP scenarios SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5...". And, on a page 633, the forecast ends: "GSAT projected for the end of the 23rd century [the author talks about the year 2300, which is confirmed by the table just above] under SSP5-8.5 (likely 6.6°C–14.1°C higher than over the period 1850–1900) overlaps with the range estimated for the Miocene Climatic Optimum (5°C–10°C higher) and Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (10°C–18°C higher), about 15 and 50 million years ago, respectively". Xiphactinus88 (talk) 10:27, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15 million years ago is the Middle Miocene (Langhian age, see here), so the author is referring to the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum. Xiphactinus88 (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for explaining, @Xiphactinus88: What still concerns me is the phrasing, "future projections of global surface temperatures by year 2300 being possibly...". I think there's a strong consensus among editors here that we should avoid anything that would reasonably be interpreted as alarmist. "Being possibly" doesn't seem to clearly reflect how extreme the described projections are. Since I'm frankly not thoroughly understanding the techy description, I'm hesitant to make changes myself. I ask you to make it clear, in layman's language, how the described temperature and sea level projections are extreme cases or outliers (if that's what they are). You don't need to explain to me here, but just place the extreme predictions in a context that's clear for lay readers. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:31, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Xiphactinus88: If you want to add further detail on temperature information from geologic timeframes, please consider turning your attention also to Global surface temperature, rather than trying to add too much additional detail here in this space-restricted high level article. EMsmile (talk) 23:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Xiphactinus88, it's great you found the page number for this, I was looking for it some time ago. But 6.6–14.1 C is for SSP5‑8.5. Not sure if we want to give the number for worst case scenario. Also the current wording is WP:OR. Bogazicili (talk) 10:14, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do not write original research on Wikipedia. The Middle Miocene includes a date of 15 million years ago. However, I looked at other articles now and the authors there write that the climatic optimum ended a little earlier, so I… wanted to remove a link to that page, but all my changes are now removed. I’m sad. Xiphactinus88 (talk) 19:19, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll keep that in mind, thanks😃 Xiphactinus88 (talk) 18:31, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I meant the previous wording was OR, because of the beginning of the sentence, which included intermediate scenarios: The warming will continue past 2100 in the intermediate and high emission scenarios, with future projections of global surface temperatures by year 2300 being possibly 6.6°C–14.1°C higher than over the period 1850–1900, similar to Miocene and Early Eocene climatic optimums. The part you added wasn't OR, but the whole thing became OR when combined. Bogazicili (talk) 19:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sentence does not make sense

Faults in grammar and punctuation 82.32.10.233 (talk) 11:24, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which one? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please provide the sentence so we can complete you edit request? _ZZ^Z 'S 11:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[Powell2019-1] 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.

[WMO-FAQS-2] "Commission for Climatology Frequently Asked Questions". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020.

[3] 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)

[4] Arriola, Benj. "5 Good Arguments Why GlobalWarming is NOT due to Man-made Carbon Dioxide". Global Warming Awareness Blog. Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[5] Ahlbeck, Jarl. "Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming". Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[6] Kirby, Simon (11 April 2007). "Top scientist debunks global warming". Herald Sun. Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[7] Brahic, Catherine (16 May 2007). "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 January 2009.

[8] "More Notes on Global Warming". Physics Today. May 2005. Retrieved 10 September 2007.

[9] 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.

[10] The Royal Society (2005). "Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide". Retrieved 9 May 2012.

[11] "Met Office: Climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.

[12] Climate Central (18 January 2017). "2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record". Climate Central. Retrieved 1 February 2017.

[13] The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880, English translation by J. Sephton, from the original Eiríks saga rauða.

[14] "Cold Hard Facts". Tamino. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.^{[dead link]}

[15] 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.

[16] Gwynne, Peter (28 April 1975). "The Cooling World". Newsweek. p. 64.

[17] Verger, Rob (23 May 2014). "Newsweek Rewind: Debunking Global Cooling". Newsweek.

[18] Gwynne, Peter (21 May 2014). "My 1975 'Cooling World' Story Doesn't Make Today's Climate Scientists Wrong". insidescience.org.

[19] 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.

[20] 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.

[21] 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.

[22] Goudarzi, Sara (4 May 2006). "New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change". Space.com. Retrieved 9 May 2007.

[23] Philip, Marcus S. (22 April 2004). "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter" (PDF). Nature. 428 (6985): 828–831. Retrieved 9 May 2007.

[24] 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.

[25] 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)

[26] Foerster, Jim. "What's The Difference Between Private Weather Companies And The National Weather Service?". Forbes.

[27] Eilts, Mike (27 November 2018). "The Role of Weather—and Weather Forecasting—in Agriculture". DTN.

[28] "What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?". Skeptical Science. 2 September 2011.

[29] Brumfiel, Geoff (23 August 2011). "Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays". Scientific American.

[30] WHO, Nov 2015

[31] IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch11 2014, pp. 720–723

[FOOTNOTEWattsAmannArnellAyeb-Karlsson20191836,_1848-32] Watts et al. 2019, pp. 1836, 1848.

[33] Costello et al. 2009; Watts et al. 2015; IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch11 2014, p. 713

[FOOTNOTEWattsAmannArnellAyeb-Karlsson20191841,_1847-34] Watts et al. 2019, pp. 1841, 1847.

[35] WHO 2014: "Under a base case socioeconomic scenario, we estimate approximately 250 000 additional deaths due to climate change per year between 2030 and 2050. These numbers do not represent a prediction of the overall impacts of climate change on health, since we could not quantify several important causal pathways."

[36] IPCC AR6 WG2 2022, p. 988

[37] IPCC SRCCL Ch5 2019, p. 451.

[38] Zhao et al. 2017; IPCC SRCCL Ch5 2019, p. 439

[39] IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch7 2014, p. 488

[40] IPCC SRCCL Ch5 2019, p. 462

[FOOTNOTEIPCC_SROCC_Ch52019503-41] IPCC SROCC Ch5 2019, p. 503.

[42] Holding et al. 2016; IPCC AR5 WG2 Ch3 2014, pp. 232–233.

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