Talk:Effects of climate change/Archive 8

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Lede picture

As a compromise (showing multiple effects per RCraig09, showing it more rapidly/not in a chart per Efbrazil), we could have a solution like at sustainable energy, with 4 grouped images. Would that work for everybody? Femke (talk) 20:49, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Even four grouped pictures would not do as good a job of conveying the "Effects of climate change" that is the title of this article. Nor would pictures convey the interrelationships of the different effects (sequences of causation). I'm aware of the formal guideline that images aren't ideally filled with text, but this diagram/flowchart was a joint effort aimed at a comprehensive substantive representation of the effects^+causes. Also, pictures tend appeal to a lower intellectual level; they are more appropriate in various respective sections below. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I like the flowchart, but I think it works better as the second image in the article instead of the first. The first image is used as the visual thumbnail for the article on phones and search engines. The flowchart doesn't crop well, and when shrunk down it's illegible, so it really doesn't work in those scenarios. The flowchart is also pretty dense, and beginning with it competes too much with the text of the summary I think. I'd start with the 4 image composite, then put the flowchart in after we enumerate effects in the summary (just before the last paragraph). --Efbrazil (talk) 23:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah! I now appreciate the thumbnail-on-phones-and-search-engine issue. I agree that a pic is OK as "top" image. Since the chart is comprehensive, I think it still belongs in the lead, not relegated to a section below. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:57, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Great! You want to take a crack at a new composite lead image or should I? Something like fire, dead coral, desertification, coastal flooding? Efbrazil (talk) 00:47, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Good idea - I think ideally all 4 pics should be of things which are certainly (or almost certainly) due to climate change. That is why I chose that particular heatwave as an extreme weather event which had been studied by the event attributors. Of course RCraig09 is right that the flowchart is much more useful to more serious students e.g. uni undergrads - but I think those kind of motivated people will skim read down to it. I don't have an opinion about whether it should be lower in lede or high up in body. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:13, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually I only meant the thumbnail-on-phones-and-search-engine issue—which could be solved with a single image. A 4-picture gallery wouldn't adequately capture all major categories of CC's effects, anyway. But if consensus here wants a ~gallery here, the first candidate(s) might be from the ~gallery that's already in Climate change (which I believe you Efbrazil compiled incident to the slideshow). At this point I don't have a preference for any particular pictures. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:45, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll take a crack at a combo image like Femke suggested. Efbrazil (talk) 16:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Done, feel free to twiddle with additions or substitutions.Efbrazil (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

This looks great to me, thanks a lot User:Efbrazil! To keep things neat, I think we should move the schematic that is currently still in the lead (and which used to be the lead image) further down into the main body. Having four pictures and the schematic all in the lead is too much in my opinion. EMsmile (talk) 11:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! For me at least, the only time I think images should move down is when they cause sandwiching or stacking problems, and the flowchart isn't doing that. Also, heads up to User:RCraig09 as the flow chart is their (much loved) baby. Efbrazil (talk) 22:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@EMsmile: The ~flow diagram was a concerted collaborative effort; it comprehensively summarizes CC's effects and doesn't belong in any one section. Picture galleries, though visually "inviting", are less comprehensive and are at a lower intellectual level (ideal for a children's encyclopedia but here, less so). —RCraig09 (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I was under the impression that each lead should contain exactly one image (or an image collage) but not an image plus a schematic. Therefore, I would favour moving the schematic down a little so that it appears first in the article but not in the lead. Otherwise it feels like we couldn't make up our mind whether we should have the image collage or the schematic in the lead. The schematic is great content-wise but in my opinion less optimal for a quick visual impression what the article is all about. The new image collage does a far better job at that and immediately conveys the dangers that we are all facing due to climate change. This has nothing to do with "children's encyclopedia". Copying from MOS:LEAD: "Images. As with all images, but particularly the lead, the image used should be relevant and technically well-produced. It is also common for the lead image to be representative because it provides a visual association for the topic, and allow readers to quickly assess if they have arrived at the right page. Image captions are part of the article text." EMsmile (talk) 22:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not contradicting what MOS:LEAD says lead "images" should do, and pics do provide a quick visual impression as you say; however, I think that providing a quick visual impression is substantively less important than comprehensively conveying the range of CC's impacts. This article is directed to an extremely important topic, and expecting people to spend a minute reading a diagram, after pictures, is reasonable. The first section in the article's body isn't about impacts at all but, strangely, concerns present and future warming and not their impacts; if that section remains (=likely), the ~flow diagram would then have to mingle with narrower section images. Bad. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm quite okay with ignoring the advice to only have one image in the lede. Images are excellent at explaining technical topics.

That said, I've asked for clarification on the application of accessibility guidelines to images. The guidelines indicate that font size should be minimally 85% of normal font size. This figure has significantly smaller text, so I'm a bit worried it may not be in line with guidelines. Femke (talk) 10:57, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Increasing to upright=1.75 makes the flow diagram's width match the picture gallery, and enlarges text. I know, I know, there's probably a formal guideline advising against that, and cellphone users may have to spread fingertips to zoom, but substance should trump formal guidelines in serious or complex subjects. —RCraig09 (talk) 07:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I think even at that scale (MOS advises max 1.35 for lede images), it fails accessibility I'd esimate that words like CO₂. As this image is primarily text, I don't think we're in the ambiguous area where images are sometimes not held to the accessibility standards. Femke (talk) 19:01, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

True, on my old iPhone 7 in portrait mode, the text is not readable without spreading fingers, which cuts the diagram off on the left or right. However, landscape mode with finger spreading to fill screen to left and right margins, is easily readable. Do the accessibility standards you mention, expect viewers not to have to zoom or spread their fingers? Is doing so truly an accessibility issue? —RCraig09 (talk) 19:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

By country?

How would people feel if I added something like this to the article? By country Effects of climate change in particular countries:

I think it was in there before but was perhaps removed in one of the edits from last year? EMsmile (talk) 12:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

There are many entire articles titled "Climate change in ___" (where "___" is a country name). I think that to include a long list of countries in this article, would make the article way too long, and biased toward only the few countries that are listed. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:21, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree this article should not have sections like regional effects or by country. The template should only be linked once, at the correct spot at the bottom of the article. Femke (talk) 18:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it's useful to have a section heading called "by country" that appears in the table of contents. For me, that would be a natural section heading to click on. I think the second time the box appears (at the very bottom), it should be deleted. Those templates at the very bottom are very easily overlooked and I doubt that many average readers ever go there. And why should there not be a sub-heading called "regional effects", like we have it now? I think it's useful to point out some issues that some regions have in common? But I don't know how to resolve the repetitiveness that we currently have. Maybe it helps to look at the table of contents together:

1Observed and future warming
1.1Warming projections
1.2Warming in context of Earth's past
2Physical impacts
2.1Effects on weather
2.2On land
2.3Cryosphere
2.4Oceans
3Wildlife and nature
3.1Terrestrial and wetland systems
3.2Ocean ecosystems
4On humans
4.1Food security
4.2Water security
4.3Health
4.4Migration
4.5Conflict
4.6Economic impact
4.7Possibility of societal collapse
5Abrupt or irreversible changes
5.1Amazon rainforest
5.2Greenland and West Antarctic Ice sheets
5.3Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
5.4Irreversible change
6Regional effects
7Especially affected regions
7.1Low-lying coastal regions
7.2The Arctic
7.3Africa
7.4Small and large islands
7.5Middle East
8Ice-cover changes
8.1Arctic sea ice
8.2Antarctica
8.3Greenland
8.4Glaciers
8.5Permafrost regions
9By country

Section 8 overlaps with Section 2.3. But it's easier to find in the TOC for laypersons, since the term "cryosphere" has not entered layperson's language yet, I would say. "Ice-cover changes" is easier, and pretty much the same, right? EMsmile (talk) 22:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Or maybe merge Section 6 and 7 together? They're probably anyway repetitive. EMsmile (talk) 22:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Food availability

The current section is dishonest, by implying that absolute yields will decrease. This is unlikely; crop yields have been continuously increasing and that is likely to continue William M. Connolley (talk) 17:12, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in. I think I may have been responsible for a lot of this section. If you read A2.8 of the 2019 IPCC SPM, it seems like yields have declined in some regions. In terms of hunger, the text states explicitly it's compared to a no climate change scenario. Newest IPCC report on impacts should be out in a few weeks. What precisely do you think is dishonest? Femke (talk) 17:22, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Drastically shorten the section about "on humans"?

I am wondering if the section called "on humans" ought to be drastically shortened, given that we have a sub-article called effects of climate change on humans? I see massive issues od overlap there. Alternatively, one could argue to merge the effects of climate change on humans to here (after some culling?), although it might make this article too big? In general, merged and condensed versions of text or articles would be easier to maintain. EMsmile (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Example: should the details about migration be in this article or should they be in effects of climate change on humans? At the moment, the content about migration is spread over both articles and it's not clear which one is main and which is sub. I would be inclined to move the content to effects of climate change on humans and leave just a short mention about the migration issue here. However, the article effects of climate change on humans is currently pretty bad. Maybe it's better to dissolve it and move any remaining good content to this article. I'm undecided about the best approach. EMsmile (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Apart from migration, I think the section is quite balanced with the rest of the article. I'd say the article should be equally divided into physical / ecoystems / humans. Which means physical is overrepresented now, ecosystems underrepresented, and humans about right.

Haven't had a look at the subarticle. Femke (talk) 17:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not clear on why those three sections in particular should all be equal length. They might end up that way but what's the justification for aiming for that? Shouldn't their length be determined by the proportion accorded in literature? I think the section on physical effects might well end up being longer than the other two as it's pretty much the basis for anything else (and gets more time and space in the literature, too, such as IPCC reports, I would have thought). The physical effects dictate what happens to ecosystems and humans. The other consideration is whether a sub-article of the topic exists. If effects of climate change on humans exists as a sub-article then why should it still be a long section in the parent article? Similarly for physical effects of climate change. Although here I am strongly advocating to merge & redirect physical effects of climate change which would mean that its section in the article would likely be longer than the one for effects of climate change on humans. I'm not a fan of such sub-sub articles which linger with low pageviews and don't get updated much and just create extra work for us. So I would probably argue for a merge & redirect for both physical effects of climate change as well as effects of climate change on humans. Next question is whether the sub-sub-sub article effects of climate change on human health has merits to remain or the same problem with outdated information, low quality sources, overlap with the parent article and so forth. EMsmile (talk) 21:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Imo, the existence of subarticles doesn't have any bearing on this discussion (I'm leaning in favour of merge, but of course, the previous merge must be finished first).

The IPCC AR5 report dedicates about as much attention to the physical impacts (4-8 chapters, depending on what you count as cause/modelling/impact), ecosystem impacts (5 chapters) and human impacts (6 chapters). Our article is very much skewed towards the physical impacts. Specifically, changes in ice cover need ironing out (some duplication, including with the tipping point section). Femke (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I still don't understand the reasoning for your statement: "the existence of subarticles doesn't have any bearing on this discussion". Is that a general statement of yours or is it specific for this article? Is it because you plan to bring this article to WP:FA status and therefore don't want to rely on sub-articles for information or even use excerpts? I think a sub-article (especially a good one) would automatically mean that the topic requires less space in the parent article. For example: when you look at the article on water pollution, it contains content on "surface water pollution" and on "groundwater pollution". As there is a good sub-article on groundwater pollution that content is kept very brief, in fact we just use an excerpt there. If "groundwater pollution" had no sub-article then it would require a whole section, including several sub-section, in the parent article of water pollution. Isn't it the same scenario here? (if we end up merging effects of climate change on humans then the discussion is obsolete, although it would re-appear for the sub-article effects of climate change on human health and the sub-sub-article on Psychological impact of climate change).EMsmile (talk) 12:13, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Adding key statements from AR6 report about water cycle

I've been in touch via e-mail with Thian Gan, one of the authors of the AR6 report. I asked him to pick out some key statements for inclusion in this Wikipedia article and he's sent me the below statements (ref 317 is for Chapter 8, ref 318 is for Chapter 9). I am now inserting these key statements bit by bit into the article. Have done the first 3 for now. I have a few concerns: one is about readability of the sentences, I guess we could modify them later. Second is, am I doing the referencing correctly? I am not so used to the short referencing style but have tried to stick to the template provided here. Thirdly when we add these statements, there might be previous similar statements from AR5 which should then be deleted (or kept in some cases). Finally, those big numbers are hard to grasp for lay persons. Wondering if we can somehow convert them to something more tangible. I suppose that's the work of science journalists and not up to us (?).

1. Warming has increased contrasts in precipitation amounts between wet and dry seasons and weather regimes over tropical lands^[317].
2. Warmer air holds more water vapor at 7%/°C of warming. When this turns to rain, it tends to come in heavy downpours potentially leading to more severe flood hazards^[317].
3. Warming over land drives an increase in atmospheric evaporative demand^[317] which is set to increase the severity and frequency of droughts around much of the world.^[87]
4. Arctic sea ice area will likely drop below 1 million km² in at least some Septembers before 2050^[318].
5. The 1981-2010 NH snow cover extent sensitivity to warming is about -1.9 million km²/^oC throughout the snow season^[318].
6. Total mass loss over 1992-2018 was likely 2720 gigatons for the grounded part of the Antarctic ice sheet ^[318].
7. The mass loss of Greenland over 2009-2018 was likely more than seven times higher than over 1992-2001^[318].
8. Excluding peripheral glaciers of ice sheets, total global glacial losses were likely 5500 gigatons over 1993-2018^[318].
9. Permafrost warmed globally by about 0.3^oC between 2007 and 2016^[318], and permafrost thawing may be a serious cause of concern for Arctic infrastructure. EMsmile (talk) 12:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't fully understand this sentence: "Warming has increased contrasts in precipitation amounts between wet and dry seasons and weather regimes over tropical lands", in particular I don't understand the second part of the sentence, starting with "and weather regimes over tropical lands". Can anyone help to propose easier wording? I checked the AR6 report and it says there: "Greenhouse gas forcing has driven increased contrasts in precipitation amounts between wet and dry 51 seasons and weather regimes over tropical land areas (medium confidence), with a detectable precipitation increase in the northern high latitudes (high confidence)." EMsmile (talk) 12:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Regional effects of climate change to here

In order to reduce the number of similar sub-articles that need to be maintained, improved and updated, I am proposing to merge Regional effects of climate change to here. See also discussion just above this section. I will add the merger tags now. EMsmile (talk) 11:15, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support I think the merge will be a bit more engaged than long-term effects of climate change. The majority of the text is outdated, primary or WP:NEWS and can be deleted. The remaining titbits need to be split into this article and various others. Femke (talk) 13:42, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support: "Regional effects..." is in that awkward position between global and national. There are already numerous national-level articles (example: Climate change in China). Simplifying this network of articles makes them a bit easier to maintain. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:22, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support I think the merge would be helpful. What i would recommend, however, is that there be a new section within the Effects of climate change article about regional climate change. You'vegotmail27 • TALK 15:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support I think adding the two together would greatly improve the two articles and make it much more easier for users to access information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.126.24.5 (talk) 02:45, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I plan to tackle this merger now in the next few days. Wish me luck! :-) EMsmile (talk) 11:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I've started the merger now with a plain copy and paste into the bottom part of the article. But now the hard work starts: there is probably a lot of text that can be culled, moved to sub-articles or replaced with excerpt. A lot of the moved content is rather outdated or poorly sourced. It'll be tricky to weed out all the overlap, e.g. the issue of sea level rise or ice melting appears in several sections of the article now. The references from the merged text also need to be fixed due to the different reference style. But some of them won't need to be fixed if some of those text blocks are deleted. EMsmile (talk) 15:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

You chose a difficult route to do this merge. I would have just copied over the 5 sentences or so that were useful, and then made the article into a redirect. I see for instance no need for any of those excerpts, as we already have a section about the cryosphere. Will only make it more difficlut to get the article through GA. Femke (talk) 17:01, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Yea, I realised later that it was the difficult route but I felt unable to decide which 5 sentences are worth keeping! Perhaps others would find it easy. If so, please help. I have copied the text from "regional effects of climate change" to the bottom of the article now. So we can now all work together to delete old/bad content (well those people who are watching this article and have time). It's therefore the same amount of work compared to doing it before doing the copy & paste, isn't it? Apart from the fact that the references weren't copied across correctly. With regards to excerpts, I think excerpts are a great tool and shouldn't necessarily be a hindrance in a GA review? Are they definitely frowned upon for a WP:GA? I just don't think we should write about data on sea level rise in 10 articles but rather only in one article but transcribe it to the others. A section title called "cryosphere" is not very reader friendly by the way. Wondering if an alternative wording might exist. EMsmile (talk) 22:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I've deleted some more text blocks that I had copied over from Regional effects of climate change. I still have to reinstate some of the lost references (to do for tomorrow). Might not be necessary though if more text is deleted if Femke is right that only about 5 sentences from the Regional effects of climate change article were worth keeping... :-) EMsmile (talk) 23:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I've done more deletions and moving to sub-articles, and fixed the remaining refs. More work remains to re-think some of the structure and repetitions now. Also whether the excerpts are useful or distracting. I also plan to merge physical effects of climate change into here soon (probably do deletions first, then move). There will be a heap of overlap, so it won't be easy. But a separate article on physical effects of climate change is not useful in my opinion. See also discussion here. EMsmile (talk) 12:19, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I find it difficult to edit this article now, with all the excerpts. With the visual editor (my preferred environment), it's not immediately clear that there is an excerpt. So I constantly have to leave the article to go to another article, losing the flow of the text. Femke (talk) 20:21, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, it seems to me that people either like excerpts or they don't. :-) I like them. As a bonus, one often ends up improving several articles in one go. For example today, I added content about glacier retreat, Antarctica ice cover, permafrost thawing to this article, and I ended up improving those related sub-articles as well, and then using excerpts from them. If excerpts are frowned upon then the same sentence might have to be inserted into two articles and then maintained in two articles later. Example: "Arctic sea ice area will likely drop below 1 million km² in at least some Septembers before 2050." I'd rather put that sentence into the Arctic article and then excerpt from there. Or "Permafrost warmed globally by about 0.3^oC between 2007 and 2016^[318], and permafrost thawing may be a serious cause of concern for Arctic infrastructure." fits equally well into the permafrost article and can then be transcribed from there. So I think the "leaving the article to go to another article" should not be seen as a disadvantage but a plus. The whole thing (Wikipedia) is a web of information, all the climate change articles need to fit together like a puzzle piece. - I agree with you that repetition ought to be avoided but not just within an article but also across several articles. But yea if there are too many excerpts it might feel disjointed. How many excerpts would you find acceptable in an article of this nature? EMsmile (talk) 20:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Explicitly mentioning the IPCC report

This article, and quite a few other articles, often attribute statements to IPCC reports in-text. I think we should stop doing that for two reasons

• It's stating Facts as opinion; these statements are frequently uncontroversial among experts
• The reports have really long names, and the IPCC as well. As such, your sentences become unwieldy. Femke (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I am not really sure about this. I attributed statements to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report in several instances in my edits today because I thought it's an authoritative report where people would clearly see this as an unbiased, important source (rather than e.g. a singular study in an obscure journal, or a newspaper article). I am not clear on your "facts as opinion" issue? Are you saying that some people would equate an IPCC report with an opinion piece? Also, some of the articles where I added it hadn't even mentioned the sixth report once so far which I felt was a flaw. The name of the report could be shortened if needed (I don't think it's too unwieldy). In any case, I think it's useful to mention the year (2021) because in many paragraphs, the other information mentions the year as well, e.g. "a study from 2009 found that...". With the 2021 year it's clear that the data is very recent. Or is it better not to mention the year? EMsmile (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Sentences like "According to the IPCC, X happened" are problematic. Many readesr will be unfamiliar with how authoritative the IPCC is, and read this like "According to some people, X happened, but other experts may disagree". They should read "X happened".

Other mentions may distract from talking about substance. The 'on land' section is particularly poorly introduced. We need to wait till the fourth sentence before we reach something of substance. Sentences like: The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021) stated that the sensitivity to warming of the "1981–2010 Northern hemisphere snow cover extent" is about minus 1.9 million km2 per degrees Celsius throughout the snow season" are unnecessary complicated, and feel slightly biased to me. Would any expert disagree with this statement? If not, don't mention the specific expert (group). Femke (talk) 21:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. I would have thought that the general public knows that the IPCC reports are THE most reliable source of information (or if they don't know it yet we should help them find out). Is there evidence that this is not so? If so, that's disappointing. I would similarly sometimes write in other contexts "WHO have published information about..." thinking that it makes the statement more powerful as WHO should be trustworthy. If that is not the case, then hmmmm... Would you say that the IPCC report should ideally not be mentioned in an article at all, or only once or twice? E.g. the article Retreat of glaciers since 1850 hadn't mentioned the 6th IPCC report at all until I included it today (it did mention earlier IPCC reports though). EMsmile (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I have never seen the need to mention it. There are some cases where it may be useful to mention IPCC + year - report. We're citing the report already, so mentioning it in the text would be a bit duplicate.

For instance, in retreat of glaciers, I would definitely not mention it in the first paragraph of the lede, but I wouldn't mind it too much if it is mentioned further in the body in the context of projections. Femke (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) I agree with Femke on this issue. Scientists know the IPCC is authoritative, even re predictions; however, many lay readers might interpret the phrase, "the IPCC stated...", as being just one more opinion. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Some Presidents and Prime Ministers know and some don't! Chidgk1 (talk) 12:33, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I remember there is a similar issue at African humid period regarding IPCC reports. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:32, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

So how do we avoid then that lots of sentence that talk about the future will be in passive voice? Like: "It has been predicted that in 2030 xxx will occur." When I read a sentence like that I ask myself: who has predicted that and when was the prediction made? I think the average reader will not click on the little raised number in square brackets at the end of the sentence (I never did before I became a Wikipedia editor). I think for future predictions it would be better to say in the sentence who has predicted it an when. And surely IPCC reports are fairly obvious for the general public to be reliable sources (but perhaps mine is a minority view here). We can't really state something as a fact that is a prediction. I mean yes the prediction is a fact but not the thing itself. So we can't really say "sea level will rise by xx cm by 2030" but "it has been predicted that... ". Right? EMsmile (talk) 11:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Maybe "the best prediction is that ......" or "the best 2021 prediction is that ...."? Chidgk1 (talk) 12:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

In the Africa example that User:Jo-Jo Eumerus mentioned, it says in the article: "The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report indicate that global warming will likely result in increased precipitation across most of East Africa, parts of Central Africa and the principal wet season of West Africa, although there is significant uncertainty related to these projections especially for West Africa." I couldn't see a discussion about it on the talk pages. EMsmile (talk) 11:30, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Suggest don't name it in leads. Not sure if the name of the report should be mentioned in the main text or not but if it is then for the first mention it could be described very briefly e.g. BBC say "a major UN scientific report" - Royal Geographical Society "the most up-to-date physical understanding of our climate system and climate change" - Carbon Brief "landmark assessment report" etc Chidgk1 (talk) 12:19, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me but could someone argue that "how do you prove that this is a landmark report?", "who says that it's a major report?". Could someone argue that we are introducing some sort of bias or subjectivity with such wording? If not, then I think it would be great to do that, and to educate the general public about the importance of the IPCC reports. EMsmile (talk) 12:49, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Preparations for merging physical effects of climate change to here

I am currently preparing for the merge of physical effects of climate change to here. I thought I'd first cull out outdated or over-emphasised content from there before moving. Question: is that stuff about volcanos really relevant and proven? Seems to rely on just a couple of publications from 2010. The paragraph starts with "The retreat of glaciers and ice caps can cause increased volcanism." See here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Physical_impacts_of_climate_change#Geology To keep or delete or update & shorten? EMsmile (talk) 15:30, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Great :). It would probably be better to first finish the previous merge and cull this article further. We're at 8500 words, which would be an utter pain to maintain. I think we should strive very roughly for 6,000 words here. There is some duplication still in section (both ice cover and snow and ice for instance). I should have time to help in a couple of weeks. Femke (talk) 18:21, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

To avoid much work, I'd really work the other way around. What is clearly up-to-date and relevant, rather than waht is clearly irrelevant. Femke (talk) 18:22, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you in theory but in practice I am finding it quite difficult to distinguish between irrelevant and relevant - I wish I knew. It's probably much easier for content experts who are completely up to date with the literature, rather than a run-of-the-mill Wikipedia editor like myself. So I probably can't help much with that. For example that stuff about volcanoes that I mentioned above; I suspect it's not relevant but am not sure. Also, what is our policy regarding how predictions evolve: If we are adding data from the 6th Assessment Report, should we automatically remove the related statements from the 5th and 4th reports etc.? Or would it be worth keeping those in order to show a kind of progression of predictions? EMsmile (talk) 12:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd argue that older predictions should be deleted, especially on a broad article like this. If current sources refer to older findings a lot, that's a good indication we should too. For instance, the tipping points in the climate system refers to older predictions, as tipping points are now considered much more likely than 20 years ago. Many sources reflect on that. Future temperature predictions have remained quite steady, so no need to repeat old predictions.

About the volcanoes, I don't know. Would have to look into it. Femke (talk) 18:18, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

EMsmile So now you have done a bit of tidying shall I do a simple standard merge and you could take it on from there? But if you prefer your own method I will leave you to it. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:20, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Chidgk1 yes, please, go ahead. There'll be a lot of culling and condensing required after the merger - which I am struggling to do. I think it'll be easier to cull and condense after the merger (rather than before in the two separate articles). So if you have time to help that would be wonderful. EMsmile (talk) 08:39, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

EMsmile Merged but sorry did not expect all those ref errors. I suppose it is too much to hope that a bot will fix them? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Yea, I am not sure how those bots work. I've had cases where it all miraculously got fixed without me having to do anything. Perhaps wait a day? Meanwhile, once we start culling stuff we'll have fewer references that'll need fixing. EMsmile (talk) 10:43, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Update: Looks like the bot has already fixed most of the ref errors which is great. EMsmile (talk) 13:17, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

The copy-paste merge has moved a lot of misinformation into this more prominent article. Studies pre-2010 are of very limited interest, and often contradict current studies. I really wish it was done the other way around (selecting the few recent secondary sources, and leaving behind all the primary sources and old sources). I have very little energy to help here, I'm sorry. Femke (talk) 12:04, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Ah sorry I had always copied the lot in my previous merges and had not noticed that Wikipedia:Merging#How_to_merge gives the option of only copying some of the content - yes that might have been a better way - will bear in mind next time - take it easy Chidgk1 (talk) 14:34, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

No worries :). But maybe focus on getting this article into shape. Misinformation by outdatedness can still have negative effects. Femke (talk) 14:37, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Inspiration from the structure of the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia?

I'd like to suggest that we could take some inspiration from the structure of the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia. It looks like a good article in the German Wikipedia (just let Google translate the German page for you so that you see what I mean (myself, I am a German speaker)). I actually get frustrated when I see better article versions in non-English Wikipedias because it feels like we are duplicating efforts by not being able to easily work across the language barriers. Anyway, just saying that the German version looks alright and could help us structure our thinking with this English version. EMsmile (talk) 12:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes the structure is a mess after the merge so if you make it that structure it would be good I think Chidgk1 (talk) 13:06, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I like that the German article doesn't duplicate itself by having sections like "Abrupt or irreversible changes" or "variations between regions". Just clear "physical" / "human". Femke (talk) 12:01, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure about those two sections in particular because people don't always read Wikipedia articles from start to finish. They might like to jump in at certain places/topics. I find the "variations between regions" actually quite interesting as an entry point. But I also wonder how to eliminate duplication. I've copied below the translated table of content of corresponding the German article, for inspiration purposes (translated by Google translate):

1 Expected magnitude of global warming

2 environmental impact
2.1 biodiversity
2.2 Effects on the oceans
2.3 Effects on tropical cyclones
2.4 inland waters
2.5 Greening of the Sahara
2.6 Polar ice caps/ice sheets
2.7 Regional heat records
2.8 retreat of the glaciers
2.9 Changing seasons
2.10 Changes in rainfall: droughts and floods
2.11 Shift in climate zones
2.12 Forest fires

3 feedbacks
3.1 biomass
3.2 methane hydrates in the sea floor
3.3 permafrost soils
3.4 retreat of sea ice

4 Political, economic and social implications
4.1 Health
4.2 Agriculture
4.3 wars and violent conflicts
4.4 social science aspects
4.5 Energy supply and use
4.6 tourism
4.7 environmental flight and environmental migration
4.8 insurance claims
4.9 economic damage 

EMsmile (talk) 14:15, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Getting this article into shape

I am continuing this week to try and weed out the old/outdated & poorly sourced information, and moving to sub-articles where needed. I agree it's a potentially prominent article, so I am hoping that more people from WikiProject Climate Change will find the time to help here. Wondering if I should write again on the WikiProject Climate Change talk page and ask for help? I guess it's just hard for everyone to find the time, even if this article is potentially prominent. Pageviews are around 800 per day, so not super high (yet). EMsmile (talk) 13:11, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Good idea - maybe give a few examples of different ways people could help. For example I wonder if it would make sense for people to look at the statements with old cites and try to find the equivalent in the AR6 WG1 report (the summary for policymakers or tech summary?). If you could show people the easiest way to cite AR6 WG1 maybe they would be keener - could they perhaps use the "reuse" option in the autocite followed by the Rp template for the page number? Chidgk1 (talk) 13:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Excellent point! I also found it daunting to cite the AR6 WG1 report properly (I am still not sure if I have mastered it). I normally always use the cite reuse option together with the {{rp|6}} template (for page 6 for example) but I think with this other referencing style (short cite) it's not possible, or is it? EMsmile (talk) 14:05, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:IPCC citation/AR6 I've also given an example of a stand-alone citation for Chapter 1. If people are interested, I can do this for all chapters. It's an easier style and probably the preferred style for articles that only use the IPCC report a couple of times. So there are three ways to do it

• Short-cite/long cite (like climate change)
• Reuse + rp (like sea level rise)
• Standalone (requires copying and changing page number in source editor), which has been used here.

I don't plan on taking this article to FA ever (I hope it does get to GA at some point), so a mix of citation styles is acceptable to me. Femke (talk) 17:03, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Why I deleted this stuff mainly about the atmosphere

I deleted the following because the graphs are hard to read and it seemed to be summarized fine in other sections, and also just below as "Increased greenhouse gases cause the higher parts of the atmosphere, the stratosphere to cool. "

A broad range of evidence shows that the climate system has warmed. Evidence of global warming is shown in the graphs (below right) from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Some of the graphs show a positive trend, e.g., increasing temperature over land and the ocean, and sea level rise. Other graphs show a negative trend, such as decreased snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, and declining Arctic sea ice, both of which are indicative of global warming. Evidence of warming is also apparent in living (biological) systems such as changes in distribution of flora and fauna towards the poles.

[[:Image:Temperature trends in the lower stratosphere, mid to upper troposphere, lower troposphere, and surface, 1957-2005 (NOAA).gif|thumb |alt=Refer to caption and image description|Temperature trends in the lower stratosphere, mid to upper troposphere, lower troposphere, and surface, 1957–2005.]] Chidgk1 (talk) 10:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

[[:Image:Changes in climate indicators that show global warming.png|thumb|Changes in climate indicators over several decades. Each of the different colored lines in each panel represents an independently analyzed set of data. The data come from many different technologies including weather stations, satellites, weather balloons, ships and buoys.]]

However said that feel free to undo all or part of my change, or if there is a better version of the indicators graph it could be worth putting in Chidgk1 (talk) 11:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. Proof of warming belongs in articles such as attribution of recent climate change and the main article. Femke (talk) 17:03, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Question about permafrost and methane

Hi User:Chidgk1 you recently deleted content about permafrost and methane here. You justified it as "deleted the detailed numbers as readers can click through to the main article for those". I agree in principle with you but I am wondering if the deleted text ought to be moved to the relevant sub-article. Should we at least move it to the other article's talk page to let those page watchers decide if anything can be salvaged? At first sight it wasn't obvious to me whether that same content is indeed available in the main article (permafrost or Arctic methane emissions? (Where exactly should it reside?) This is the text block in question (the 2008 data might be outdated but the 2019 might be quite up to date?): "Thawing of permafrost soils releases methane. Methane has 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. Recent methane emissions of the world's soils were estimated between 150 and 250 million metric tons (2008). Estimated annual net methane emission rates at the end of the 20th century for the northern region was 51 million metric tons. Net methane emissions from northern permafrost regions included 64% from Russia, 11% from Canada and 7% from Alaska (2004). More recently, during 2019, 360 million tons of methane were released globally from anthropogenic activities, and 230 million tons were released from natural sources. The business-as-usual scenarios estimate the Arctic methane emissions from permafrost thawing and rising temperatures to range from 54 to 105 million metric tons of methane per year (2006)." EMsmile (talk) 17:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I consider pre-2010 sources mostly unreliable for climate change information, so that shouldn't be moved. The other research could replace 2015 numbers from Arctic methane emission if needed. Femke (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Question about hydrates

In this edit, the paragraph about gas hydrates was recently deleted because "deleted as based only on a 2004 cite". I also had my doubts about that paragraph and know nothing about the topic. However, I searched for "hydrates" in the AR6 WG 1 report and did see it mentioned a few times so I thought perhaps it's important in some way or form? Can anyone shed light on this? This is the deleted paragraph:

Gas hydrates

See also: Clathrate gun hypothesis and Arctic methane release

Gas hydrates are ice-like deposits containing a mixture of water and gas, the most common gas of which is methane (Maslin, 2004:1). Gas hydrates are stable under high pressures and at relatively low temperatures and are found underneath the oceans and permafrost regions. Future warming at intermediate depths in the world's oceans, as predicted by climate models, will tend to destabilize gas hydrates resulting in the release of large quantities of methane. On the other hand, projected rapid sea level rise in the coming centuries associated with global warming will tend to stabilize marine gas hydrate deposits. EMsmile (talk) 14:07, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Chidgk1. EMsmile (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I was also considering removing it. How much text does it get in the IPCC report? If it's getting about 2/3 pages, we should probably include something about it. Femke (talk) 17:50, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure with regards to pages but the word clathrate is mentioned 20 times, hydrate 25 times and methane hydrate 7 times in the IPCC report. So I guess not a lot. Currently in our article we mention it once (a sentence that I added recently based on the table of content from the tipping points of climate system article. Should we just put it under "See also" for now, maybe? EMsmile (talk) 18:08, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Shorten the section "Abrupt or irreversible changes" due to sub-article?

I think we should probably shorten the section "Abrupt or irreversible changes" because the same content is available at tipping points of the climate system. Therefore, once again, we have the same content repeated in two articles, don't we? So I think here we should just summarise but not have sub-headings. Perhaps use an excerpt of the lead of tipping points of the climate system? Or write a summary of sorts. EMsmile (talk) 19:43, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it should be integrated into the physical effects sections. If you look at the IPCC report, it doesn't get that much attention to warrant it's own section. It's getting WP:UNDUE attention. (Again, there is nothing in policies and guidelines that says the existence of subarticles should determine the relative weight of section is the top article). Femke (talk) 20:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

It seems the 12,303 does not include all the excerpts, so we are even further above the rule of thumb of "never go above 10,000". Femke (talk) 20:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Good work Chidgk1 :). We're at 10332 words now. Femke (talk) 17:04, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I also like to look at the size of an article with regards to kB of "readable prose size". We are below 60 kB now which is regarded as pretty good (as per Wikipedia:Article_size#Size_guideline). There is likely a lot more scope for culling, depending on our philosophy with regards to sub-articles, i.e. repeat content from sub-articles or not; repeat only a small amount or repeat a larger amount. Use excerpts or not. Interesting that excerpts are not counted towards page size. Makes sense to me as it's not unique text. Readers will see that it's transcribed from another article. EMsmile (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

It's more likely a bug in the tools, not highlighting excerpts as counted (not sure if it does..). There is quite the discrepancy between the word count gadget and xtools. Xtools says we're at 62kB of readable prose, so still a way to go to the advised 50 kB.

Concretely, to start with

• I think we can halve the 'observed warming', as it's only there to give context to other sections.
• The atmosphere subsection is a bit vague. Needs culling/integrating
• less overlap in the ice and snow section
• wildfires is disproportionately big

So, no need to make any difficult decisions (yet?) on prose size. Loads of low-hanging fruit :). Femke (talk) 18:10, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• Also conflict subsection is far too big I think - but maybe I will wait for excerpt RfC below to finish before fixing that - as will need to fix the bit being excerpted if I do it my way. Anyone reading this feel free to do it your way first. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:16, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I've shortened the wildfires section now. Again, I am wondering how we can avoid duplication of content as the same/similar content is here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wildfire#Climate_change_effects EMsmile (talk) 09:50, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Merge effects of climate change on humans to here?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:55, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

---

I am proposing to merge effects of climate change on humans to here. My arguments:

1. There's actually not much content at the other article that isn't already here, so it wouldn't increase the length significantly.
2. It would reduce overlapping content and would reduce the number of climate change effect articles that we have to update and maintain.
3. I think there is no point in having a stand-alone article on effects of climate change on humans as it seems to imply that some of the effects of climate change DON'T impact humans but they all do in one way or another, don't they?
4. Note that very few of the other language Wikipedias have articles on effects of climate change on humans (e.g. the German Wikipedia which is very detailed on climate change, does not have a sub-article on this topic).
5. An alternative proposal could be to rename and refocus the article to effects of climate change on human societies in which case it would be mainly about conflict, migration and things like that. But even then it would probably end up as an article with lots of excerpts from other sub-articles. On the other hand, I think a stand-alone article on effects of climate change on human health is probably justified.

EMsmile (talk) 19:33, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm strongly against any move as long as the previous two moves haven't been finished. Finished would mean this article is shrunk to around 8,000 words, but definitely below the 10,000 threshold. It's 12,303 now. In general, I'm in favour of cutting out the middle management articles, and we have quite articles "underneath" like climate change and gender. We must make sure they are easy to find, and not hidden in between less relevant text. Femke (talk) 20:43, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you both - good idea once this article is a bit shorter Chidgk1 (talk) 09:50, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support straightforward merge. I don't see any reason to wait, as it seems like any cleanup would be easier after the merge dust has settled and there's only one "best" copy to tidy. If the resulting article is too long, move content to the detail articles one level down. @Femkemilene: What "previous two moves" are you referring to? -- Beland (talk) 23:19, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The two previous mergers were: physical effects of climate change and regional effects of climate change. Another one was long-term effects of climate change. Basically we're trying to reduce the myriad of "effects of climate change" articles to make it more manageable (as they would all need to be updated regularly). See also a discussion that I started here (I had called it "Do we need so many sub-articles on effects of climate change?"). EMsmile (talk) 10:11, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

The reason to first finish the previous three merges is to make sure the article isn't unnecessary low quality for a long period of time. There is quite some duplication, and not all obsolete sourcing from the subarticles is deleted. The first 2/3 of the article (the physical/ecosystem impacts) is quite independent of the second 1/3 (human), so I don't think a fourth merge will make this any easier. Femke (talk) 16:59, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I see, those merges have already happened, but some folks want this now-much-longer article to be trimmed by pushing detail out to leaf articles before the proposed merge. Well, I certainly agree with moving content out to shorten this article, especially after the proposed merge.

Having done some of these megamerges on other topics, my advice would actually be to do the final merge and pushing detail out to the leaves all at once, because overall that will be a lot less work. Doing it all at the same time means reading each affected section of Effects of climate change once to determine how Effects of climate change on humans should mesh into it, and then while that's still in your head it's easy to see how much material from the combined result should be pushed out to a leaf article. Readers will not see a temporarily worse article here for a short while, they will actually only see it getting better. Doing this in two steps means reading each section of Effects of climate change twice, once to trim it, and then later again to determine how to mesh Effects of climate change on humans with it. And some material from Effects of climate change on humans will also need to be pushed down to leaf articles, so the same section will need to be trimmed again, but without the benefit of remembering what was moved out by the previous trimming. It could easily be the same material is moved out to a leaf, but moved back in by the merge not realizing it was previously trimmed. Immediately trimming the post-merge version of each section (without even saving it first) means those decisions can be made once, and probably more consistently.

The other consideration is that the longer that the two articles are separate, the more they will diverge and the more difficult the merge will be. And of course the longer readers will not be benefitting from logical arrangement of content — especially since right now you might have to click up to this article from a leaf article and then back down to the Effects of climate change on humans to find a fact that should have been in the article you were reading in the first place.

This might be too much work to do all in one sitting. If not, awesome. If so, what I've done in the past is merge the easy sections first, and then either make the source article a redirect while it still has yet-to-be-merged but not-all-that-important content, or just turn the already-merged sections into pointers to the appropriate section in the target article. Does that all make sense? -- Beland (talk) 23:41, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I get what you mean, but I don't think it's applicable here. I would like section 1-5 (old merges) to be in decent shape before starting the whole process of changing section 6 (new merge). There isn't too much overlap here, so one would only have to read the article once. Femke (talk) 17:17, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

To some degree that's true, except that Effects of climate change on humans#Environment does need to be merged to sections 1-5. It looks like substantial progress has been made trimming the article in the past couple days (currently at 9,141 words) so perhaps the question of which to do first is or shortly will be moot. -- Beland (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Hadn't seen that, but most of that section is of lower quality than what we have here, so it'll be a very selective merge. Furthermore, with the new IPCC report out, we might as well write quite a bit from scratch. Femke (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@Femkemilene: Just noticed another problem. Sections 1-5 do actually contain content having to do with human impacts. For example, the section "Heat waves" mentioned human mortality impact, and "Floods" mentions the effect of sea level rise on coastal cities. (Though this probably belongs in the "Sea level rise" section?) Either the human-impact content from sections 1-5 needs to be merged into section 6 along with all the Effects of climate change on humans content, or parts of section 6 plus Effects of climate change on humans#Human settlement do need to be merged into sections 1-5. I would propose the latter, integrating direct effects with discussion of human impact for bad weather and sea level changes and whatnot, and leaving section 6 for further downstream effects like migration and infrastructure and overall health. Does that make sense? -- Beland (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm strongly in favour of not mixing the two. That's how the IPCC handles this kind of material. I think it's too confusing to separate overall health from heat wave health. Femke (talk) 08:01, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• Update: @Femkemilene and Chidgk1: On top of the efforts by other editors, I just did a bunch of trimming, including of duplicate material caused by the multiple merges. This article is now down to 7,927 words. Does that satisfy your length requirements so that merging can begin? -- Beland (talk) 05:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you very much! The merging could start, but I'll continue improving the physical parts. (note that some merging had already begun, some poor information was added about the polar vortex). Femke (talk) 07:52, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Beland Umm - I am a bit concerned I might forget something or get mixed up if I do it piecemeal - anyway I might be out tomorrow so not available. I don't have Femkemilene's knowledge so am not confident to trim the source article further without risking deleting something important and then nobody noticing as they would be looking at the merged history. So I intend to jump in now while the Americans are asleep and put the whole thing in at the bottom of this article where probably most readers won't get down to anyway. Then hopefully move a few bits to the bottom of the relevant sections before leaving it to you guys. If it turns out really bad feel free to revert everything. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:44, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

PLEASE make sure to delete completely obsolete stuff first. The previous merge introduced some misinformation into the article. Femke (talk) 08:47, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Good morning. So not too many trees down by you I hope. OK will take a look at source article and delete some stuff - as you are obviously on the ball and know I am doing it you can review the deletions whenever convenient and let me know if I have deleted anything important so I can put it in the merged article later. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:58, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm watchlisted the article. I know I agree with your deletions almost completely in general :). Femke (talk) 09:54, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

OK everyone I have deleted a little more from the source article so am going to close this discussion and merge now. If anyone wants anything back from that article later on and is having difficulty feel free to contact me as I know the Wikipedia software is not that user-friendly, especially for young people who have grown up with better. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:53, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Question about the sentence that summarises the known tipping points

In this edit you (Femkemilene) removed a sentence that I had recently added with the comment "rm uncited. Not all of these are likely tipping points. ENSO/gas hydrates are more likely not a tipping point". I took the sentence from here, i.e. it was simply the sub-headings of this section put into one sentence. The resulting sentence was "Tipping points include: Shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, West Antarctic ice sheet disintegration, Greenland ice sheet disintegration, Amazon rainforest dieback, permafrost and methane hydrates, coral reef die-off, West African monsoon shift, The El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Arctic sea ice." If any of those are not tipping points then this should also be corrected in Tipping points in the climate system#Tipping elements, right? I suggest to correct the sentence and then add a suitable reference, rather than deleting it completely? Overall, I feel that our section on "Abrupt or irreversible changes" requires reworking. Perhaps the sub-headings could be removed as those are covered in Tipping points in the climate system (although I think you mentioned somewhere that that sub-article is no good? What should be our plan of attack there?). EMsmile (talk) 09:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

The main climate change article has a paragraph about tipping points like this:

"The greater the amount of global warming, the greater the risk of passing through ‘tipping points’, thresholds beyond which certain impacts can no longer be avoided even if temperatures are reduced. An example is the collapse of West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, where a temperature rise of 1.5 to 2 °C may commit the ice sheets to melt, although the time scale of melt is uncertain and depends on future warming. Some large-scale changes could occur over a short time period, such as a collapse of certain ocean currents. Of particular concern is a shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation,, which would trigger major climate changes in the North Atlantic, Europe, and North America." EMsmile (talk) 09:17, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't realised you recently added it. I've change the heading to "possible tipping elements" in that article.

As I said before, I think it's illogical to talk about tipping points separately from the rest of the physical changes. We should instead describe the ice sheet tipping points in 3.4, the Amazon in 5.1, and the AMOC in 4.4. Currently, the TOC is overwhelmingly long, and that is before the upcoming merge. Minor tipping elements such as ENSO are likely undue for this article. By putting the tipping elements in context, we won't be tempted to describe the edge cases in this article. Femke (talk) 17:24, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

References

I see your point but we may need to do both: include those discussions in the relevant sections but somehow also provide an overview in a section that is visible from the TOC which should probably be called "Possible tipping points" (rather than "Abrupt or irreversible changes"?). The term "tipping point" is quite prevalent in the climate change debate (rightly or wrongly?) and I could imagine that many readers might jump to that section from the TOC. Unless we think the tipping point discourse is overrated and we want to downplay it a bit? (this makes me wonder whether the term "feedback" is closely related to "tipping points" and is sufficiently covered in our article) EMsmile (talk) 12:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Compared to the scientific literature, the media puts more attention on the topic. Following the scientific literature, I'm not comfortable with giving it a section + subsections in the TOC. What we could do is move the subsections to the tipping point article (replacing the poorer-quality text there, I'll do it if you agree), and include a tipping point section without subsections. I think two fully developed paragraphs should suffice.

If we don't include very speculative tipping points, I prefer the shorter 'tipping points' as a section title.

Most tipping points (in some definition all) come about due to strongly positive feedbacks. However, most of the time, there is no tipping behaviour in the presence of positive feedbacks. Feedbacks just amplify the relevant change. Femke (talk) 17:38, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

That sounds very good to me, please go ahead. Could you also add a sentence into that section about how feedbacks relate to tipping points, like you've just explained to me here. Very useful clarification, I find. EMsmile (talk) 12:22, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Copyright

As far as I'm aware, the IPCC reports do not have a compatible license. User:EMsmile, I found one sentence copy-pasted, that you got from one of your experts. I didn't quite understand the sentence, so I deleted half of it and paraphrased the rest. Could you go over all the sentences you've added from that expert to see if there are more copyright violations? Femke (talk) 19:46, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I seem to have missed that sentence. I think none of the other sentences that I added were straight copy and pastes but I'll double check again. Regarding this sentence, I also didn't understand it: "Warming has increased contrasts in precipitation amounts between wet and dry seasons and weather regimes over tropical lands." I suppose it must be important if Thian Yew Gan felt it should be included, so I'll check with him how it could be worded more clearly (and paraphrased). For the benefit of the other editors: the sentences in question are shown here. Their wording has mostly already been modified; also they are not all in this article but some where added to relevant sub-articles like climate change in Greenland, retreat of glaciers since 1850 and so forth. That's because we had used excerpts of those, so Thian's edits were made directly in the "source articles" of those excerpts. EMsmile (talk) 22:24, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks

If you don't understand it, it's likely that our readers do not understand it either. They likely know less about climate change than you. Femke (talk) 09:06, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

More importantly, have you checked for close paraphrasing/copyright infringements now? I found a minor one again. Femke (talk) 12:02, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I checked but some of it is open to interpretation. As you know "too close" paraphrasing is not a science (WP:CLOP) - "Limited close paraphrasing is also appropriate if there are only a limited number of ways to say the same thing.". If key statements are taken from the IPCC reports it's not always easy to "summarise" them. Perhaps in those instances it might be better to use direct quotes rather than attempting paraphrasing which is not close but still 100% accurate? Even better would be if the IPCC assessment reports became open access. Are you aware of any ongoing discussions about that (the start of a discussion last year seems to have led to nowhere). EMsmile (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Direct quotes should typically be used for creative expressions, or opinions, not for matters of fact. Paraphrasing is always difficult if your initial text is already in summary style. The best thing is to try and summarise a broader point, rather than a single sentence. Is there any specific one you would like a second opinion for? Femke (talk) 17:36, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

References

geography

if you were the minister of department of environmental affairs,how were you going to solve the problems brought by climate change? 41.116.53.181 (talk) 19:06, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Good question. It would be great if you could read the adaptation report summary for policymakers linked at the end of IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and update Climate change adaptation or the climate change article for your country. Their report on Climate change mitigation should be out later this year. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:37, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Geography

How can drought be triggered by physical conditions — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A03:2880:32FF:7:0:0:FACE:B00C (talk) 10:55, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Climate change mainly affects droughts via two mechanisms: 1) there is less rain in regions that were already relatively dry and 2) there is more evaporation due to higher temperatures. Femke (talk) 12:01, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Also there is a mention of the Hadley Cell changing latitude in Climate_change_in_Turkey#Impacts_on_the_natural_environment. You might like to check the latitude of your country and update "Climate change in (your country)" if it applies to you too. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:48, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Variations between regions

I've deleted this section for a couple of regions: 1) It was poorly sourced: only one citation was recent. 2) A lot of the information overlapped with 'Observed and future warming' 3) The figure of the climate classification is a bit too detailed to be displayed properly. Difficult to see differences between now and 2100 4) The information about vulnerable regions is better placed in the "Especially affected regions" region. I'm copying the deleted text here if anybody wants to merge parts of it into other sections. Femke (talk) 13:28, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Variations between regions

See also: Climate variability and change § Variability between regions

Past (prior to 2017) and projected (up to year 2100) Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps.

When the global temperature changes, the changes in climate are not expected to be uniform across the Earth. In particular, land areas change more quickly than oceans, and northern high latitudes change more quickly than the tropics, and the margins of biome regions change faster than do their cores. There are three major ways in which global warming will make changes to regional climate: melting or forming ice, changing the hydrological cycle (of evaporation and precipitation) and changing currents in the oceans and air flows in the atmosphere.

Projections of climate changes at the regional scale do not hold as high a level of scientific confidence as projections made at the global scale. It is, however, expected that future warming will follow a similar geographical pattern to that seen already, with the greatest warming over land and high northern latitudes, and least over the Southern Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic Ocean. Land areas warm faster than ocean, and this feature is even stronger for extreme temperatures. For hot extremes, regions with the most warming include Central and Southern Europe and Western and Central Asia.

CMIP5 average of climate model projections for 2081–2100 relative to 1986–2005, under low and high emission scenarios.

Femke (talk) 13:28, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I felt that a modified version of the first paragraph might be useful for the lead, as these are broad summary type statements which give a good overview, don't they? I have therefore added parts of them to the lead now. But maybe I was wrong in my assessment and they are not correct? EMsmile (talk) 17:46, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

References

I have a problem with the changes made to the "sea level rise" information

Previously, "sea level rise" was a section that appeared in the TOC. And it used an excerpt from sea level rise which should presumably be the article where all the main facts and data should be bundled. Now it no longer appears in the TOC and it's a copy of text from sea level rise which means when in future new data is published we'd have to update two articles: sea level rise and this one. I feel that the sea level data is really one where an excerpt would make the most sense and increase efficiency of editing. I think we should put it (the excerpt) back as a section on "physical environment" as it not only affects oceans but also the coast, human habitations and so forth. Of course we could first improve the lead of sea level rise or improve the relevant section that we want to transcribe (it doesn't need to be the lead). EMsmile (talk) 22:18, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd be okay with using an excerpt here. There will inevitably be a bit of overlap with glacier retreat, but not too much. The article is in good enough shape to be excerpted now, even if an update will be needed before GA. With numbers, I try to update as close to nomination as possible. Femke (talk) 09:02, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I've made the change now, as discussed. Added an excerpt for sea level rise and an excerpt for ocean acidification. Both terms need to appear in the TOC in my opinion, hence this change. EMsmile (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Economic impacts section

I am looking at the section on "economic impacts". I would be inclined to merge that content into the lead of Economic impacts of climate change and then replace it with an excerpt. The lead would be fully cited. Would people find that a good move or any objections? In my opinion, this kind of tactic has the potential to improve two articles simultaneously: this one and also this sub-article: Economic impacts of climate change. Similar question to the section on "conflict" which could instead be an excerpt from climate security. I think the nature of an article such as "effects of climate change" will be that there will be lots of relevant sub-articles which could be transcribed if the particular effect in question already has a sub-article. EMsmile (talk) 09:31, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me Chidgk1 (talk) 13:02, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

The lede of economic impacts of climate change is a very poor shape, so I would be keen to see what you make of that. The text here is of decent quality, so it should preferably stay. The biggest problem of citing ledes is that the first sentence is usually a definition, which makes for poor prose in the middle of the article. Currently, the 'economic impacts' article has a full paragraph definition that doesn't even correspond to the rest of the article, so that will need to go.

Let's await the outcome of RfC before including more excerpts. There are good points being raised when their disadvantages may be larger than their advantages. Femke (talk) 17:05, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

There is an easy solution to this: if the text is better here than there, then it could just be moved/copied across and replace the poorer text in the other article. This way we kill two birds with one stone, i.e. improve two articles at once. (one could even argue that the other article should include an excerpt from this article). What I want to avoid is that the same content is written differently in two articles, when it should really be the same, bundled in one article. We have soooo much work to do on Wikipedia, I think we need to make sure we work efficiently. I don't want to have to maintain an article on "economic impacts of climate change" as well as a section called "economic impacts" in an article called "effects of climate change" in future. If there is a better method of being efficient, without using excerpts, let's explore those? (I'll wait before including more excerpts in this article) EMsmile (talk) 17:53, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Which paragraph do you mean with "Currently, the 'economic impacts' article has a full paragraph definition that doesn't even correspond to the rest of the article, so that will need to go. ". I am happy to delete it if you point out to me which one that is? EMsmile (talk) 17:54, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I've now improved the lead of Economic impacts of climate change by using the text from here and copying it across. If we were to use an excerpt now from the lead of Economic impacts of climate change it would give us the same result as we currently have. (the old lead of Economic impacts of climate change was pretty poor; not much was worth salvaging). So if we decide not to go down the excerpt route we now have two text blocks with identical text in two articles. Is that OK? I guess over time they would diverge again which would be fine. But if someone wanted to improve content on economic impacts where should they focus their energies. Here or there? EMsmile (talk) 18:18, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

P.S. I am aware that what I've done is not ideal. Further work is needed to make the lead of the other article into a true summary of the article (which it wasn't before either). So more work is required there but at this stage, the new lead is better than the one that was there an hour ago. EMsmile (talk) 18:21, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Definitely better, thanks :). Not as good as this article though. For instance, the first paragraph of the lede should rarely contain quoted text. Femke (talk) 18:51, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Where do we stand now with the economic impacts section? I guess we have decided for now NOT to use an excerpt from Economic impacts of climate change. The section currently has two sub-sections: "Overall economy and inequality" and "Vulnerable sectors". Is that perhaps too much? I wonder if the section "vulnerable sectors" should be moved to Economic impacts of climate change and maybe just a brief summary stay here. I also find it ironic that it starts with this sector "Oil and natural gas infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change" given that oil and gas industry is a major contributor to climate change. I don't think they should be listed first. Also, does agriculture need to be mentioned here as a vulnerable sector? But then it overlaps with the section on agriculture. My feeling is that the economic impacts section is currently too long and detailed; I'd like to compress a bit and move content to Economic impacts of climate change if that is OK? EMsmile (talk) 12:10, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Update: I have changed it now from "most vulnerable sectors" to "most affected sectors" and moved the sentence about oil and gas to later.EMsmile (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I think it's an important topic, and would like to cut it with only about 25%.

I think that most affected sectors should start with a paragraph about agriculture & fisheries, as agriculture is the most affected sector. To make sure there is very little overlap with other text, we should do this from an economic perspective (so mostly from a farmer's perspective), whereas food security (now renamed agriculture), should focus on the aspect of a food consumer. Femke (talk) 17:32, 21 March 2022 (UTC)