Talk:Climate change/Archive 67

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The blessed farting, burping dinosaurs

I removed this:

Some scientists claim that methane gas released by the flatulence of dinosaurs caused global warming millions of years ago, the Sauropods producing 5 to 10 times as much methane as cows do today. (Davies, Ella. "BBC Nature - Dinosaur gases 'warmed the Earth'". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-05-08.)

While dinosaurs were around for a very long time, and could well have been so productive of greenhouse gases as to change the climate, the relevance to this article about a quite distinct episode of climate change is difficult to imagine. --TS

Sorry, forgot to timestamp this. It was at least a day or two ago. --TS 01:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Well spotted. Narssarssuaq (talk) 10:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Listing what causes global warming then and now is relevant to the global warming article. Many sources talk about methane released from cows, and here is evidence that dinosaurs released many more times what cows did. Perhaps it would go better in Greenhouse gas. Dream Focus 18:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that one of the causes of global warming is dinosaur farts? Certainly not now, and not even then. As to cows: if dinosaurs, "producing 5 to 10 times as much methane", couldn't cause global warming, it is not likely that cows have.   ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:52, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources cover this in detail. Google news archive search for "cows" "global warming" and you'll find 4,770 news articles about it. [1] There are 1.5 billion cows in the world. The methane gas they produce does contribute to it according to many studies. Methane gas is "23 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas" than carbon dioxide. The United Nations makes statements about this. [2] Dream Focus 01:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The methane gas you expell contributes to global warming; should that go into the article, too?

A Google search is not a reliable source. The most authoritative source is the IPCC; I recommend you study AR4, and particularly Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Agriculture definitely is a major source of the anthropogenic component, and it's treated as such. The dinosaurs, though, aren't around to contribute to current warming. It doesn't belong in this article. --TS 16:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Minor correction: non-avian dinosaurs aren't around, the contribution of avian dinosaurs such as poultry is no doubt noted in the various studies. Either way, it's not really significant to this article.
Also note that methane gas is only "23 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas" than carbon dioxide in the short term, after that it decays to CO₂ and as such remains as potent for the long term. Fox News is a rubbish source for what the IPCC say. The general issue is covered under Greenhouse gases which mentions methane. . dave souza, talk 17:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Global dimming vs. global cooling

I think the relationship between global cooling and global dimming discussed in the previous section is interesting, so I added a small piece of text about it. Narssarssuaq (talk) 14:32, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

which I deleted, since this article is not a historical review of how the current scientific consensus evolvedNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Citations/references.

Narssarssuaq: I have reverted your recent re-naming of the "Citations" and "References" sections. While it may seem obviously "incorrect" to you, you should keep in mind that this is not "obvious" to everyone else. Ask if you have questions. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:56, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

OK. My claim: The term "citation" is normally used about the in-text reference to the references. "Citation" and "reference" are not synonyms. Narssarssuaq (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

  On what grounds do you claim knowledge of "normally used"? The use of "citation" and "reference" has been thoroughly muddled (even prior to Wikipedia), and if you would spend any time looking through the archives (as I have) you might see that there is quite a bit of contention about this. So no matter how clearly you think you see the matter, it really is not prudent to just jump up and change something like that without first discussing it. And this isn't really the proper place for that discussion. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Article feedback

So the article feedback tool exists, and apparently there have been over 600 comments left in the article feedback for this article. Once you get through the trolling comments, there are some semi-constructive suggestions, though some are contradictory (too long vs. not enough info). One that a few mention that I think we could actually improve on is that there aren't enough pictures. We have plenty of graphs, to be sure, but there's a grand total of one explanatory graphic, and it's a bit cluttered one at that. Anyone have any ideas for better graphics we can use? Also, can anyone else find any other useful suggestions in the feedback tool we might want to use? I found two graphics from commons that might be helpful which I've placed below the fold Sailsbystars (talk) 20:42, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

sailsbystars suggested graphics

Interesting. I didn't know the feedback was available. Someone should give feedback to the feedback people: lots of people answered "yes", "no", or "everything" which suggests they thought they were answering a different question. I looked though some of it (and flagged some as not helpful / abuse; hopefully that pushes those down for the next person who looks). Other things that come up are:

• simpler text
• definition
• causes

A "simple" GW page was something we mooted years ago but never did. Maybe we could resurrect the idea? Definition I find it hard to be sympathetic with, cos we start with that. Causes? Dubious William M. Connolley (talk) 21:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I view this exercise as talking about whether we should talk about what others who are not making the effort to edit the page want us to talk about. Meanwhile, Sailsby.... if you have improvement ideas - graphics or otherwise - be bold and try them, or give them a talk thread. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It's a difficult subject to encapsulate in an illustration, but I suppose we should try. Ice cores, tide gauges, Argo floats, and satellites may be among the best choices.

From Commons:

• An Argo float
• A tide gauge
• Antarctic ice core samples
• A climate satellite being prepared

Newspapers and magazines have discovered for themselves the dangers of inappropriate use of illustrations on this topic, so great care must be taken to annotate any illustrations carefully, and to consider whether their presence could be misinterpreted. It would probably be a good idea to steer clear of animal pictures. --TS 12:41, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Of those, I like the ice core best. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Ice core has better pix William M. Connolley (talk) 13:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Adverse weather events

Don't really like the new section. It is too much James Hansen's view William M. Connolley (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. As Tony pointed out a bit above, this isn't the right article to be cherry-picking individual views. It is a survey article, and ought to be informed, as much as possible, by consensus. Unless someone has a better source, I would think the IPCC views on this subject would be the best source (assuming that the sub-section itself merits inclusion.)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I removed it. It was, for ref:

James Hansen calculated that, with high confindence, certain weather events, such as the heat waves in Texas and the 2003 European heat wave, would not have occurred without global warming. Extremely hot outliers, defined as three standard deviations from climatology records, now cover about 10% of the land surface and, under present trends, would be the norm by 2050. These temperatures are expected to excaberate the hydrological cycle, with more intense droughts and floods. The effect on hurricane activity is less certain.

William M. Connolley (talk) 20:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

There was a Horizon documentary about this topic, see here. Count Iblis (talk) 22:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Extreme weather events are quite a significant topic and so should be included. Thus, if you could find IPCC studies on it, I would favor replacing it but I doubt it should be eliminated. As of now, there is similar but unsourced material in natural systems effects section and I could incorporate something there and take out Hansen’s name. At the end of the climate model section there is something about increased precipitation but again is from non-IPCC studies. Nicehumor (talk) 13:34, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Extreme weather is indeed of interest. I think if you looked in the IPCC you would not find anything as certain as the "calculated that, with high confindence, certain weather events, such as the heat waves in Texas and the 2003 European heat wave, would not have occurred without global warming". Somewhere around http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-8-2.html might be the place to look William M. Connolley (talk) 21:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I understood that these links between an increased frequency of extreme events and GW represent fairly recent, but respectable, work. Therefore I would be surprised if there was much in AR4, but think that there will be well-received more recent papers out there that we could conceivably use. I would expect more on the topic in AR5. In the meantime, I think this is an area where exact wording is necessary as small changes can be very significant. The Texan woman scientist in the documentary linked by Count Iblis above (sorry, I have already forgotten her name) made a good attempt at explaining it simply, by talking about dice and loaded dice. She said something like, when you roll a 6 using a loaded die, you cannot be sure that this 6 is because of the loading, but you can be sure that you are seeing more 6s because of it. The scientists' work, the documentary explained, is to try to find out how much GW is loading the dice in favour of extreme events. They seem to have made some significant progress, both with modelling the causality and in showing that weather records are indeed being broken more often than in the past. Noting the names of those interviewed in the documentary, and looking up their recent work may produce some usable review papers or published secondary sources. --Nigelj (talk) 21:35, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

SREX could be a useful overview, but Rasmus E. Benestad seems a bit doubtful about this particular aspect. In a recent paper, Coumou, D., Rahmstorf, S. (2012): A Decade of Weather Extremes. Nature Climate Change [DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1452] is outlined at SkS, and described by the authors, perhaps it and Hansen could be briefly noted in the context of an overview. . . dave souza, talk 22:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, there are (crudely) two possible responses (focussing just on T for the moment): either the entire distribution shifts, so we get more heat waves and fewer, err, cold waves; but the SD stays the same. Or the distribution changes shape as well as shifting its mean, potentially leading to even more heat waves than you might expect (or less, if it narrowed). We could do a service by saying which of these is likely to happen, if its known, I'm not much up on that (I'd guess current obs evidence isn't good enough to distinguish the two, though I'm sure models must predict clearly for the future) William M. Connolley (talk) 08:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Rahmstorf and Comou illustrate this with a graph from the IPCC 2001 TAR, so that's not novel. The SkS summary of the Hansen et al. paper shows a different approach. . dave souza, talk 10:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The idea isn't new - its just the bleedin' obvious. What would be useful, though, is either results from current obs saying what is happening, or its unknown; and futures from model runs William M. Connolley (talk) 10:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

From what I understand, the claim is that the distribution has shifted towards higher temperatures while nothing special happened to the standard deviation. "Three standard deviations" away is referring to the likelihood of these events happening compared to the average in the old distribution. So, of the sources linked in this section, which should we use? Nicehumor (talk) 10:17, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess we agree something on this topic should be here but some disagree with the source. I do not think this discussion should be left to die while not including in that information. Again, which source should we use? Nicehumor (talk) 08:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Updated/more appropriate lede

The current introduction does not really capture what needs to be conveyed to readers. I would like to propose the following updated lede:

"Global warming is of current interest, as concerns over climate change have shifted from a focus on global cooling in the 1970s (when NASA scientists indicated global temperatures could be reduced by 3.5°C and “trigger an ice age”) to the current focus on global warming (defined as the increase in average global temperatures of 0.74±0.18°C over the last 100 years)."

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/173/3992/138?ck=nck

If there are no objections, I would like to make this update. Peter Lemongello (talk) 05:47, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Your premise about the 1970s is false, based on misuse of a primary source. See Global cooling#1971 to 1975: papers on warming and cooling factors for further explanation, and don't make that change. . . dave souza, talk 07:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Most definitely objections to re-writing the introduction based on a single, 40 year old report. You seem to have no idea how science works, nor how an introduction should be written. Please take a much longer look at these things before leaping in. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:22, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, I believe this should lead of the 2nd paragraph. Peter Lemongello (talk) 03:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Moving the proposal to the 2nd paragraph addresses none of the objections given. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:59, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Nor does it address various objections not given. Such as: what is the point of citing this source? What is the presumed problem it addresses? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:23, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

This scientific article and the proposed passage really highlights the evolution of scientific thought regarding climate change over the decades. That is, in the 1970s time frame, there was a distinct concern in some circles over cooling (related to aerosols). This concern even compelled the authors to note the possibility of triggering another "ice age." This of course gave way to concerns over warming, starting in the late 1980s. It is quite important to highlight this evolution in thinking by the climate scientists. Peter Lemongello (talk) 02:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Global cooling#1971 to 1975: papers on warming and cooling factors shows that you're misinformed or denying the facts. Please broaden your research. . dave souza, talk 02:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

This is not my research. This was NASA research from the 1970s. It's unfortunate you use loaded terminology like "denying." These were published studies. You seem to be in denial. Peter Lemongello (talk) 05:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

It would be preferrable that you actually informed yourself about the research in the 70's, rather than assume it. Contrary to your assertions, the view in the 70's wasn't cooling. You've simply cherry-picked a paper. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 06:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not even cherry-picking a paper, it's cherry-picking an abstract. Even Rasool and Schneider assumed that warming would most likely dominate. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

In their own paper they warn of the potential for an ice age. You really need to read the paper. Peter Lemongello (talk) 05:40, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

If you had truly read even the summary — as distinguished from misreading it — you might have noticed that the claimed potential for an ice age was dependent on the balance of certain parameters. Which is to say, there was a very big IF. You have totally missed that, as well as much subsequent research (forty years!!) that has totally discounted this potential. You have not only cherry-picked this single, out-dated, and discredited paper, you have also cherry-picked the one bit in the abstract about this potential, without any mention of the caveats. Such an egregious mis-read suggests that you lack sufficient competence for assessing "what needs to be conveyed to readers", and your proposal is, at best, uncredible. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:00, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

There's science, and there's popular science. If global cooling was a very prominent topic in popular science in the 1970s, it could, as a piece of trivia or history, be of interest in the parts of the article which deal with public perceptions. I wasn't all that informed during the 70s, so I do not know about the public debate at that time. Moreover, the popular science and debate could have been different in different countries. Narssarssuaq (talk) 13:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC) By the way, the debate in the 1970s was apparently meritable enough to repeatedly reach Science Magazine, which is a sign that it was high on the scientific agenda. Here a rebuttal of global cooling from 1976 (arguing that global warming is a larger threat): [3] Narssarssuaq (talk) 14:04, 5 June 2012 (UTC) The original worry from the 1971 article, aerosols cooling the atmosphere, is now, by the way, termed global dimming.

On a more positive note, maybe we now have some insight into why there were some breathless pronouncements in the popular press in the 70's. Maybe some reporters, without much scientific training, made the same error of thinking that when a scientist says "If X, then Y", that they are predicting Y.SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for making my point...the fact this Science paper is now "discredited" clearly shows the evolution of climate science over time. I would perhaps suggest as the 2nd sentence of the 2nd paragraph.Peter Lemongello (talk) 05:26, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

By "now" you mean "by 1972", presumably. Global cooling#1971 to 1975: papers on warming and cooling factors is the correct article for this minor detail of the history of climate science, you're wrongly trying to push misconceptions into the lead of this main article.. . . dave souza, talk 06:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

With due respect to JJ, I disagree that the paper is "discredited". It was based on comparatively simple models, but I've not seen any claims that it is fundamentally flawed. It made a conditional claim. The condition did not come true - instead the US and Europe cleaned up their industries by installing SO2 scrubbers, primarily to reduce acid rain. As a result, aerosol emissions went down, not up (and in particular not 4 times up). That does not make the paper wrong or discredited. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I would tend to defer to Dr. Schulz even if I disagreed. But I do agree: the paper's conclusion was conditional. What was discredited was the assumptions, and the popular take-away line that cooling was coming. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree that "discredited" is rather misleading wording, Weart notes that "Rasool and Schneider, like Mitchell, recognized that aerosols might not cool the atmosphere but warm it; the tricky part was to understand how aerosols absorbed radiation." Weart continues, "In fact their equations and data were rudimentary, and scientists soon noticed crippling flaws (as did Schneider himself, see below)."
That brings us to "Stephen Schneider and a collaborator improved his rudimentary model, correcting his earlier overestimate of cooling . ..... The model now predicted that "CO2 warming dominates the surface temperature patterns soon after 1980." Cite – Schneider and Mass (1975).
Which puts "now" at 1975 or earlier. . . dave souza, talk 16:54, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Let's not get so involved in the exegesis of this paper we stray from the topic of what Peter wants to use it for: to slant the lede to the view that in the 1970s "NASA scientists" (all of 'em?) that we could be on the verge of triggering an ice age. By the way, has anyone read the answer to FAQ #13 recently? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:29, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree, the FAQ covers it well. Perhaps Peter thought NASA had only two scientists affiliated to it in the 1970s . . dave souza, talk 20:03, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Slight change of direction

This would be an interesting addition to the article to show how scientific ideas such as described herein change over time, but unfortunately the article is owned by a group connected to the Climatic Research Unit email controversy, and it leans more toward scientism than science. This happens in Wikipedia. Santamoly (talk) 06:43, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The article is owned? More like you're pwned, please WP:AGF and seek consensus in collegiate way. If this would be an interesting example to show how scientific ideas such as described herein change over time, then a third party reliable source will have discussed it, we don't do WP:OR here. But this is a large article, the place for an interesting example to show how scientific ideas on the topic change over time would be an article on History of climate change science and –oh, look! There it is! . . dave souza, talk 07:12, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

"in collegiate way"? Did you mean "in a collegial way"? I think maybe you've just been pwned by the dictionary. It's not possible to seek consensus in this article - it's owned by the Climatic Research Unit fan group, so no consensus seeking is sought or happening here. The only improvement to the article is going to happen by working around the article, not by editing the article. The article will eventually crumble into dust from the weight of its own nonsense. Santamoly (talk) 03:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I think there might some merit in touching on the development of this "theory". E.g.: 1890s, Arrhenius calculates that if we dumped enough CO₂ into the atmosphere — but no, no way. 1960s, Keeling: Way! Circa 1995: we may have global warming. 2007: Incontrovertible. Maybe the cabal will give me a secret decoder ring? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:11, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you might find some clues as to the location of the secret decoder ring by rummaging around in the Climatic Research Unit documents? It'll give you something to do while waiting for the first hints of Global Warming to appear. Meanwhile, I'm about to shuffle down the corridor to see how Peak Oil is coming along. Santamoly (talk) 07:23, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's what you have going on: a mental "decoding" by which one flea-like incident of an acting-out researcher completely overturns years of research by thousands of scientists. That is quite an Archimedian lever you have there. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Too long article

There has earlier been a consensus that this article is too long. Is it time we embark on a project where it is made more concise?

This would entail three modules:

1. Deciding whether or not the article should be shortened.

2. Prudently deciding which information to retain, and

3. Copy-pasting all other information into more detailed articles, most of which already exist.

We are now in stage 1, and I think reasoned casual readers should have their say on this as well as expert editors. What is your opinion? Narssarssuaq (talk) 16:14, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Could you give us a pointer to the discussion where it was agreed that the article is too long? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

No, sorry. It was several years ago. Narssarssuaq (talk) 11:18, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Several years ago? Then it is out-of-date. If you think some past discussion is currently pertinent then you really should locate it in the archives, and provide appropriate links. As it is, your statement that there "has earlier been a consensus that this article is too long" is only an unsupported assertion, and no basis for the action you desire. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:41, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I can see that this article is in able hands, and that contributions from my part are not needed. Good luck with your continued efforts. Narssarssuaq (talk) 07:50, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes the article is too long, but that suits everyone. The warmists who edit this article don't want to admit that almost everything on this page is junk and has been discredited. The sceptics are quite happy, because no one reads long articles like this and it is better the warmists were kept busy here than doing any serious damage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.237.60 (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2012 (UTC)