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http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.26.68.146 ( talk) 19:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
(dedent)It's worth noting that this is being picked up by a few other news outlets:
Fox News and the
Canada Free Press. Obviously it's too soon for any peer reviewed science on the issue. If (as I suspect may happen) the media as a whole picks up on this and claims that it's evidence against GW, we'll have to pick up on it and mention it. Like it or not, this page is about global warming in general, and if large numbers of reliable sources report something it becomes fair game here.
Oren0 (
talk)
19:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
While I had argued before for altogether depreciating both in the past, at the very least can they be reduced in size? Mainstream science has Solar related effects, which includes Henrik Svensmark's idea of cloud seeding by galactic cosmic rays, as being a very minor component at best in the current global warming trend. Which seems to make both the size of the Solar Variation section and the number of references to Henrik Svensmark a bit unbalanced. I suggest both get reduced in size by about half at least. Thoughts? -BC aka Callmebc ( talk) 14:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
This sentence is indirectly sourced from [2]. There it is written: "Although the steady increase in economic and insured losses is more a function of the concentration of economic development in vulnerable regions than climate change per se3, it is clear that climate change will exacerbate these loss trends. Although less developed countries (LDCs) are particularly vulnerable to future climate impacts, there will also be significant effects in developed countries (Annex 1 to the Kyoto Protocol). The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscored the gravity of the situation when it revised upwards the expected temperature changes over the next 100 years, and presented new and stronger evidence that most global warming over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities4."
The first sentence implies that economic losses are highest at the regions of concentrated economic development (e.g. London area, Florida, etc.). The second sentence is about vulnerability to climate impacts, it is not clear if it is economic vulnerability or some other type vulnerability. The sentence "Developing countries, rather than the developed world, are at greatest economic risk" should be removed because it is contradicted by the first sentence in the quote and not really supported by the second one. -- Doopdoop ( talk) 08:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
It might make sense to use the 2007 publication instead of the 2002 one. Here's the 2007 CEO briefing [3]. Honestly, I can't find a more extensive report; it looks like the UNEPI is mostly confining itself to CEO briefings (which don't appear to be summaries of anything else) and singed statements; the most recent document on the UNEPFI climate change page [4] over 25 pages long is a 2002 document. The documents are very vague; they are saying the developing countries are at greatest risk, but they aren't defining what the risk is. Does this mean the risk of the largest dollar value loss? The largest relative disruption of local economies? How about changing the language to better reflect the contents of the UNEPFI source (either 2002 or 2007) to "Developing countries are singled out as being at particular risk from global warming." - Enuja ( talk) 00:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The current paragraph is all about the UNEP FI Climate Change report, so if we change the sourcing we probably need to change the location of the sentence. I'm perfectly happy with adding additional sourcing to the existing sentence (wherever it may end up), but if you want to change the wording, how about something a little simpler, such as "Developing countries dependent upon agriculture will be particularly harmed by global warming" . Honestly, at this point, actually editing the article would probably be the most productive move; it's easier to re-organize and refine language using the neat wiki tools and looking at diffs. - Enuja ( talk) 03:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The Gobal Warming artical NEEDS more on the debates that gobal warming could just be a natural weather pattern. Recent reasearch has shown c02 effect in the greenhouse effect is much less the what was though before. Also the fact that the Gobal Warming simulations that have been recently been used as an example have been proven to be less "right" as thought before.( Bigjimmy65 ( talk) 23:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC))
Just my 2 cents here but the article, starting with the first sentence really doesn't approach the subject as scientific theory, but seems to try and state it as fact. While "Global Warming" itself may be accurately described as a term by the first sentence sans "projected continuation". The "projected continuation" implies Global Warming Theory, which should IMO be handled a little differently. The term "theory" only appears in this article twice as opposed to 34 uses in the page on Gravitation (not counting references) which is why I am concerned that the tone and structure of this article really doesn't seem to be in keeping with other scientific articles on WP (see evolution, gravitation). 71.164.241.199 ( talk) 05:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Global Warming is a theory, in fact, it's referred to as climate change now. Why? One of the reasons is that The Polar Ice Caps are almost back to their pre-1980s levels. An article to source. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html -- 98.207.122.9 ( talk) 00:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Back on topic here, but the point here was to critique the lack of references to the theories cited as supporting information and lack of discussion on Global Warming Theory as a theory. In the referenced articles (gravitation, evolution) the tone and structure seems to be much different than this page. I find the lack of effort in this article to distinguish between observable and agreed upon scientific fact, and the theories that attempt to explain them to be disconcerting. Furthermore, the lack of references to the various theories presented as theories seems to imply that they are instead facts. In general, I think the article seems rushed... maybe even "breathless" as it plows through only the theories and references that support the idea of global warming.
205.141.201.25 (
talk)
17:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, Infonation101, I tried to go through all of your links.
Link #1 is a New Scientist news article about Link #2, so Link #2 is what needs to be evaluated. The article is a highly technical paper on how to do a better job of reconstructing early temperature. Where would this reference go in the general coverage on Climate in Wikipedia? It looks like it should go on Temperature record, or Temperature record of the past 1000 years (in the Northern Hemisphere). Unfortunately, the sections on how proxies are used need more information and more sources (and more organization; I'd expect that stuff to be in temperature record, but it's mostly in past 1000 years) before they would benefit from the very interesting but very technical Nature paper you've linked. In other words, this reference doesn't appear useful right now.
Link #3; I'm not having a lot of luck with the journal "Energy and Environment." This website [11] does not read like the website of a peer-reviewed basic science journal, and the journal doesn't appear to have a publisher; the link to abstracts goes to a self-publishing bussiness. If you follow that link and glance at the titles, a trend becomes instantly obvious; this appears to be a self-published climate change skeptic journal. So I'm not going to pay $18 to read the article. I can find other publications by C. Loehle that are in genuine peer-reviewed literature, but ISI's combined database search does not appear to include "Energy and Environment." So, I can't evaluate the article, but the source is suspect.
Links # 4 & 5. Icecap doesn't look any more peer reviewed than RealClimate. A bunch of people getting together and agreeing on something is not peer review. In peer review, an editor (usually a group of editors) chooses at least two people to review the paper, reads the reviews, and decides if the paper should be included in the journal or not.
Links # 6. Doesn't appear to have anything to do with NOAA, and the first page at least includes facts that seem consistent with what I'm familiar with and with what is on this wikipedia article. There are some value-judgement related words that appear to be different from what is on this article page, but we try to let readers on Wikipedia make their own value judgements, so I don't see how this link could help improve the article.
Link # 7. Eat what? I followed the link anyway, even though I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but this is a private call for data, not peer-reviewed, published complied data.
Links 8-11 have been addressed above.
Link # 12 Is a 1993 news article. For links #1 & 2 you gave the important part, the actual published paper. I'm not going to look this one up because it is 15 years old, and so I'm not sure how it could improve the wikipedia article.
I hope all of that wasn't a waste of my time, and you are convinced that most editors really do like to see good sources. I don't see any sources here that should be included in this article (although there is one that should be in included in an improved version of a different article. In the future, please try to improve the article by suggesting specific improvements, backed up by peer reviewed literature, instead of just listing sources that you think disagree with the article. - Enuja ( talk) 01:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
While I enjoy a good debate as much as the next Joe on the internet, the question was one of style and tone. As a whole, and please don't take this personally, the article reads more like a thesis paper than a WP article attempting to cover a very complex subject in an objective fashion.
1.) We might want to consider a section or page something along the lines of Evolution as theory and fact to clear up some of the ambiguity in terminology and distinguish between the pieces of "global warming" attributed to observable scientific fact and the areas that are theory.
2.) I think the structure/outline of the article should be revised in a manner more consistent with other WP science articles. The page on evolution does a very good job at breaking a complex subject into easy to digest sections where this page seems to ramble, restate, and overlap. To me, this is the most significant problem with the page.
3.) Given the breadth and complexity of the subject, this article should serve as a coherent jumping off point to other articles that dig into particular subject areas. Again, the article seems to be somewhat random as to what Main Article links are where and why. (for example, why is Effects of Global Warming the Main Article link for two different sections? Why isn't the Article on Climate Change referenced for Feedback Loops in addition to or instead?)
4.) While I respect the fact that there are other main articles on the matter, the lack of any significant mention of debate, skepticism or alternative theories (the article on gravitation lists alternative theories for goodness sake) seems very out of place for a scientific subject that is as complex and in a state of flux as this one is. 71.164.241.199 ( talk) 05:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
The comparison with graviation isn't a good one. That article leaves you in no doubt that the dominant theory is GR and that Newtonian gravity is a very good approximation to it. The GW article is, correctly, more tentative. But it still presents the main current explanation for warming as... the main explanation William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Getting an account would be good. Adding a history might be less controversial than re-touching the importance of the solar stuff; you will find much discussion in the archives. I'd suggest drafting anything on the talk page first, unless you're sure its uncontroversial William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I added some links to the "See also" section, hoping to improve the article making cross referencing easier for kids doing term papers and other casual readers. But when adding the linksI noticed what appears to be a low intensity POV fork between this article and Global cooling. I realize that editing interests vary within sub areas of complex subjects but I wonder if perhaps the people interested in editing these two subjects might want to get together and coordinate efforts? Trilobitealive ( talk) 02:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not a big deal, but I noticed that the "footnotes" section contains references as well as notes. When one reads the article, there is no way of knowing whether the footnotes are actually references or notes, and the reader could assume that the numbers all refer to citations. Perhaps it would be useful to the reader to have a separate section just for the notes, that would be indicated by letters in the article (see Tourette syndrome). -- Phenylalanine ( talk) 02:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I am the main author of Tourette syndrome; if someone can explain to me what you're trying to accomplish with notes, and assure me it's not a controversial change, I can show you how to do it. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 21:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Uh, and maybe clean up the unformatted citations ( per 2c) and prune the external link farm (per WP:EL, WP:NOT) while you're in there :-) Ping my talk page if you need help on the notes later, but you should be able to get it from Gettysburg. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 21:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
For someone who's theory has come up again and again in the media about global warming, his page has almost nothing on it. I would expand it, but I really have no idea how his theory works. How could cosmic rays --> climate change? The Squicks ( talk) 17:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I like how "the debate is over" and how we can't mention how it may be just a theory even though there are so many people who come to the talk page to express their disagreement with Man Made Global Warming. Did you all know that the founder of the Weather Channel is a staunch skeptic of Man Made Global Warming and he's trying to sue Al Gore for fraud? Doesn't sound like skepticism of Global Warming is a "fringe" argument to me. A while back, I suggested we add a section about how other celestial bodies in our solar system are warming. My ideas were turned away. Not altered, not compromised, just shot down. The gestapo that has nothing better to do than monitor this article on computers that contribute to Global Warming if Global Warming exists are working hard around the clock trying to keep dissention on Man Made Global Warming off the radar. Well, I'd like to re-instate my idea of adding a section that talks about Global Warming happening on other planets, and the idea that the sun may be the main culprit. Here are some articles to get you going:
Global Warming: Pluto http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
Climate Change: Jupiter http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html
Global Warming: Mars http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
New Extreme Natural Disasters: Saturn http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2006/11/09/nasa_looks_at_a_monster_storm_on_saturn/4126/
Global Warming: Triton (Moon of Neptune) http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtml
Sun Getting HOTTER!!!!! http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/092897/study.htm
Sun to Blame for Global Warming http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html
Now, I'm sure that 5 minutes after posting this someone's gonna come here and say something like, "Well, the cousin of the head janitor who works at the building across the street from the National Geographic corporate office owns a dog that bit the wife of a guy whose brother is a junior accountant at Fox News, so they're all evil hate mongering conservatives who are tied with Fox News." But, that kind of close-mindedness is expected by me. I'm not doing this because I expect to alter this article, I'm just doing this to put one more voice out there that Man Made Global Warming is a hoax.
I also find it funny that at the top of this discussion page it mentions that this discussion isn't supposed to be a forum for people to express their opinions on Global Warming. Why not??? Science should always be up for debate! Science without debate is propaganda, and that's what this Global Warming article is. In my opinion, this article should be about a theoretical warming, man-made or not, on a planetary scale of ANY planet. So, by giving off this warning at the top of this page we're basically saying that there is no room for scientific debate on this issue, and the science behind the Global Warming wikipedia article is irrefutable and can not be altered. We're just here to discuss the most effective way of expressing propaganda. 66.255.105.3 ( talk) 02:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
In the article about Global Warming Denial we should perhaps mention the many edits by anons on this talk page and attempted edits to the main article. Links to postings here are reliable primary sources :) Count Iblis ( talk) 14:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it should at least be mentioned that the Weather Channel founder is sceptical of man made global warming. He like some scientists, believe that its just a natural cycle and that there is nothing we can do about it. If know other claim is notable at least this one is. Saksjn ( talk) 13:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Can somebody explain to me why we shouldn't merge these two articles. Every other article with a controversy section has it in its main article and not in a seperate one. I'm going to post this at the controversy talk page as well. Saksjn ( talk) 13:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
We should probably add some kind of information on Global Warming's criticisms on here. Saksjn ( talk) 12:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The verbiage is clear that "Global Warming" section should be scientific and the "Global Warming Controversy" section political. But why then is conflicting scientific evidence from legitimate resources removed from the "Global Warming" section and sometimes replaced in the "Global Warming Controversy" section? And why is there a political section and interlaced references to political actions in the scientific "Global Warming" section? If I am wrong can we come up with a clear and simple definition between the material? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.38.214 ( talk) 04:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Should natural variation (ie the sun) take a more prominent role in this article now the earth is cooling. I wonder when the public will take notice and hold the AGW advocates credible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.143.91 ( talk) 05:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm just wondering whether the article should use the NOAA's Mauna Loa mean figure for CO2 concentration, or their global mean, which lags by about 1.5ppm. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 08:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following line from the Security section:
Research at Stanford University indicates global warming will lead to decreased mortality rates. [1]
for a number of reasons. First of all, this is not Stanford University research, but rather that undertaken by Thomas Gale Moore of the Hoover Institute. I don't know much about the Hoover Institute or what their agenda is: they are a think-tank for one thing. My main objection is that presenting their research as that of "Stanford University" (whatever that means) seems to be a deliberate attempt at misrepresenting the source. Secondly, it would be more accurate to say that the research concluded that the study finds that there may be fewer temperature-related fatalities in the United States. Global warming is not some magic elixir: rather the study finds that the losses in cold-related deaths would offset the gains in heat-related deaths. Furthermore, it makes a number of convenient assumptions in arriving at this conclusion. One of which is that people will grow accustomed to hotter summers, more people will have air conditioning installed, etc. This all seems to beg the question, if you ask me. The statistical methodologies are shoddy (look at the indicators they suggest in the abstract!) I think it would be NPOV to say that "Studies find that increasing global temperatures lead to fewer cold-related deaths." Doesn't seem worthy of comment. Finally, the sentence was added to the Security section, when it clearly has nothing to do with security.
Silly rabbit ( talk) 14:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
To make this article stronger, I think it would be helpful to post ways we can prevent global warming. If anyone has any good information on this, please do.
-- Sandiehara ( talk) 20:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
This graph should be included in the article. The red line shows detailed satellite measurement of global temperatures from the last decade.
Grundle2600 ( talk) 03:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I used the data NASA website listed as the source of the image in the article to compute the same graph, but using the "current" ten year period as 1997-2007 (the website, of course, does not have an annual average for 2008 yet as it isn't over). Here is the graph. [13] Now, this graph isn't of the quality of the current graph (the image page describes how User:Dragons flight made the image look nice, and I haven't done that). You can make this graph yourself, using the mapping tool [14] linked in the image description, for whatever dates you'd like to do. Authors have argued in the past that past-year data get updated and corrected, so it might make sense to skip 2007. I'm not sure what the most informative graph for the article would be, but it might very well be one that is newer than the current graph. What's the most appropriate base data to use? Again, I don't know, and in this case I suspect that Dragon's flight had some reason to use 1940-1980, but I don't know what that reason was. - Enuja ( talk) 18:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the change. That's what I tried to do in the first place (if you look at my first edit you'll find I had originally made that change, but it didn't show up on the page when I was done, so I reverted it because I was afraid I'd broken something). Then I figured I'd just remove "overwhelming," pending a source for "large." CreepyCrawly ( talk) 03:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
"Overwhelming" modifies "majority of scientists working on climate change". If it modified "scientists", then large majority would make sense. However, it is factually true that, of people working on climate change (not just meterologists, physicsts, geologists and biologists but just the subset of those who study global change) it is the overwhelming majority who think that things are at least as bad as the IPCC says. It is cited in the source. It should stay. There is no debate that the current anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is changing global climate. How much the earth has warmed so far, how much it will warm in the future, what the effects will be in different places, how humans and other animals will adapt or suffer, what the best course of action for human to take; all of these are under strong contention. The idea that the burning of fossils fuels isn't increasing the global temperature of the earth is just as inconcievable a position amoung climate change scientists as the flat earth idea was amoung 14th century scholars. - Enuja ( talk) 05:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I note user Brusegadi reinserted the weasel word with the simple summary "this is better." As user Veritas (now "Nonexistant User") had previously and wisely stated, "while [overwhelming] is in the source, it is also a highly subjective word used by the author that should not be allowed to bleed into the article as fact." I ask Brusegadi to specify how inclusion of the highly subjective weasel word is "better." CreepyCrawly ( talk) 09:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
We can also estimate the numbers and write, say, "out of the 3000 climate scientists, 24 disagree with the main conclusions". So, I guess that the fuzziness of the word "overwhelming" does work in the skeptics here. Count Iblis ( talk) 13:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
"Overwhelming" is not a weasel word in the first place. The overwhelming majority of the precipitation I've experienced in my life has been rain. Yes, I've been in snow, but only a few times. To say that the large majority of the precipitation I've experienced has been rain is actively misleading. Now, personally, I don't like using the same words that a source uses; I think it's evidence of poor writing. But I think it is very important to indicate, in the lead, that essentially no-one in the field thinks that the IPCC reports exaggerate the extent or certainty of future global warming. Lots of people think that the IPCC is too conservative; that the IPCC underestimates risks. The inclusion of (maybe too much) uncertainty is why, even though lots of information about future global warming is highly uncertain, there is near unanimity about the IPCC reports. Where I live, it doesn't look like it is doing to rain today. Therefore, we could get unanimity from weather forcasters or even people on the street that "there is between a 0 and 80% chance of rain today." Yes, everbody can agree with the IPCC even if they do disagree substantially on the climate change science. People who think there is a 7% and 70% chance of rain disagree, but they still both agree with the highly uncertain statement I just made. The IPCC is the same kind of thing. - Enuja ( talk) 18:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Not to be a broken record or anything but, again, if you enclose "overwhelming" in quotes (to properly identify that the word is taken directly from the source) then this issue is dead. It boggles my mind that this is still being discussed. And, finally, I think the inevitable "scare quotes" argument is juvenile, self-serving and unjustified in this case. 82.41.90.144 ( talk) 18:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/7524#SlideFrame_1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.169.147 ( talk) 16:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
After years of study, John Coleman is convinced that none of this is true. And thousands of scientists and other meteorologists hold this same dissenting view.
Currently, John Coleman is a TV weatherman for KUSI News in San Diego. But Coleman is most famous for being founder of the Weather Channel. He has had a long career in predicting the weather, working for the first time as a TV weatherman during his freshman year in college in 1953. With this extensive background, we might take John Coleman seriously when he states bluntly that global warming “is the greatest scam in history.”
I am thinking of adding information on how chlorofluorocarbons contribute to global warming because I did not see any information about them in this article. -- Ilikemangos ( talk) 03:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
See LewRockwell.com and the associated edit history. Raul654 ( talk) 23:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Testing the proposed link between cosmic rays and cloud cover
T. Sloan, A.W. Wolfendale
(Submitted on 15 Mar 2008) Abstract: A decrease in the globally averaged low level cloud cover, deduced from the ISCCP infra red data, as the cosmic ray intensity decreased during the solar cycle 22 was observed by two groups. The groups went on to hypothesise that the decrease in ionization due to cosmic rays causes the decrease in cloud cover, thereby explaining a large part of the presently observed global warming. We have examined this hypothesis to look for evidence to corroborate it. None has been found and so our conclusions are to doubt it. From the absence of corroborative evidence, we estimate that less than 23%, at the 95% confidence level, of the 11-year cycle change in the globally averaged cloud cover observed in solar cycle 22 is due to the change in the rate of ionization from the solar modulation of cosmic rays.
Count Iblis ( talk) 14:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | ← | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | → | Archive 40 |
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.26.68.146 ( talk) 19:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
(dedent)It's worth noting that this is being picked up by a few other news outlets:
Fox News and the
Canada Free Press. Obviously it's too soon for any peer reviewed science on the issue. If (as I suspect may happen) the media as a whole picks up on this and claims that it's evidence against GW, we'll have to pick up on it and mention it. Like it or not, this page is about global warming in general, and if large numbers of reliable sources report something it becomes fair game here.
Oren0 (
talk)
19:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
While I had argued before for altogether depreciating both in the past, at the very least can they be reduced in size? Mainstream science has Solar related effects, which includes Henrik Svensmark's idea of cloud seeding by galactic cosmic rays, as being a very minor component at best in the current global warming trend. Which seems to make both the size of the Solar Variation section and the number of references to Henrik Svensmark a bit unbalanced. I suggest both get reduced in size by about half at least. Thoughts? -BC aka Callmebc ( talk) 14:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
This sentence is indirectly sourced from [2]. There it is written: "Although the steady increase in economic and insured losses is more a function of the concentration of economic development in vulnerable regions than climate change per se3, it is clear that climate change will exacerbate these loss trends. Although less developed countries (LDCs) are particularly vulnerable to future climate impacts, there will also be significant effects in developed countries (Annex 1 to the Kyoto Protocol). The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscored the gravity of the situation when it revised upwards the expected temperature changes over the next 100 years, and presented new and stronger evidence that most global warming over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities4."
The first sentence implies that economic losses are highest at the regions of concentrated economic development (e.g. London area, Florida, etc.). The second sentence is about vulnerability to climate impacts, it is not clear if it is economic vulnerability or some other type vulnerability. The sentence "Developing countries, rather than the developed world, are at greatest economic risk" should be removed because it is contradicted by the first sentence in the quote and not really supported by the second one. -- Doopdoop ( talk) 08:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
It might make sense to use the 2007 publication instead of the 2002 one. Here's the 2007 CEO briefing [3]. Honestly, I can't find a more extensive report; it looks like the UNEPI is mostly confining itself to CEO briefings (which don't appear to be summaries of anything else) and singed statements; the most recent document on the UNEPFI climate change page [4] over 25 pages long is a 2002 document. The documents are very vague; they are saying the developing countries are at greatest risk, but they aren't defining what the risk is. Does this mean the risk of the largest dollar value loss? The largest relative disruption of local economies? How about changing the language to better reflect the contents of the UNEPFI source (either 2002 or 2007) to "Developing countries are singled out as being at particular risk from global warming." - Enuja ( talk) 00:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The current paragraph is all about the UNEP FI Climate Change report, so if we change the sourcing we probably need to change the location of the sentence. I'm perfectly happy with adding additional sourcing to the existing sentence (wherever it may end up), but if you want to change the wording, how about something a little simpler, such as "Developing countries dependent upon agriculture will be particularly harmed by global warming" . Honestly, at this point, actually editing the article would probably be the most productive move; it's easier to re-organize and refine language using the neat wiki tools and looking at diffs. - Enuja ( talk) 03:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The Gobal Warming artical NEEDS more on the debates that gobal warming could just be a natural weather pattern. Recent reasearch has shown c02 effect in the greenhouse effect is much less the what was though before. Also the fact that the Gobal Warming simulations that have been recently been used as an example have been proven to be less "right" as thought before.( Bigjimmy65 ( talk) 23:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC))
Just my 2 cents here but the article, starting with the first sentence really doesn't approach the subject as scientific theory, but seems to try and state it as fact. While "Global Warming" itself may be accurately described as a term by the first sentence sans "projected continuation". The "projected continuation" implies Global Warming Theory, which should IMO be handled a little differently. The term "theory" only appears in this article twice as opposed to 34 uses in the page on Gravitation (not counting references) which is why I am concerned that the tone and structure of this article really doesn't seem to be in keeping with other scientific articles on WP (see evolution, gravitation). 71.164.241.199 ( talk) 05:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Global Warming is a theory, in fact, it's referred to as climate change now. Why? One of the reasons is that The Polar Ice Caps are almost back to their pre-1980s levels. An article to source. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html -- 98.207.122.9 ( talk) 00:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Back on topic here, but the point here was to critique the lack of references to the theories cited as supporting information and lack of discussion on Global Warming Theory as a theory. In the referenced articles (gravitation, evolution) the tone and structure seems to be much different than this page. I find the lack of effort in this article to distinguish between observable and agreed upon scientific fact, and the theories that attempt to explain them to be disconcerting. Furthermore, the lack of references to the various theories presented as theories seems to imply that they are instead facts. In general, I think the article seems rushed... maybe even "breathless" as it plows through only the theories and references that support the idea of global warming.
205.141.201.25 (
talk)
17:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, Infonation101, I tried to go through all of your links.
Link #1 is a New Scientist news article about Link #2, so Link #2 is what needs to be evaluated. The article is a highly technical paper on how to do a better job of reconstructing early temperature. Where would this reference go in the general coverage on Climate in Wikipedia? It looks like it should go on Temperature record, or Temperature record of the past 1000 years (in the Northern Hemisphere). Unfortunately, the sections on how proxies are used need more information and more sources (and more organization; I'd expect that stuff to be in temperature record, but it's mostly in past 1000 years) before they would benefit from the very interesting but very technical Nature paper you've linked. In other words, this reference doesn't appear useful right now.
Link #3; I'm not having a lot of luck with the journal "Energy and Environment." This website [11] does not read like the website of a peer-reviewed basic science journal, and the journal doesn't appear to have a publisher; the link to abstracts goes to a self-publishing bussiness. If you follow that link and glance at the titles, a trend becomes instantly obvious; this appears to be a self-published climate change skeptic journal. So I'm not going to pay $18 to read the article. I can find other publications by C. Loehle that are in genuine peer-reviewed literature, but ISI's combined database search does not appear to include "Energy and Environment." So, I can't evaluate the article, but the source is suspect.
Links # 4 & 5. Icecap doesn't look any more peer reviewed than RealClimate. A bunch of people getting together and agreeing on something is not peer review. In peer review, an editor (usually a group of editors) chooses at least two people to review the paper, reads the reviews, and decides if the paper should be included in the journal or not.
Links # 6. Doesn't appear to have anything to do with NOAA, and the first page at least includes facts that seem consistent with what I'm familiar with and with what is on this wikipedia article. There are some value-judgement related words that appear to be different from what is on this article page, but we try to let readers on Wikipedia make their own value judgements, so I don't see how this link could help improve the article.
Link # 7. Eat what? I followed the link anyway, even though I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but this is a private call for data, not peer-reviewed, published complied data.
Links 8-11 have been addressed above.
Link # 12 Is a 1993 news article. For links #1 & 2 you gave the important part, the actual published paper. I'm not going to look this one up because it is 15 years old, and so I'm not sure how it could improve the wikipedia article.
I hope all of that wasn't a waste of my time, and you are convinced that most editors really do like to see good sources. I don't see any sources here that should be included in this article (although there is one that should be in included in an improved version of a different article. In the future, please try to improve the article by suggesting specific improvements, backed up by peer reviewed literature, instead of just listing sources that you think disagree with the article. - Enuja ( talk) 01:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
While I enjoy a good debate as much as the next Joe on the internet, the question was one of style and tone. As a whole, and please don't take this personally, the article reads more like a thesis paper than a WP article attempting to cover a very complex subject in an objective fashion.
1.) We might want to consider a section or page something along the lines of Evolution as theory and fact to clear up some of the ambiguity in terminology and distinguish between the pieces of "global warming" attributed to observable scientific fact and the areas that are theory.
2.) I think the structure/outline of the article should be revised in a manner more consistent with other WP science articles. The page on evolution does a very good job at breaking a complex subject into easy to digest sections where this page seems to ramble, restate, and overlap. To me, this is the most significant problem with the page.
3.) Given the breadth and complexity of the subject, this article should serve as a coherent jumping off point to other articles that dig into particular subject areas. Again, the article seems to be somewhat random as to what Main Article links are where and why. (for example, why is Effects of Global Warming the Main Article link for two different sections? Why isn't the Article on Climate Change referenced for Feedback Loops in addition to or instead?)
4.) While I respect the fact that there are other main articles on the matter, the lack of any significant mention of debate, skepticism or alternative theories (the article on gravitation lists alternative theories for goodness sake) seems very out of place for a scientific subject that is as complex and in a state of flux as this one is. 71.164.241.199 ( talk) 05:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
The comparison with graviation isn't a good one. That article leaves you in no doubt that the dominant theory is GR and that Newtonian gravity is a very good approximation to it. The GW article is, correctly, more tentative. But it still presents the main current explanation for warming as... the main explanation William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Getting an account would be good. Adding a history might be less controversial than re-touching the importance of the solar stuff; you will find much discussion in the archives. I'd suggest drafting anything on the talk page first, unless you're sure its uncontroversial William M. Connolley ( talk) 16:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I added some links to the "See also" section, hoping to improve the article making cross referencing easier for kids doing term papers and other casual readers. But when adding the linksI noticed what appears to be a low intensity POV fork between this article and Global cooling. I realize that editing interests vary within sub areas of complex subjects but I wonder if perhaps the people interested in editing these two subjects might want to get together and coordinate efforts? Trilobitealive ( talk) 02:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not a big deal, but I noticed that the "footnotes" section contains references as well as notes. When one reads the article, there is no way of knowing whether the footnotes are actually references or notes, and the reader could assume that the numbers all refer to citations. Perhaps it would be useful to the reader to have a separate section just for the notes, that would be indicated by letters in the article (see Tourette syndrome). -- Phenylalanine ( talk) 02:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I am the main author of Tourette syndrome; if someone can explain to me what you're trying to accomplish with notes, and assure me it's not a controversial change, I can show you how to do it. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 21:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Uh, and maybe clean up the unformatted citations ( per 2c) and prune the external link farm (per WP:EL, WP:NOT) while you're in there :-) Ping my talk page if you need help on the notes later, but you should be able to get it from Gettysburg. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 21:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
For someone who's theory has come up again and again in the media about global warming, his page has almost nothing on it. I would expand it, but I really have no idea how his theory works. How could cosmic rays --> climate change? The Squicks ( talk) 17:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I like how "the debate is over" and how we can't mention how it may be just a theory even though there are so many people who come to the talk page to express their disagreement with Man Made Global Warming. Did you all know that the founder of the Weather Channel is a staunch skeptic of Man Made Global Warming and he's trying to sue Al Gore for fraud? Doesn't sound like skepticism of Global Warming is a "fringe" argument to me. A while back, I suggested we add a section about how other celestial bodies in our solar system are warming. My ideas were turned away. Not altered, not compromised, just shot down. The gestapo that has nothing better to do than monitor this article on computers that contribute to Global Warming if Global Warming exists are working hard around the clock trying to keep dissention on Man Made Global Warming off the radar. Well, I'd like to re-instate my idea of adding a section that talks about Global Warming happening on other planets, and the idea that the sun may be the main culprit. Here are some articles to get you going:
Global Warming: Pluto http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
Climate Change: Jupiter http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html
Global Warming: Mars http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
New Extreme Natural Disasters: Saturn http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2006/11/09/nasa_looks_at_a_monster_storm_on_saturn/4126/
Global Warming: Triton (Moon of Neptune) http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtml
Sun Getting HOTTER!!!!! http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/092897/study.htm
Sun to Blame for Global Warming http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html
Now, I'm sure that 5 minutes after posting this someone's gonna come here and say something like, "Well, the cousin of the head janitor who works at the building across the street from the National Geographic corporate office owns a dog that bit the wife of a guy whose brother is a junior accountant at Fox News, so they're all evil hate mongering conservatives who are tied with Fox News." But, that kind of close-mindedness is expected by me. I'm not doing this because I expect to alter this article, I'm just doing this to put one more voice out there that Man Made Global Warming is a hoax.
I also find it funny that at the top of this discussion page it mentions that this discussion isn't supposed to be a forum for people to express their opinions on Global Warming. Why not??? Science should always be up for debate! Science without debate is propaganda, and that's what this Global Warming article is. In my opinion, this article should be about a theoretical warming, man-made or not, on a planetary scale of ANY planet. So, by giving off this warning at the top of this page we're basically saying that there is no room for scientific debate on this issue, and the science behind the Global Warming wikipedia article is irrefutable and can not be altered. We're just here to discuss the most effective way of expressing propaganda. 66.255.105.3 ( talk) 02:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
In the article about Global Warming Denial we should perhaps mention the many edits by anons on this talk page and attempted edits to the main article. Links to postings here are reliable primary sources :) Count Iblis ( talk) 14:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it should at least be mentioned that the Weather Channel founder is sceptical of man made global warming. He like some scientists, believe that its just a natural cycle and that there is nothing we can do about it. If know other claim is notable at least this one is. Saksjn ( talk) 13:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Can somebody explain to me why we shouldn't merge these two articles. Every other article with a controversy section has it in its main article and not in a seperate one. I'm going to post this at the controversy talk page as well. Saksjn ( talk) 13:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
We should probably add some kind of information on Global Warming's criticisms on here. Saksjn ( talk) 12:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The verbiage is clear that "Global Warming" section should be scientific and the "Global Warming Controversy" section political. But why then is conflicting scientific evidence from legitimate resources removed from the "Global Warming" section and sometimes replaced in the "Global Warming Controversy" section? And why is there a political section and interlaced references to political actions in the scientific "Global Warming" section? If I am wrong can we come up with a clear and simple definition between the material? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.38.214 ( talk) 04:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Should natural variation (ie the sun) take a more prominent role in this article now the earth is cooling. I wonder when the public will take notice and hold the AGW advocates credible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.143.91 ( talk) 05:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm just wondering whether the article should use the NOAA's Mauna Loa mean figure for CO2 concentration, or their global mean, which lags by about 1.5ppm. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 08:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following line from the Security section:
Research at Stanford University indicates global warming will lead to decreased mortality rates. [1]
for a number of reasons. First of all, this is not Stanford University research, but rather that undertaken by Thomas Gale Moore of the Hoover Institute. I don't know much about the Hoover Institute or what their agenda is: they are a think-tank for one thing. My main objection is that presenting their research as that of "Stanford University" (whatever that means) seems to be a deliberate attempt at misrepresenting the source. Secondly, it would be more accurate to say that the research concluded that the study finds that there may be fewer temperature-related fatalities in the United States. Global warming is not some magic elixir: rather the study finds that the losses in cold-related deaths would offset the gains in heat-related deaths. Furthermore, it makes a number of convenient assumptions in arriving at this conclusion. One of which is that people will grow accustomed to hotter summers, more people will have air conditioning installed, etc. This all seems to beg the question, if you ask me. The statistical methodologies are shoddy (look at the indicators they suggest in the abstract!) I think it would be NPOV to say that "Studies find that increasing global temperatures lead to fewer cold-related deaths." Doesn't seem worthy of comment. Finally, the sentence was added to the Security section, when it clearly has nothing to do with security.
Silly rabbit ( talk) 14:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
To make this article stronger, I think it would be helpful to post ways we can prevent global warming. If anyone has any good information on this, please do.
-- Sandiehara ( talk) 20:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
This graph should be included in the article. The red line shows detailed satellite measurement of global temperatures from the last decade.
Grundle2600 ( talk) 03:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I used the data NASA website listed as the source of the image in the article to compute the same graph, but using the "current" ten year period as 1997-2007 (the website, of course, does not have an annual average for 2008 yet as it isn't over). Here is the graph. [13] Now, this graph isn't of the quality of the current graph (the image page describes how User:Dragons flight made the image look nice, and I haven't done that). You can make this graph yourself, using the mapping tool [14] linked in the image description, for whatever dates you'd like to do. Authors have argued in the past that past-year data get updated and corrected, so it might make sense to skip 2007. I'm not sure what the most informative graph for the article would be, but it might very well be one that is newer than the current graph. What's the most appropriate base data to use? Again, I don't know, and in this case I suspect that Dragon's flight had some reason to use 1940-1980, but I don't know what that reason was. - Enuja ( talk) 18:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the change. That's what I tried to do in the first place (if you look at my first edit you'll find I had originally made that change, but it didn't show up on the page when I was done, so I reverted it because I was afraid I'd broken something). Then I figured I'd just remove "overwhelming," pending a source for "large." CreepyCrawly ( talk) 03:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
"Overwhelming" modifies "majority of scientists working on climate change". If it modified "scientists", then large majority would make sense. However, it is factually true that, of people working on climate change (not just meterologists, physicsts, geologists and biologists but just the subset of those who study global change) it is the overwhelming majority who think that things are at least as bad as the IPCC says. It is cited in the source. It should stay. There is no debate that the current anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is changing global climate. How much the earth has warmed so far, how much it will warm in the future, what the effects will be in different places, how humans and other animals will adapt or suffer, what the best course of action for human to take; all of these are under strong contention. The idea that the burning of fossils fuels isn't increasing the global temperature of the earth is just as inconcievable a position amoung climate change scientists as the flat earth idea was amoung 14th century scholars. - Enuja ( talk) 05:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I note user Brusegadi reinserted the weasel word with the simple summary "this is better." As user Veritas (now "Nonexistant User") had previously and wisely stated, "while [overwhelming] is in the source, it is also a highly subjective word used by the author that should not be allowed to bleed into the article as fact." I ask Brusegadi to specify how inclusion of the highly subjective weasel word is "better." CreepyCrawly ( talk) 09:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
We can also estimate the numbers and write, say, "out of the 3000 climate scientists, 24 disagree with the main conclusions". So, I guess that the fuzziness of the word "overwhelming" does work in the skeptics here. Count Iblis ( talk) 13:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
"Overwhelming" is not a weasel word in the first place. The overwhelming majority of the precipitation I've experienced in my life has been rain. Yes, I've been in snow, but only a few times. To say that the large majority of the precipitation I've experienced has been rain is actively misleading. Now, personally, I don't like using the same words that a source uses; I think it's evidence of poor writing. But I think it is very important to indicate, in the lead, that essentially no-one in the field thinks that the IPCC reports exaggerate the extent or certainty of future global warming. Lots of people think that the IPCC is too conservative; that the IPCC underestimates risks. The inclusion of (maybe too much) uncertainty is why, even though lots of information about future global warming is highly uncertain, there is near unanimity about the IPCC reports. Where I live, it doesn't look like it is doing to rain today. Therefore, we could get unanimity from weather forcasters or even people on the street that "there is between a 0 and 80% chance of rain today." Yes, everbody can agree with the IPCC even if they do disagree substantially on the climate change science. People who think there is a 7% and 70% chance of rain disagree, but they still both agree with the highly uncertain statement I just made. The IPCC is the same kind of thing. - Enuja ( talk) 18:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Not to be a broken record or anything but, again, if you enclose "overwhelming" in quotes (to properly identify that the word is taken directly from the source) then this issue is dead. It boggles my mind that this is still being discussed. And, finally, I think the inevitable "scare quotes" argument is juvenile, self-serving and unjustified in this case. 82.41.90.144 ( talk) 18:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/7524#SlideFrame_1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.169.147 ( talk) 16:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
After years of study, John Coleman is convinced that none of this is true. And thousands of scientists and other meteorologists hold this same dissenting view.
Currently, John Coleman is a TV weatherman for KUSI News in San Diego. But Coleman is most famous for being founder of the Weather Channel. He has had a long career in predicting the weather, working for the first time as a TV weatherman during his freshman year in college in 1953. With this extensive background, we might take John Coleman seriously when he states bluntly that global warming “is the greatest scam in history.”
I am thinking of adding information on how chlorofluorocarbons contribute to global warming because I did not see any information about them in this article. -- Ilikemangos ( talk) 03:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
See LewRockwell.com and the associated edit history. Raul654 ( talk) 23:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Testing the proposed link between cosmic rays and cloud cover
T. Sloan, A.W. Wolfendale
(Submitted on 15 Mar 2008) Abstract: A decrease in the globally averaged low level cloud cover, deduced from the ISCCP infra red data, as the cosmic ray intensity decreased during the solar cycle 22 was observed by two groups. The groups went on to hypothesise that the decrease in ionization due to cosmic rays causes the decrease in cloud cover, thereby explaining a large part of the presently observed global warming. We have examined this hypothesis to look for evidence to corroborate it. None has been found and so our conclusions are to doubt it. From the absence of corroborative evidence, we estimate that less than 23%, at the 95% confidence level, of the 11-year cycle change in the globally averaged cloud cover observed in solar cycle 22 is due to the change in the rate of ionization from the solar modulation of cosmic rays.
Count Iblis ( talk) 14:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)