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(new talk at the bottom)

some book I've read / Further Support

i think that the human race is not ment to exist on this planet. There is a very likely theory that the earth is in an ice age as we speak. The earth is not supposed to have polar iced caps, and humans are not ment to be living. the book i read is entitled 'Ice Age'.

I've actually herd this theroy too, durring an envirothon, an enviroment based science event for high school/ college students. The scientist educating us on this was pretty credable, and had some really good evidence, I think this theroy needs to be further explored and if reasonable brought into the Global Warming article.

Huh? Yes, we are, technically speaking, in an interglacial period of the current ice age, and have been for some 1000s of years. It is unknown how long the current interglacial would last without human intervention - current opinion is "probably much longer". Whether the earth is "supposed to have polar ice caps" depends, apparently, on a combination of orbital parameters and arrangement of continental plates. None of this has to do with the current anthropogenic global warming. We are currently modifying the environment in a way that heats up the earth much faster than any known natural process. --Stephan Schulz 22:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no undisputable evidence that correlates recent increases in temperatures to human activity. Historical data on the subject is sketchy at best and cannot be relied upon to draw any conclusions about man's effect on the earth's temperatures.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.178.90.8 (talk • contribs) As with you other comment, please provide evidence. The article on Attribution of recent climate change discusses this in detail. Please read this and all the evidence provided there and then find some references of your own to support your opinion.--NHSavage 06:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

section 'Climate Models',is misleading

No one should be surprised, that the people that write climate-model programs, tend to stick together in claiming climate-models actualy mean something. What is presented here, is totally one-sided. Climate models are essentialy curve fitting routines; with the coefficients being calculated by computer, to best fit past data points. In many cases, these coefficients have no physical meaning, they are simply numbers needed to get things to match. People familiar with math, know that an infinite number of functions can be generated to fit any arbitrary set of data. That means, you can generate a function that matches past data, but 'predicts' any future number the progammer desires. My suspicion is, the supposed concensus that models predict a 2 - 5 degree C increase in 100 years, is a consequence of --> if a modeller writes a program that predicts something wildly different that the concensus, --> he doesn't present that model at confernces. Any 'concensus', is no more meaningful that the direction of a buffalo stampede, most of the buffalo tend to do the same thing. Comments welcome.--CorvetteZ51 01:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong. If all that is needed is a curve-fitting, you can use a standard algorithm and generate a polynomial of the desired degree (see the disuccsion at Talk:Global warming/extreme weather extrapolation graph). Climate models do indeed try to model the physics, i.e. they do not try to fit an arbitrary function. Yes, parameter fitting is required, but that is a very normal thing. Models are typically optimized on some part of the climate record, and then evaluated against the remainder. The model is considered useful only if a decent fit is achieved on this holdout set. As for your allegation: Scientist love finding unexpected answers. That is what gives you new publications. Nobody is publishing about the comparative speed of falling feathers and bullets in a vaccuum anymore.--Stephan Schulz 07:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone ever performed a "history match" on these computer models? I was interested in finding out if anyone actually has run the numerical models (I am assuming they are numerical "cell by cell" 2D or 3D models?) in reverse to see if they fit with historical data collected over the last 100 or 150 years. Just a question from a skeptic. --Smithsmith 04:21, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

They do compare the models with historical data, but I don't know if they do it on a cell-level or just a worldwide level. Presumably some of the historical data goes into the model, so it's not quite like "running it backwards". Here's an example of the model performance over the past 150 years, running with natural forcings, or anthropogenic forcings, or both: bikeable (talk) 05:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Bikeable. I appreciate it. --Smithsmith 01:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

SSmiths comments show that he needs to do an awful lot of background reading. You can't run GCMs in reverse. Try global climate model for some stuff about how they work. Try the IPCC TAR SPM for fit-to-history (I think its fig 4). William M. Connolley 09:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC).

Yes, Mr. Connolley, you are correct. That is why I asked the question.--Smithsmith 01:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

CorvetteZ51, science is not politics. The consesus on global warming was reached in a different way than the consensus that Saddam had stockpilies of WMD. :) Count Iblis 13:47, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Have done computer models myself I must agree CorevetteZ51. In so far as the dynamics of climate change are reasonably well known, one can make models of climate processes. But since climate science is not an experimental science, i.e. there is no way to control and experiment on global climate variables, the whole process is pretty unconstrained. As for politics, love, philosophy and many other things I find (for myself included) in the absence of conclusive demonstration, facts are grouped by observer bias. Mrdthree 07:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Something missing

"...have suggested that irradiance changes over pre-industrial are less..."

...over pre-industrial what? Levels, I presume, but I leave it to you. Daniel Collins 02:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd propose to revise the sentance to:

Since the TAR, various studies (Lean et al., 2002, Wang et al., 2005) have suggested that changes in irradiance since pre-industrial times are less by a factor of 3-4 than in the reconstructions used in the TAR (e.g. Hoyt and Schatten, 1993, Lean, 2000.)

However, I can only access the GRL paper from work, so can somone who has read it check that my revision actually correspends to the paper (or I'll do this on Monday).--NHSavage 09:34, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

You're right. YOu can throw in Foster, 2004 and Foukal et al., 2004 if you like, too :-) William M. Connolley 11:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC).

Glacier Mass Balance

Summary information on alpine glacial mass balance is available through the National Snow and Ice Data Center (http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html). A recent review by Dyurgerov and Meier (http://instaar.colorado.edu/other/download/OP58_dyurgerov_meier.pdf) shows that alpine glaciers in all regions (with the exception of Europe) show a cumulative negative mass balance over the interval 1960 to 2004 (see Figure 4 in the publication). Note that within Europe, there was a negative mass balance in the Alps and a positive mass balance in Scandinavia. There has been a recent edit by user Silverback that has modified materials related to this topic. As it stands, the reader would be left with the erroneous impression that alpine glacier retreat was only an early 20th century phenomena. The statement should be revised to reflect the reality on the ground. J. Hamilton 205.189.26.38 21:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I revised the statement to reflect what was in the citation. WMC has reverted to an "an around the world" version that is not supported by the original referenced citation and is contradicted by the positive mass balance in Scandinavia evidence cited above. The paper cited in the article noted that most of the glacial retreat was in the first half of the 20th century. You should read the paper.--Silverback 04:55, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea how you are reading Oerlemans and getting that most occured in the first half of the century. I'd give you that perhaps a little more did based on his work, but his figure 2 is fairly close to symmetric about 1950. However, I have removed the "increasingly rapid" since there does not seem to be any big change in the rate over the 20th century. I have also edited this section to incorporate some of the material found in the Dyurgerov and Meier paper cited above. Dragons flight 06:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

How about these quotes from the paper: "Glaciers witnessed a particularly strong warming at high northern latitudes in the first decades of the 20th century (fig. S4B)." and "From 1860 onward, most regions show a temperature increase. In the first half of the 20th century the temperature rise is notably similar for all regions: about 0.5 K in 40 years." Note that my statement was that most of the glacial retreat occurred in the first half of the 20th century. Look at figure 3b. Nearly all the rise came in the first half of the century, then there was a cooling, and then a recovery to the peak levels.--Silverback 14:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Figure 3 is interpreted paleotemperature based on a non-uniform weighting of the glacier length changes. It is necessarily non-uniform because the temperature sensitivity of a given glacier depends on such factors as local angle of repose and mean annual accumulation. In talking about average glacier retreat (uniformly weighted) you should be refering to Figure 2. A discussion of glacier derived paleotemperature would more easily fit in glacier retreat or one of the temperature record articles, then the summary blurb here. Dragons flight 18:34, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone obviously wanted glacier retreat in THIS article, it wasn't me. I see it in the same vein as trying to attribute specific huricanes to the part of GW attributed to human forcings.--Silverback 18:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Seems fair enough, I've rv'd to DF's version. William M. Connolley 22:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC).

We aren't trying to be fair, just encyclopedic, hyperbole is questionable in an encyclopedia, even when justified. In this case, it hasn't even been justified.--Silverback 04:55, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Singer and Avery?

Hi Silverback! Do you plan to do anything with the reference you added? It's not a peer-reviewed paper, but rather one of the typical reports coming out of conservative think-tanks. --Stephan Schulz 15:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It is well footnoted by published authors, so it is as valid as a book reference. What I did with it was added before the reference was. I've read that they intend to expand it as a review paper or book, and are not claiming it is original research. --Silverback 15:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the lot. Silverback, please stop pushing your POV into this . First of all, the Singer and Avery ref is *junk* (they can't even get the length of the ice age cycles right!). If you feel like defending it as valid, I'll rip it to shreds for you, but its barely worth the effort. Braun, of course, isn't junk: its just doesn't belong here. Why not add it into Dansgaard-Oeschger event, where it belongs? William M. Connolley 18:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

which Ice age cycles? You aren't referring to the rounding to 1500 are you?--Silverback 18:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

90kyr

WMC, I don't see a mention of of 90kyr ice age cycles, I see mention of cycles which include 90kyr ice ages, so the full cycle is obviously longer. I want to make sure this misreading of their statements does not clarify your issue before investigating further.--Silverback 09:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Sb, this this is gobbledegook on your part. Can you not read: It has long been accepted that the Earth has experienced climate cycles, most notably the 90,000-year Ice Age cycles.. Now, go off to ice age and compare and contrast. William M. Connolley 10:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC).

No, the statement you cite is ambiguous, it could be interpreted either way, but later in the article their meaning is clear "The best-known of these is the Ice Age cycle, with 90,000-year Ice Ages interspersed with far shorter interglacial periods." Given their apparent meaning do you still accuse them of not having the length of ice age cycles right. Frankly I can't tell because they don't state the length of the cycle, they just appear to be identifying which cycle they are referring to.--Silverback 11:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

How does a solar explanation of the DO events, extending into the Holocene, not belong in the solar variation section?--Silverback 18:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Its only a speculative mechanism for a solar trigger, not an explanation for the full range of the changes, so it has little relevance to current change. And if you want to say there has been a continuous range of D-O events with a 1,470 period in the holocence... you need to re-write the obs record first. Oh, and of course most people don't believe in a regular 1,470 year cycle for the D-O events, so don't believe in a solar connection anyway. William M. Connolley 18:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC).

...and the 1,470 solar cycle may be imaginary. Image:Carbon-14-10kyr-Hallstadtzeit_Cycles.png says so. William M. Connolley 18:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC).

There is so much cumulative evidence for the DO periodicity, including recognizing its influence in the historical record, that what was lacking was a plausible mechanism. The ability of this mechanism (the component cycles are already established in the literature) to allow the periodicity to be reproduced in a model is probably why Nature considered it significant. It makes sense. It could still be wrong, but then a lot in climate science could be, especially when it comes to modeling and attribution.--Silverback 19:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Why are you making this up? "so much cumulative evidence" - nonsense. For D-O periodicity there is Rahmstorfs paper (which specifically points out the *absence* of a solar signal at the required period). Notice how... you aren't defneding Singers mistaken 90kyr claim; you have nothing to say about the *observed* solar periodicity being 2.3kyr if anything. Being a member of WP:HEC I shall wait till tomorrow to revert this Singer junk out again... William M. Connolley 20:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC).

Please assume good faith and refrain from personal attacks. (this comment by Silverback, it somehow got orphaned from the rest of the comment below)

Will you please avoid making up nonsense. There is lots of evidence for the D-O events, but for their *periodicity* is another matter entirely. William M. Connolley 10:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The DO signal has been detected in both greenland and antartic cores and in Northern Atlantic modes. You should check the references in the Braun paper which you admit "isn't junk". Obviously, there can be several solar signals which periodically coincide and superimpose on each other. So a 2.3kyr period does not contradict a 1470 period. If you want to assemble and insert evidence of other periods, fine. I haven't tried to put Singer's "mistaken" 90kyr claim into the article. If I were to do so, I would consult his references, as far as I can tell, in the cited reference his is not claiming original results, just reviewing a body of evidence that he has assembled. Perhaps he has made a mistake, I know you have, but that is no reason to reject your information or his on an ad hominem basis.(this comment also by Silverback and somehow got orphaned.)

More nonsense. Go read the ice age article. Please stop flinging "ad hom" around as though it solved all your problems. William M. Connolley 10:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC).

Lets stick to the matter at hand, whether you "believe" in the 1470 periodicity or not, it is in the peer reviewed literature, and my text relies upon Singer and Avery for the information about what place in the cycle the earth currently is in.

The 1470 periodicity *for D-O* is in the literature, and you should be reading that, not trash like S+A. But the problem (as I've pointed out) is that the very paper that posits 1470 specifically states that there is no solar signal to explain it. Furthermore, there is *no* evidence for it in recent times, cos there are no D-O events in recent times, and as I've already pointed out, by ref to the wiki graph, is that whatever minor signal seems to exist in the millenial band, it looks like 2.3kyr. Also, S+A isn't a scholarly summation of the literature - its propaganda. Wiki should not be referenceing it as though it were scholarly. William M. Connolley 10:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC).

"trash", "most people", "junk", "hopeless", please stay away from incivility and ad hominem arguments. You have just been engaging in denial, despite the evidence in the literature of the cycle. The fact that the older original paper denied a solar cycle of that period is trumped by later literature and other evidence than the ice cores itself. The original author would have to deny the existance of the 210 and 87 year solar cycles, since the Braun paper based on their superposition. For other evidence, consider "Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene" Gerard Bond, et al, in Science 7 December 2001: Vol. 294. no. 5549, pp. 2130 - 2136 where they state: "Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic's "1500-year" cycle." This is back in 2001 and I believe I have also read subsequent isotopic evidence extending the work.--Silverback 11:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a basis for disputing their positioning of the current climate within that cycle.

What cycle? The non-exitent 1470 D-O cycle? William M. Connolley 10:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe there is literature that associates the little ice age with that cycle, and Singer and Avery have positioned the cycle using that. I also relied upon their review for the 2 degree C amplitude of that cycle during the mild interglacials. Can you dispute that?--Silverback 09:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Isn't all this far too much detail for this article? It should surely be under Solar_variation#Global_warming. To my way of thinking this should be concise summary of the more detailed information in that article. That section also needs a lot of work as it seems to lack any coherence. It is just a set of A said this and B said that. I would support WMC's reversion but suggest moving some of the debate to the solar forcing page.— Preceding unsigned comment added by NHSavage (talk • contribs)

Anon one, you probably should focus on the "effects" section of you are concerned about article detail/length. The solar information is central to balancing the key attribution evidence, there is no need to go into the speculative fear mongering on this page where we are trying to stick to the science. Frankly, I don't think the article is too detailed or too long, those are subjective judgements and I think the interested reader can handle this article, especially if we keep it well organized. So I am not going to oppose the effects section, just make sure it doesn't stray too far beyond the evidence.--Silverback 09:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is a subjective judgement when the article is too detailed or long. That is why I phrased my original point as a question to people. However, I think it is very difficult and probably impossible to include a good summary when the original text is a mess. This discussion on the merits or otherwise of these papers belong over there not here. Get a good NPOV text there and then write the summary here.--NHSavage 12:18, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

This article is the original, the others are often neglected spinoffs, sometimes spunoff not by those who love the spunoff topic and want to elaborate the details, but by those who are territorial about this article and don't feel comfortable having some evidence in it. So no wonder they are lower in quality and receive less rigorous review. This is the article where the key evidence and questions should be explained.--Silverback 14:34, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

WMC, your original reasons for removal of this material has not proven correct, why do you persist in removing it when you can't justify it here?--Silverback 17:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Silverback and 1RR/7

Silverback is limited to 1RR/7 Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Silverback#Remedies and has broken this: , . Silverback: can you please clearly and unambiguously promise to keep to your parole in future, or I'll report you. William M. Connolley 16:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC).

I haven't broken the 1RR/7 rule. I think you are misinterpreting it. It should be applied just like the 3RR rule, but with only 1R allowed. The evidence you cite is two independent reverts of independent material, that would not be counted under the 3RR rule intepretation. If you think I have misinterpreted this, perhaps we should go to the arbcom for clarification. I've been operating under this intepretation all along, and no one else has questioned it. So my interpretation is that I am under a 1 revert rule, differing from the 3RR rule only in number (1 instead of 3), and time period (7 days instead of 24hours). --Silverback 17:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, your interpretation of the parole is right, but your interpretation of WP:3RR is wrong. Quote: "Do not revert any single page in whole or in part more than three times in 24 hours". What you revert on a page is irrelevant. If you read WP:3RR, the interpretation is very clear. --Stephan Schulz 17:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

You most certainly have broken it, and your interpretation of the revert rule (alas, like your interpretation of so much climate science) is quite wrong. Note to others: Vsmith has blocked him, so Sb can't talk here: probably best to see ]. William M. Connolley 17:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC).

the realclimate.org link (no. 34)

The realclimate.org link no.34 is not working for me. Is anyone else having success with it? I get "Parse error: parse error, unexpected ':' in /usr/www/users/realc/wp-content/plugins/email-notification-v1.4.php on line 156"--Silverback 21:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Works fine for me (Safari 2.03). They do mention a problem with email on the page, though. Try again, maybe you hit maintenance time.--Stephan Schulz 22:15, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

didn't work for me the first time, BUT, after visiting realclimate, and searching for Vezier, I found the article, and the link worked, and now it works from wikipedia too. --naught101 22:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It works for me now too. Thanx to both of you for checking it out. I didn't want to assume it was a link gone bad.--Silverback 15:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Something's wrong, I can't get my comments posted on Realclimate Hans Erren 23:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Silverback wasting our time again

See where Silverback deletes "outside the scientific community" with the deceptive edit comment "not "especially"".

As to why he changed 4.5 into 5.5 despite the link IPCC ref saying 4.5 not 5.5, who knows? Just the spirit of malice? William M. Connolley 22:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC).

Perhaps you should assume good faith rather than leaping to the ad hominem attack. The explanation is a simple search for truth, and a proper level of scientific skepticism. I thought the 4.5 was a typo of this figure from the Shaviv and Veizer paper: "These results differ somewhat from the predictions of the general circulation models (GCMs) (IPCC, 2001), which typically imply a CO2 doubling effect of ~1.5–5.5 °C global warming, but they are consistent with alternative lower estimates of 0.6–1.6 °C(Lindzen, 1997)." Perhaps Shaviv and Veizer made a mistake, but I see no reason to impune their motives or mine. As to the subjective hyperbole about this being especially controversial OUTSIDE the scientific community, you know that was an inappropriate emotional snipe, implying that those that are a little more skeptical are somehow unscientific. It isn't consistent with our encyclopedic goal. As to the 4.5 vs 5.5 figure, I think we do have some problems here making sure we are comparing the right figures, and I am willing to work with you collegially to find the right answer.--Silverback 15:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

If you want people to assume good faith, stop making edits with deceptive comments to stuff that was heavily argued over and come to a long-term consensus on. Coming here and acting all innocent won't get you anywhere. Except reverted, of course. William M. Connolley 15:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC).

Of course! And assuming good faith, since you have given no reason and provided no citations, I assume you have reverted on the merits.--Silverback 15:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

"rv. Nothing "especially" controversial, of course"

It is just as controversial inside the scientific community, given the resignations from committees and significant questions raised by some scientitists, so there is no reason to imply that the controversy is mainly or especially outsite the scientific community, there is "especially" no reason to imply this in an encyclopedia. Do you have any specific criticism of the version that I proposed to replace this that you reverted?--Silverback 17:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Nope. GW isn't controversial in the sci community. See Oreskes, for example. Of course, since you believe that Singer is a member in good standing of that community, we're actually talking about different things... William M. Connolley 17:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC).

"its becoming rather obvious why you got arbcommed", it isn't a mystery WMC, I got accused of personal attacks on 172, attacks which I was able to justify BTW, and the attacks were not ad hominem arguments instead of the merits on content, in fact they were unrelated to content but inspired by his abuses of the system such as you also experienced when he came to the aid of Sterling Newberry on this article. Frankly, I probably did hound him a bit much about those abuses and attemtps to game the system. Your ad hominem attacks, deletion of legitimate cited material, and insistence on hyperbolic and POV language and appeals to consensus rather than evidence are distinctly unscientific, not to mention in violation of wikipedia rules. But I still attempt to judge your posts on the merits. I recommend that you start "acting" as you have accused me of. Use reason to analyze your posts (and inflammatory edit summaries) for ad hominem content and then filter that out. We will all know based on past experience that you will be merely acting "scientific". I recommend using the "method", actually try to feel scientific, then with time, you may change, become the role you are trying to play. It will increase your credibility, not that personal credibility should matter, let's stick to the science.--Silverback 20:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Sticking to the science is a good idea. Its why I removed Singer. William M. Connolley 20:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC).

I am not an expert in this topic, but I do read the serious scientific literature, e.g., Science and Nature, and William M. Connolley statement, " GW isn't controversial in the sci community", is consistent with my reading of that literature. Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I read those too. With the corrected satallite data, GW is not controversial, but the level of attribution to human vis'a'vis nature and the reliability of the predicitions and extent of the effects are controversial within the scientific community. The 1.5 to 5.5 (or is it 4.5?) range discussed above is itself evidence of controversy. Look at the article, it is about more than GW, it is about attribution of GW. WMC's fear of contrary peer reviewed information it also evidence of controversy. Scientists have commented on the pressure to conform to the consensus and the difficulty gettting contrary research published in Nature or Science is evidence of controversy. Ad hominem attacks that don't stick to the merits are evidence of controversy. Etc. --Silverback 20:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Controversy section

Apologies to SS for near-edit-clash. So... I cut the Lancet out, because its odd to have it make its first appearence here. Sci.op seems more natural. I haven't read the Lancet article, though. William M. Connolley 22:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC).

No problem. I found it a bit weird, too, but decided to at least fix it while wiser people decide what to do ;-). I only saw the Reuters article as archived on Common Dreams, not the original article. BTW, given German history, "SS" is not really popular here (except in some very stupid circles). I don't really mind, but I go by StS if I have to use initials myself. --Stephan Schulz 22:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes, perhaps I'm not wiser after all :-). StS or full names it is! William M. Connolley 22:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC).

I can't find the Lancet article. I checked the TOC for issues on either side of the Feb 9 date, and did an author search for McMichael for the past 12 months. Is there a specific cite for the article? Do we know if McMichael was one of the authors? Perhaps I missed a non-obvious article title. I can access the full text with a proper cite, if it really is in Lancet.--Silverback 12:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68079-3 - A cursory skimming of the paper suggests that their opinions are being overstated in our article, but that they do make statements in the direction of existing climate change having already had averse health effects. Dragons flight 12:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanx. Unfortunately it has only been published online so far. I can't access the full text yet.--Silverback 12:58, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Aerosol cooling

OK, in an attempt to head off an edit war :-) I'll talk... StS's point about can-can is well taken, but I dislike the tone of:

Note that anthropogenic emissions of other pollutants - notably sulphate aerosol - can exert a cooling effect; this is one possible explanation for the plateau/cooling seen in the temperature record in the middle of the 20th century .

The objectional bit is ...one possible explanation...; it pretty well *is* the std expl (well, along with a bit of natural variation)... though I suppose the skeptics might find another. So I removed the first "can" - aerosols *do* exert cooling (does anyone doubt that? ).

William M. Connolley 13:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, what's wrong with a nice little edit war? ;-)

I actually considered putting it as "...this is one proposed explanation...", but was to lazy to dig out a source to support that version. --Stephan Schulz 15:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Slightly more seriously, this is a question that keeps getting asked here and elseshere, e.g. . It should get a more detailed answer. William M. Connolley 17:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC).

Good Article?

In light of the peer review, and the FA plot, I've listed this as a Misplaced Pages:Good articles. Technically this is against the rules, as I've contributed a lot; but its a guideline not a rule so... anyway. My rationale is (a) it *is* good (based partly on the fairly mild crit from its PR, but mostly on what I know of it) (b) there is a fair chance of it not getting through FA for one reason or another. Comments welcome. William M. Connolley 23:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC).

Oh, and to add: the GA criteria are:

• be well written
• be factually accurate
• use a neutral point of view
• be stable
• be referenced, and
• wherever possible, contain images to illustrate it. The images should all be appropriately tagged.

This article is definitely referenced; contains images (not many pics, but many excellent graphs); is stable; is factually accurate. I would also argue that its NPOV, though some may disagree. Is it well written? Maybe. William M. Connolley 23:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC).

And... its better than Post-glacial rebound which is also a GA :-) William M. Connolley 23:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's a GA. I don't think it can make it as a featured article while it still has that "citation needed" bit. Also, while it's generally well-written, there are some clumsy sentences: "Uncertainties in the representation of clouds are a dominant source of uncertainty in existing models, despite clear progress in modeling of clouds".

This article has piqued my interest; I'll be looking over it to see if there's anything I can do. I know next to nothing about global warming, but I'm pretty good at stylistic touch-ups. :) --Ashenai 23:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that the article is factually accurate and is definately biased towards a left-wing environmentalist propaganda point of view.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.178.90.8 (talk • contribs)

Please be more specific. Give examples of factually inaccuracies and provide evidence,please indicate which sections are not NPOV. And please rememeber to sign your comments.--NHSavage 06:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Citation format

IMO, footnotes are cleaner, and some of the text cites print sources anyway (ie. that "Veizer et al. 2000, Nature 408, pp. 698-701" citation), which is a bit ugly right in the middle of an article. Reason given well, this is an article, not a scientific journal — we do want to maintain a standard but articles are expected to be easy to be read by the laypeople, so I think we should maintain a degree of prose. Footnotes are a good way to integrate both print sources and online sources cleanly, so I think we should be prepared to convert them sooner or later — this is just to tidy it up before we do FAC, we have to copyedit the other stuff first as a priority. Thoughts? Elle _{vécut heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 16:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... footnotes are cleaner: gag. What does cleaner mean? I want an inline link to link directly to the source document (my habit is to right click to open in a background page while reading on). Unless footnotes have been fixed to avoid the absurd bounce to a footnotes section to find the link, I would strongly oppose footnotes. The article can be clean and yet preserve true inline links (with of course a reference section below. This is an internet document, not paper, and quick and easy linkability is of prime importance. I would oppose FA if footnotes are a requirement - wasn't aware it was a requirement. Vsmith 00:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

As in, it's more...aesthetic, and something such as "pg. 71, etc." doesn't interrupt the flow of the article (it is prose, after all)...I do use firefox tabs, but then I would just click on the citation, open the link in a new tab (it is numbered) then click back up again (IMO, this is more convenient)....we have to integrate it, at least — having inline links and print source references that link into the print sources section is not very integrated, IMO. Elle _{vécut heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 15:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's two too many clicks, unacceptable for a web document. This is not paper. Also my preference is for Harvard style reference links, both for paper and web refs, with the refs all arranged alphabetically in the ref section (web & paper together). Numbered links are meaningless - Harvard links carry meaning. Vsmith 02:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

My personal aesthetic preference is for inline links to web based materials and Harvard style reference (e.g. "Schuster et al. 1990") for references to print materials. Dragons flight 16:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It will come as no geat surprise to those who have been following various events that I rather prefer inline links. William M. Connolley 16:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

On a more general note (and I've tried to discuss this elsewhere, with no sucess) my belief is that cite.php is almost capable of doing inline/footnote at the press of a config option. I envisage an ideal situation (in half a year or so...) when the refs will be put in with cite, and at the top of the page there will be a wiki-format-string:ref-style=inline option; but that if ref-style=footnote is set in the users preferences they will see that instead. Then we will all be hap-hap-happy :-) William M. Connolley 16:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

While we're dreaming, it would be nice if there were two buttons for references with external links. One which takes you to the footnote, listing the source, when it was accessed etc, and another small button taking the reader directly to an external page. Of course, this risks slippery slope of increasing the amount of clutter, markup and crap you can accidentally click on, but I think it would be useful and preserve the best aspects of both systems. –Joke 22:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice idea. William M. Connolley 23:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice dream - and might as well make 'em invisible in a printout for the paper lovers :-) Vsmith 02:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Missing the point

I'm not a scientist, but I think this article entirely misses the point about the GW issue. These "extra" CO2 emissions will hang around in the atmosphere (causing havoc) for decades or even centuries. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tommorow and stopped slashing down the rain forest, CO2 emmissions would be decades away from returning to normal - if ever. This point is lost in most mediad discussions of this issue. Misplaced Pages should do better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.36.244.4 (talk • contribs) .

Uh...actually the article does address the point. The article is not even advocating or focusing on solutions, it's in fact focusing on whether or not it is happening. It does discuss mitigation of global warming as a separate section, but it doesn't dominate the article. Elle _{vécut heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 22:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Do we explicitly address expected lifetime of CO2? There is a decent RC post on this by David Archer but I'm too p*ss*d right now to find it :-))) William M. Connolley 00:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Is that in the Australian sense (usually involving beer) or the continental version ("off")? Or is the a BE meaning that eludes me? --Stephan Schulz 17:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh no more language issues. In the UK, its the same as "wazzed" or "newted" :-) William M. Connolley 19:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Ummm, okay. So you just explained an ambiguous word by comparing it to two totally mysterious words. Is there a translator in the house? Dragons flight 19:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of "wazzed" or "newted" before either, but according to this web page, they're both slang for "drunk." --Sheldon Rampton 19:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Trolleyed more like.--NHSavage 19:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

To be serious now, I don't think this article does address the lifetime of CO2 or the thermal lag associated with deep ocean warming. However, perhaps this whole discussion of timescales in the system requires an article to itself. It needs some careful thought about how to include it here.--NHSavage 20:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

*Burp* - oops. OK, I added Note that although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming would be expected to continue past then, since CO2 has a long atmospheric lifetime. to partially address this point. A proper discussion of CO2 lifetimes probably belongs under greenhouse gas though (?). William M. Connolley 21:26, 23 February 2006 (UTC).

Clathrate gun section

I took out this whole section, since much of it appears to be lifted direct from Nature. Fortunately someone else has ripped it off http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateConcern/message/9624 so you can check... :-) William M. Connolley 21:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

bias

A non peer reviewed blog reference replaced my peer reviewed IPCC tar reference. Hans Erren 11:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Could you be a bit vaguer, please? William M. Connolley 11:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think he is talking about the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. Hans, your quote was somewhat out of context. The Archer article that William linked to goes into much more detail. It is not in itself peer-reviewed. However, it it written by an expert and cites peer reviewed papers, including at least 5 by the author (I did not check the "et al"s), at least two of which are very recent. If you read the RealClimate article, you can see why no single lifetime can be given. A lot of the CO2 is absorbed by "fast" processes ("fast" meaning years to centuries, with an average of centuries), but about one quarter is only absorbed via slow geological processes, i.e. over very long periods of time. On the time scale we are talking about, "CO2 has a long atmospheric lifetime" is true for either process, although the long tail often seems to be ignored. --Stephan Schulz 20:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Move of two external links to talk page

These links bring up valid issues, but I don't think they belong on the global warming page itself, so I've moved them to this talk page for now.

• Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him - New York Times article on efforts by the Bush administration to muzzle Dr. James Hansen
• Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change

Evolauxia 06:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Consensus

Could someone reference "The scientific consensus on global warming is that the Earth is warming, and that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are making a significant contribution."? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Calion (talk • contribs) ..

See the next few sentences. Sources are the IPCC TAR, as well as various declaration by the national academies of science. There are more detailed sources on Scientific opinion on climate change.--Stephan Schulz 21:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Some breaking news here. Count Iblis 13:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this is the AR4 draft, which has "do not cite or quote" written all over it. And in fact it isn't even that, just the Beeb reporting on it. William M. Connolley 16:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formerly said greenhouse gases were "probably" to blame." Can anyone get access to the report and give summary to it's finding? FWBOarticle

The IPCC TAR is online William M. Connolley 18:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC).

I believe this talk page ought to be archivied. Not only I fail to spot this section in the begining, it took a while for me to find where you transfered my edit. FWBOarticle

What's wrong with utterly NPOV?

I prefer "utter" NPOV to shameless kowtowing to the industry-funded apologism claiming lack of certainty any day of the week, and this article is self-contradictory if it says any less. --James S. 23:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Should have said POV. Please remeber WP:NPOV which certainly fails: The relationship between global warming and hurricanes is still being debated by hold-outs in major governments and industries who have paid people to argue against the scientific evidence.. Its also simply factually wrong, as the WMO report pdf I added demonstrates. You've also added your pet "global average wind speeds" which has no justification that I know of, and none that you;ve been able to find. Etc. William M. Connolley 23:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC).

The statement about governments and industry paying people to argue against consensus was properly sourced , even if I did misread the wind speed calibration as covering different time periods (and I'm still not sure it doesn't.) --James S. 02:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You didn't misread the wind speed study because you didn't even read it. You just stuffed in the first google hit for global wind speed increase without thinking that those terms can be combined in different ways. You have used yet another misleading edit summary - you have simply re-inserted your assertion that global wind speeds have increased, without any pretence of supporting evidence. Its clear that you have logially deduced from first principles (shared by no-one else) that global wind speeds *must* have increased and are intent on inserting this piece of original research. Please give up, until you can find something that is actually to the point (which I very much doubt you will find, because I don't believe that the effect exists). And all the rest is poor too. William M. Connolley 10:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I admit I misread part of the study. However, as you infer, I am not done looking. And yes, when temperature and evaporation increases, then it is clear to me from first principles that wind speed and rainfall will increase too. You have no evidence that it doesn't, because there can be no such evidence. --James S. 19:37, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You're still making things up. Why is it clear to you from first principles that wind speed must increase? Its not clear to anyone else. If its so clear, why is it not in any met papers or textbooks or... anywhere? Why can't you admit that the paper you found is irrelevant? If it isn't irrelevant, please quote a relevant part of it that supports your contention. And why are you so certain of your answer, when as you now freely admit, you're still looking for papers to prop it up with? William M. Connolley 20:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Temperature is related to gas volume. Greater atmospheric forcing means greater day/night temperature gradients, meaning more thermal expansion and contraction, meaning more wind. What exactly is made up about that? All that remains is emperical confirmation, and I am still not convinced that it doesn't already exist in the cited report or one of its references (or their citators.) I see no need to temper my statements in deference to the admittedly economically conflicted arguments against the consistent truth of the remainder of the articles. I am sad that some feel so strongly about the value of their kowtowing to industry and conflicted government interest that they are reduced to spewing forth falsehoods and absurd rhetorical questions. --James S. 20:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You really are making this all up, aren't you? The diurnal temperature range is *decreasing* not increasing . I love your All that remains is emperical confirmation... - yes, you've made up you mind in total absence of any facts, but now you're going to try to find some. Sigh. William M. Connolley 20:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know who BSbuster is (not me), but I thank him or her for their comments which are reproduced below. --James S. 20:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Connolley represents as a standard what he knows (AFAIK), misconstrues N's arguments and then launches a personal attack ("he doesn't understand"). N wrote nothing about winds in general. N refers to a widely discussed effect of radiative warming on Wind produced from differences in barometric pressure. A 2005 National Research Council report concluded regional variations in radiative forcing may have important regional and global climate implications that are not resolved by the concept of global mean radiative forcing. and Regional diabatic heating can cause atmospheric teleconnections that influence regional climate thousands of kilometers away from the point of forcing. If there is any debate, it is over the degree of wind increased caused by radiative forcing. Connolley perhaps should be the subject of a RFA instead, debating in bad faith by launching personal attacks against writers who cite literature instead of debating the content of the cited literature, then mischaracterizing the debate he refused to participate in. Connolley's sustained involvement in edit wars, RFAs and unresolved conflicts warrants investigation. BSbuster 02:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

BSb is patently a sock; most likely of you, though who knows: see her contribs: BSb's contribs. And of course her comments above are all beside the point; and don't support your nonsense about global average windspeed at all. William M. Connolley 09:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a couple of questions

Pardon me but as a mere casual observer I am wondering if this whole discussion of global warning is overlooking at least a few fundamentals.

The Misplaced Pages article on the earth's atmosphere points out that the percentage of Cabon Doxide in air is .035% (365 ppmv). How can changes in such a minute component cause any great effect (temperature or otherwise)on something so large and complex as the earth's atmosphere?

You might just as well ask, how can the trace amounts of CO2 be of any importance to plants? Yet they are. The answer is that trace quantities can easily be important, since (as the greenhouse gas article points out, N2 and O2 are radiatively inactive in the IR). William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Just let me add one thing: The fact that the 0.035% of CO2 in the atmosphere does have a profound effect on the climate is not disputed by any reasonably informed person. It is recognized by all scientist I've ever heard on the topic, including the usual sceptics like Singer et al. To put things into perspective: A resonable knife has a volume of (generously) 30 cubic centimeters. Yet sticking it into the 100000 cubic centimeters of a somewhat bulky person like me can have a very profound effect on that person. Or, more fittingly, consider the relationship between an inflated balloon and its skin.

And while the relative amount of CO2 is small, the absolute amount is significant - it amounts to roughly 0.5kg per square meter (unless I miscalculated). Do you agree that wrapping all of earth into a heavy-duty garden foil would influence the climate?--Stephan Schulz 22:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that CO2 is forming a heat shield around the earth like a skin (or garbage bag balloon). If so I observe that at .035 percent of the atmosphere CO2 seems to be a super molecule – everywhere at once. On the one hand it is down at the level of the grasses and flowers to allow them to do what they do. On the other hand it is also a layer above the tallest trees and mountain ranges (above the perforating “knifes” or pin points) dense enough to shield heat (warmer lessor molecules) in. Is the solution to global warming simply to puncture this shield with some kind of multiple pin points to let the heat out? By the way, isn’t adding plants to the discussion changing the subject? Plants do what they do at the current levels of CO2. The theory of global warming assumes rising CO2 levels which would seem to benefit plants wouldn’t it? Check with your reasonably informed people. The heat shield idea seems full of holes to me.

Just a couple of points. First, it's not a solid "heat shield"; every C02 molecule in the atmosphere does its part by reflecting a little bit more heat back down to the earth. Second, the C02 is pretty uniformly distributed through the atmosphere, so yes, it is everywhere at once. That is, anywhere you take a sample of air, it will be 0.037 percent or so CO2, no matter where you take your sample. It's not a single "layer" -- it's just the atmosphere. Take a look at Greenhouse effect. And please sign your posts with "~~~~". Thanks. bikeable (talk) 06:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

(Reply to unsigned). I didn't actually say that CO2 is "forming a heat shield like a skin". Your original argument was (paraphrased) that "0.035% is so little, how can it have a significant influence!". I just pointed out that 0.035% is not that small, and that there are a lot of situations where something that small can have an extraordinary effect on the larger (100%) system. Similar with William: He pointed out that the "small" amount of 0.035% CO2 is all that keeps plants alive - again, a relatively small amount can have profound influence on a large system. I also pointed out that the absolute amount of CO2 is quite high, and that, as such, it is not that surprising that it influences our climate. As Bikeable described, CO2 helps to retain heat because it absorbs infrared radiation emitted by the surface (towards space), but reemits it omnidirectionally. Hence it reduces the amount of radiation that escapes into space. For this effect, what is relevant is the average number of CO2 molecules encountered by a photon traveling from the surface to beyond the atmosphere. It is (to a first approximation) irrelveant where it encounters them.

About the plants: First, CO2 levels are rising - that is not a theory, its an observable fact. The (well supported) theory is that this will lead to an increase in the average temperature via an increased greenhouse effect. We are now also observing this (although it is harder to measure than CO2 content in a well-mixed atmosphere). For plant productivity, check the section on "positive effects" in the main article. In some areas, plant growth is limited by CO2 availability. These areas may experience an increase in bioproductivity. However, this can still lead to a decrease in biodiversity, as established long-lived species are being displaced by more mobile and adaptive species. Wether this is good or bad for the ecosystem in the long term is debatable. It is almost certainly bad for us humans in the short and medium term, because we are adapted (both biologically and economically) to the current situation.--Stephan Schulz 22:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages timeline on thermometers says that Galileo built the first one in 1592. A search on "age of the earth" yeilds an estimated age of 4.55 billion years. Assuming the best case that humans could have perfect temperature data on all parts of the atmosphere since the thermometer's invention, how could the short 414 year histroy of temperature data predict the future temperature trends of something 4.55 billion years old with its highly variable history from unknown causes?

Predictions of future temperature don't much depend on the past history. But check out temperature record for how the past record is constructed William M. Connolley 19:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

But all climate change models are based on historical data, obviously they can’t be based on future data. Also, one can’t study warm periods of the earth’s climate by looking at the glacial record. Relevant glaciers would have melted away.

If I need to create an account and log in to start this dicussion let me know.

No need, but it would make it more convenient to both you and us.--Stephan Schulz 22:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you,

per_1062@earthlink.net

Perhaps missing from the above answers is also some perspective on whether the effect of the CO2 is a "great" effect. There are perspectives in which it is a small effect. Looking at the measured warming in terms of degrees Kelvin, i.e., relative to absolute zero, the effect is small. Why is the possible impact on human lives so "great" then? Human's live very close to the freezing point of water, in the narrow range where water is liquid at atmospheric pressures. Close to the freezing point of water, small changes in absolute temperature can have relatively large changes in the vapor pressure of water, and because of this, phase changes in water play a large part in the energy transport on the surface of our planet and are very sensitive to temperature increases, especially in the oceans. So a minisule percentage increase in the absolute temperature can represent a several percent movement between the freezing and boiling points of water at atmospheric pressure. Even the small absolute changes in temperature between summer and winter, have huge effects on energy transport in the atmosphere, for instance hurricanes practically disappear in the winter. So it is more than just temperature differences between the tropics and the poles which drive these phenomena, they become far more likely when the water temperature distances just a few more degrees from the freezing point.--Silverback 08:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Very nice. Is this (should this be) in an article somewhere? And does this section suggest we should have another go at a simplified version of "GW for Beginners"? (I remember WMC started something like that, what happened to it?) Rd232 08:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of "GW for beginners", addressing commonly misunderstood points like the "heat shield" idea above. bikeable (talk) 21:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Simplified version?

I started Global warming/Global warming (simplified) at one point but it didn't get far :-(

William M. Connolley 22:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

External links

Can someone please clean up the "External links" section? It's well on its way to becoming a WP:SPAMHOLE. Melchoir 12:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I took 2 out, but it needs more work. People just kee adding them... William M. Connolley 12:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I was bold, I guess, and removed around half of the links. I'm already prepared to get reverted, but it looks a lot better now. This was not a link list, it was a jungle with no one being able to navigate through. Now it's more like a steppe, or let's say grasslands to stay in this metaphorical language ;) Hardern 12:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

volcanic emmisions of methane

Here is a source , although it is generally known that methane is emitted by volcanoes. The climatic effects of the sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide are probably greater. This study finds that much of the methane release from resting volcanoes is probably from the interaction of hydrothermal systems with sedimentary rocks, but Mt. Baker for instance, based on isotopic analyses has a higher magmatic CH4 component.--Silverback 14:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

According to that study, geologic sources are 8.5%, but thats total geologic sources:

Major GEMs are related to hydrocarbon production in sedimentary basins (biogenic and thermogenic methane), through continuous exhalation and eruptions from more than 1200 onshore and offshore mud volcanoes (MVs), through diffuse soil microseepage, and shallow marine seeps; secondarily, methane is released from geothermal and volcano-magmatic systems.

which makes volcanoes one part of the "secondary" part, so why pick them out? If you meant MV's, thats not what most people are going to think of when they hear "volcano". William M. Connolley 16:13, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't pick it out, methane was being discussed. The existing language gave the impression that all sources were biological or anthopogenic. Vulcanoes are an example that isn't, although upon researching it, the contribution was poorly understood because it is a difficult environment in which to measure it. It is definitely a smaller contribution than I had been thinking. The MVs and hydrothermal plumes are more important.--Silverback 18:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

please assist in ending one of my arbcom sanctions

In a case back in Nov, the arbcom imposed a limit of 1RR per 7 days per article that had an indefinite time span, one that WMC noted was unusually severe. I have petitioned the arbcom to now revisit and remove this component of my sanctions. Arbcom member User:Raul654 seems to think that my editing here on Global warming somehow weighs against removal of the sanction. The link to my petition is here and that has links to the earlier decision. I would appreciate the honest feedback of WMC, Schulz and other colleagues I have exchanged ideas and arguments with to aid in informing the arbcom's decision in this matter. I assume that feedback either here or at the petition above will be able to be referenced by the arbcom. Thank you for your consideration.--Silverback 03:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been brooding over this for some time. I have not followed your ArbCom case closely, so I don't know the exact reasoning of the committee. I mostly know you from the GW related articles. From what I see, I deduce that you come with a reasonably strong POV. You only insert material that supports that POV. While doing that, you often bring valuable sources, but more often than not, you misinterprete them. Since you are usually bold in editing, it always takes quite some effort to convince you about that and to move the article back to a neutral point of view. The article often become better as a result, but it takes a lot more effort than necessary. I think a more cooperative editing style would help a lot (e.g. proposing things on talk, which you now sometimes do - thanks!). Your also prone to subtle edits that individually are hard to object to, but in the sum shift the impression of the article towards a septic (to borrow the term from WMC) POV. Your edit summaries on those are not always helpful. On the other hand, you are often reasonable (in that one can reason with you), you do help revert plain vandalism, and you are much better than most other duped lackeys of the oil industry POV editors we get. I find a 1RR/article/week not really unreasonable. On the third hand, keeping track of things over such a long period is rather burdensome for an active editor, and I don't think that plain reverting is a major problem of you, at least on the GW pages. So I'd be fine with reducing it to say 1RR/article/day or something like that. I would also encourage you to step back and try to see beyond your POV. Even strongly held convictions are not guaranteed to be correct. You obviously have the capacity to understand complex issues. It just seems that sometimes you are to lazy to think on once you have found one interpretation that fits your POV. I'm all for lazyness, but not in thinking ;-). --Stephan Schulz 10:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I was the first to bring the new climate commitment results, and the new satellite results to attention of the community here. Those were not necessarily supportive of the skeptical POV. Although I think it is still pretty clear that the TAR modeling predictions could be parameterizing their models so that climate commitment from earlier forcings get attributed to GHGs and thus modeling the climate with a higher response to GHG increases than is justified. I think it is natural for memory to be selective for the more contentious issues. A lot of the language qualifying of the "consensus" position and a lot of the information on alternative explanations in the article are due to my efforts, and should not be controversial, ard are actually in the text of the TAR (if not in the summary statements). In working with with wMC, his knee jerk reaction is to revert. Most of what I have gotten into the article is by after his revert, defending my addition here, and then reverting back perhaps with some modified language. Because I could revert back, WMC had to be more reasonable, and often qualified the language to death, and I qualified his language. Frankly, even though my original statements were usually supported by peer reviewed literature, I was usually satisfied that the final language would be enough to let the critical thinker know there was other evidence and an alternative interpretation that couldn't be ruled out. Now that I am crippled by the sanction WMCs reverts just stand, and he just assumes that he has won the discussion. When he was under sanctions, I only used more than 1RR against him only once, because I don't believe in winning arguments that way. In retrospect, I now realize that he was perhaps more crippled by the 1RR per day than I had thought, because I thought the rule only applied to reverting the same material. I know that is how I interpreted it. That must have been frustrating for him.

I think the net result of my contributions on this article has been that the case for the Global warming proponents appears stronger, because the article is more balanced. I know I'm always suspicious of one side expositions that don't give due credit and respect to other POVs, and don't acknowledge areas where the evidence is weak or the understanding is poor. I think the article is suffering because some of the double standards being applied by the community here. The rejection of peer reviewed research because it is "too new" standard is completely arbitrary, and disrepects the peer review process with its review of the prior literature. Of course, part of the reason there is a double standard is because it is not applied by those that advocate it to POVs they agree with, and because I don't agree with it, I don't try to force consistent application. I have tried not to use tactics I disagree with to avoid hypocrisy and because I am interested in the science. I prefer discussion of the merits but am reconsidering that position because it puts me at a disadvantage in editing game. --Silverback 16:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the article is necessarily more balanced. It is more detailed, which may or may not be good (sometimes this hampers the flow that it becomes hard for a non-specialist to follow). As for your position of "mutually assured revert" or whatever I should call it, I very much disagree. If WMC reverts you (and he does have an itchy finger for that - somewhat understandable, given the amount of vandalism and plain nonsense we get on this article), just start discussing on talk. It's not as if William is the only one who has these articles on his watchlist. --Stephan Schulz 16:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with Sb, and have said so on the arbcomm page. Just look at the t:Solar variation if you want to know why. Sb just doesn't get it. He consistently misinterpreted the commitment stuff (and does so above), and I haven't a clue what he means by the satellite stuff. Sb's stuff above is just revisionist. William M. Connolley 17:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Solar variation is a good example. Look at this diff where he completely removed S+V with this as one of the intermediate edit summaries "s+v: rm the lot: see talk". The strong cosmic ray correlation was discussed in the IPCC TAR and has been advanced in the peer reviewed literature since then, both in terms of extending it to shorter time scales and in terms of a plausible mechanism for this indirect effect through low level clouds. WMC has removed the lot because HE considers it marginal although peer reviewers and editors of peer reviewed journals considered it signficant enough to publish. WMC believes I have misinterpreted the climate commitment stuff, but he does know that I have. There is no evidence that the model based predictions of the TAR attribute any of the predicted future warming to unrealized commitment from the past warming. Only one Climate commitment paper was cited in the TAR, and the important work was all done since then, (including later in the year of the TAR) and this has been pointed out on this talk page (see archives). As to the satellite data, I was the first to bring news of the revision to this page, also see the archives.--Silverback 13:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Correction Looking back, my post of the revision of the Christy satellite results must not have been to this page. I know that at the time someone reported it here, I had already read the peer reviewed papers and posted it on wikipedia somewhere. However, I think it must have been on one of the now deleted pages that get purged from our contribution logs.--Silverback 13:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be going round in the familiar circles. Sb is back to the tired old skeptic "it appeared in the PR literature, therefore it *must* appear in the article", which is wrong. Sb wrote the S+V stuff up in SV based on Singer, and so unsurprisingly it was wrong. One day Sb will learn to let go of Singer, and be happier for it.

But anyway, I think its time for other peoples opinions, if they care to voice them William M. Connolley 16:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

gci.uk.org was recently cited as a source

gci.uk.org was recently cited as a source. The source is apparently an "essay" without references or authors. These seems even less authoritative and peer reviewed than the articles from the Journal's Nature and Science that I often cite. This gci essay may also be subject to the oft cited "too recent" objection, since it is not even dated.--Silverback 13:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The fact it is being used to support is in the right ballpark, but you are right, we should get a more reliable value and provide a better source. Dragons flight 08:04, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Reason for not mentioning sunspot data in solar section?

Is there a reason it was omitted? Sunspot frequency figures are the standard reason people believe solar forcings are underestimated.Mrdthree 07:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, solar forcing is important and exactly how important is a subject of dispute, but given that solar activity has been basically flat for the last 50 years, it is rather difficult to attribute much of the recent global warming to it. Or to put it the way your own reference does:

Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot number may be taken as an indication that the Sun has contributed to the unusual degree of climate change during the twentieth century, we stress that solar variability is unlikely to be the prime cause of the strong warming during the last three decades. In ref. 3, reconstructions of solar total and spectral irradiance as well as of cosmic ray flux were compared with surface temperature records covering approximately 150 years. It was shown that even under the extreme assumption that the Sun was responsible for all the global warming prior to 1970, at the most 30% of the strong warming since then can be of solar origin.

So what are you trying to say? Dragons flight 07:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I want to say that the solar data is not as dissimilar as teh temperature data as one would be led to believe looking at the periodic functions displayed in the article. I want someone to look at the susnpot figure and the termperature figure and ask why. My motive is as I said I think solar forcings are currently being underestimated. If you are interested in my particular beliefs about global warming contact me.Mrdthree 08:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Alright then, but I think the article is not the right place to put in unproved theories that are not even supported by your own source. This discussion site is, though. So I'm putting your sentence that I recently deleted from the article in here:

While estimates of solar inputs appear unsupportive of a solar cause for global warming, many  
scientists have observed that changes in sunspot density and distribution, an event associated with 
solar emissions, has increased in a fashion that parallels 20th century termperature changes 

So let's go through this: First, you claim "many scientists have obersved" a thing. In fact, this is one paper, written by five people. If I'd quote it, I would be writing "Solanki et al.", finished. Second, you seem to have not be noticing the discussion arising from the article you quoted, see here. There it's stated that there is no unusually high activity of the sun itself going on these years, compared to the last 8,000 years. Third, your comment lacks a theory why sunspots should be causing global warming, while you already sorted out "a solar cause for global warming". This looks more like the famous story of storks and children then: Both of them are more often appearing, so there must be some sort of connection. Fourth, your linked graph shows the observed and modeled number of sunspots - but no temperature graph from proxy records is being compared to this. So this is again a very vague and highly assumptive (and in my opinion wrong) use of data in this case. Hardern 08:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Solanki, et all, still stand by their original reconstruction, see , where references also point to data confirming their original conclusions.--Silverback 09:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not offering a theory. I am offering data. As I sid before I thnk that the forcing due to solar inputs is underestimated. Sunspots are associated with solar flares and heightened solar emission. Sunspot counts are associated with climate changes Sunspot variability plays a role in determining solar activity and inputs in computer models. In the article is a temperature figure on the same timescale as the figure I linked to This can be directly compared.with here I am not an expert on climates but I am a scientist who does computer simulations and would be happy to share theories with you privately Mrdthree 10:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I read that you said "the forcing due to solar inputs is underestimated", yet you fail to provide a source, a reason or a theory to support that claim. All I can find is a single graph, indicating the number of sunspots has been rising. There is neither a comparison between sunspot numbers and global average surface temperature (despite your hint I should put them both together and see (what?) for myself), nor is there any statement in the linked article to support your claim, as Dragon's Flight already pointed out. So you quoted a source and said it would prove something not even the authors think is true!

Now I am indeed well aware that solar activity does play an important role in Earth's climate variations, yet data indicates that it is not causing present global warming, and I could again quote your own source for this, or this article by Solanki and Krivova. It states:

This comparison shows without requiring any recourse to modeling that since roughly 1970 the solar influence on climate (through the channels considered here) cannot have been dominant. In particular, the Sun cannot have contributed more than 30% to the steep temperature increase that has taken place since then, irrespective of which of the three considered channels is the dominant one determining Sun-climate interactions: tropospheric heating caused by changes in total solar irradiance, stratospheric chemistry influenced by changes in the solar UV spectrum, or cloud coverage affected by the cosmic ray flux.

-- Hardern 11:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I too think we should not be quoting one Nature paper as absolute truth; the exact role of solar forcing is uncertain, though as pointed out above it can't explain the most recent warming. Solanki et al. would probably be at the extreme side of how-big-is-solar-forcing.

But anyway, since this is an aspect of solar variation, shouldn't it be thrashed out there first?

Also - I don't see a number for the solar-var / sunspot number correlation. Just saying "correlates" is near meaningless... could be zero. Anyone know? William M. Connolley 13:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

r=0.991 for variations in annual averages of sunspot numbers and top of atmosphere 10.7 cm flux (an easier to measure proxy for total solar irradiance) over the last 55 years. Dragons flight 17:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hardem-- thats good to know; but I think the periodic function for solar activity in the last twenty years gives a misimpression of the important role the sun plays. It presents too small a piece of the evidence, allowing the reader to be too easily persuaded the sun cannot account for a large share of the variance in temperature over the last 300 years. Connelly-- Here is my simple proposal for a correlation study: take sunspot data as input to a leaky Integrator ( simple dynamics assumptions) or a low pass filter ). Pick a time constant that captures the hockey stick ending with some of the fluctuations. Compare that with the temperature curve from the same time period (say 900 AD on). you think the temperature curve would not correlate with this sunspot derived function? I am pretty sure sunspots are used as inputs to make climate models (here). "Various studies have been made using sunspot number (for which records extend over hundreds of years) as a proxy for solar output (for which good records only extend for a few decades)." I can only imagine they do this because it correlates with global temperatures.Mrdthree 16:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

They do correlate, and this shouldn't be surprising. Since ice sheets and sea levels stabalized ~7000 years ago, we know that greenhouse gases were basically stable up till the industrial revolution. We also know that there won't be much orbital forcing over this period. So to first approximation, the best guess to explain any climate variability over the several thousand years before the industrial revolution is solar variation, since it is the known forcing factor most prone to changes prior to the industrial revolution. (Which is not to say that every climate change was solar, just that it is the first candidate one would usually look at.) However, since solar activity has been basically neutral since 1950, it is not a good candidate to explain the most recent changes. You might appreciate a look at this figure: Image:Climate Change Attribution.png. Dragons flight 17:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I take it with a grain of salt. I do think almost all the major factors have been identified (except magnetosphere changes-- is it noise or a patterned signal?). But assigning parameters to them takes alot of measurement and decorrelation, which is hard to do without controlled experiments. It makes me want to see results before I believe.71.192.98.234 18:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

From what I've read about this topic, the correlation seems to come about via cosmic rays. The more cosmic rays hit the earth's atmosphere the more cloud formation you get and you get less solar radiation at the Earth's surface. Cosmic rays are strongly affected by magnetic fields. If the magnetic field is stonger, less cosmic rays will hit the earth's atmosphere. Now during solar maxima the magnetic fields are stronger and thus you get less clouds and therefore you have higher temperatures. At least that is the theory.Count Iblis 16:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Given your guys discussion I think the proper sentence should be " While solar inputs are unlikely to be the primary cause of global warming in the last 20 years, sunspot activity suggests that solar activity played a strong role in the global warming in years and centuries prior to the last few decades." Mrdthree 17:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope, you're still overselling it. Your words are wrong, and you need a better source than one graph. "strong" is also near-meaningless, though its implications are too... strong William M. Connolley 22:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

This is what I ended up inserting at the beginning of the solar variations alternative theories:

In the years and centuries prior to the last few decades, solar activity, as measured by long term patterns in sunspot activity has been strongly correlated to measures of global temperature.

Mrdthree 01:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted this. You are over-using that figure. You are sourcing the assertion sunspot activity has been strongly correlated to measures of global temperature to that figure. Since that figure doesn't show temperature, you simply can't do it. Secondly, putting it first is wrong - probably the most important thing about the solar forcing, insofar as its known, is that its too weak. All the studies showing a *high* effect of solar forcing are non-physical: they are based on correlations.

And I don't know when Based on basic science, disappeared from the intro, but I've re-inserted it.

William M. Connolley 08:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Connelly, I dont understand your argument. Is it that you dont like me to using the term 'correlate' without an 'r' value? would you prefer 'a close fit' ? Do you disagree that a high correlation exists? Do you disagree that a close fit exists? Do you want the statement to be completely demonstrated by the foot note? If so would a compound figure of the temperature figure already in the paper and the sunspotgraphs together satisfy you? Do you disagree that recent global warming occurts on a background of higher sunspot activity at the centuries scale? Do you think that it would be adequate to link to the compound figure and say a 'close fit' exists betwen sunspot number and termperature? Do you disagree that sunspots are correlated to higher solar inputs? Do you disagree as to the accuracy of using sunspots as a historical measure of solar inputs?Mrdthree 20:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you agree with the statement:

"In the millenia prior to the last few decades, changes in reconstructed global temperature and solar activity as reconstructed by proxies such as sunspot number or related measures show a coarse fit. This has led many to suspect variation in solar inputs may be a primary source of global warming. Despite these long term trends, direct variations in solar output appear too small to have substantially affected the climate in the last 50 years; nonetheless......."

Mrdthree 21:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

"too small to have substantially affected the climate"??? The Stott result cited in the article attributes 16 to 36% to solar forcing. Is that "too small" or insubstantial?--Silverback 00:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"...Despite these long term trends, recent variations in solar output appear too small to account for the changes in global temperatures observed in the last 50 years; nonetheless......."Mrdthree 03:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the solar bit again. The graphs simply don't support the argument. Try against . Does that show a close correlation? Of which solar recon against which T recon? Those show solar increasing since 1400 ish. Thats not what *any* of the T graphs show. You seem to have a fixed idea of what you want to see, and are producing graphs to buttress your argument without actually looking at them very carefully. In any event, doing it this way is Original Research. You need to find decent sources for this, not do the work yourself, which is Forbidden. Oh, and I'm not opposed to a reasonable re-write of the too-small bit; but its better than the new version William M. Connolley 16:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Need more info

I believe this article needs more information on the effects of global warming, because there is a lot of it and very little of it is in the article. Infact, the beneficial effects is almost as big as the adverse effects on the page. This gives the impression that global warming is not very serious. —This unsigned comment was added by Frozen solid (talk • contribs) .

There is a link to the main article, Effects of global warming, which is 48k and has links to further details. This article is fairly large as it is. --Stephan Schulz 19:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Spam markers

Other and see also sections often link to major partisan sites. This is standard. I think you are misinterpreting policy here. JoshuaZ 05:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Non-science, misinformation external links

Are you sure? This isn't a partisan issue, but a scientific one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brothergrimm (talk • contribs) --Hardern 07:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Misplaced Pages does not take a scientific stand. See WP:NPOV. This is why for example, we discuss what the creationists arguments are also. (Generally when something is bizaarely pseudoscientific, it will be apparent from a reading of the wiki article, but the article itself must satisfy

Reverted edits by Butchnovak

I reverted the latest three edits by User:Butchnovak for the following reasons:

You wrote: " the production of both carbon dioxide from all oxygen breathing animals, and the production of oxygen from photosynthetic plants." Breathing of animals is, as far as I know, not a primary source of atmospheric CO2. In fact, animals do only emit CO2 that has been captured by plants before. So over all, they do not influence the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (except if they would destroy large forested areas, but I think on a global scale this is only done by humans). Anyway, I'm not so sure about the amount of animal biomass on Earth and its actual influences and would welcome any corrections in here. But to my knowledge, volcanoes and erosion do play a much bigger role. Biomass does play a role in seasonal variations of CO2 concentrations, though. As Carbon dioxide says, "On long timescales, atmospheric CO2 content is determined by the balance among geochemical processes including organic carbon burial in sediments, silicate rock weathering, and vulcanism."

You wrote: "For Billions of years, the Earth's natural greenhouse effect and movement has increased and lowered the mean temperature to a current temperature" It doesn't make sense to me that the greenhouse effect increased and thus the temperature lowered. How is this meant? What is meant by the "movement"?? And I think the long-scale climate history that you mention here, going into billion years is by far unknown (see here).

You wrote: "Current studies have not proven that the changes in average temperature over the last 100 years can be attributed to any single or collection of souces." What's the point in here mentioning that there is no proof in any single or collection of sources? You mean: There is no proof of global warming? Or that there is no proof of anthropogenic global warming? And what about the overwhelming set of clues for both? I know there is no "proof" in this - but as I recently read: There is no proof in a single case of lung cancer that is has been caused by smoking... and you might have a look at this.

You wrote: "This theory of an independant Earth cycle and human activity has however changed and it is now a world-wide debate." Sort of debate... over here in Europe, there is a debate going on about the extent of measures to undertake against global warming (and of course about scientific uncertainties). I'm not aware of any reasonable public statements that doubt global warming is happening. So the debate is not any longer about the "independent Earth cycle" and its rubbishness, but about humans and their short-sightedness.

You wrote: " However, per past studies a gradual change of .03 to .07 °C is more likely to be expected. Any rapid or extreme changes ofcourse can never be predicted." First, there is no source, second, I don't think this is true at all. And you added: " However past records of temperature and previous estimeates show only the normal change of .3 and .7 °C" Now this is just larger by a factor of 10. And what is the "normal change"?

(btw: If you edit an article, please use the "Show preview" button right next to the lovely "Save page" button at the bottom of the page ;) this helps keeping an article's history clean)

Please answer here before putting it back into the article, and I'm sorry if I have understood anything wrong. Please correct me if I did :) I do not mean to offend you in any way. Hardern 13:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Also see my remark at User talk:Butchnovak--Stephan Schulz 13:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Reason for adding "Controversial Topic" and "POV" headings

I added the "POV" heading to the main article and "controversial topic" heading to the discussion page because I believe that they're appropriate for this topic. The article as it exists now doesn't present a neutral point of view. On the contrary, it is slanted towards the point of view of proponents of the theory of human-induced global warming. Unfortunately, I believe that undermines the credibility of the entry. I've heard that anyone who tries to make the article more neutral has their edits reversed within minutes of placing them. As biased as the article is, I'm surprised that it received a "Good Article" rating. I thought that the point of Misplaced Pages was to "present the facts and let people make up their own mind on what is true?" It wouldn't take much to make this article neutral, all it needs is to qualify some of the absolute statements. If anyone wants to know which statements I believe present a non-neutral POV, I'll be more than willing to list them here. cla68, 28 Mar 06

Please do list them. Dragons flight 21:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The controversial tag is fine. The POV tag isn't, and I've removed it. Please list your objections, as you and DF suggest. It would be nice if you'd review the talk and archives, because just about everything has been discussed to death already. The "good" tag - I added that; its been uncontroversial; I've seen no objections, up till now William M. Connolley 21:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Human-induced global warming is a theory, not a fact. This article presents it as a fact. Therefore, the POV tag is appropriate. Like I said, though, there's only a few sentences (about 4 or 5) that would need to be qualified to make the article more neutral and, thus, make the POV tag unnecessary. I'll list them here as soon as I can. cla68

Cla, on this topic we must be careful about wording. There are two issues here: global warming, and an anthropogenic cause. As to the first issue, the article says very clearly (in the first paragraph!), Global warming is an observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. As for the second issue, it continues, Part of this increase may be due to natural processes, and would have occurred independently of human activity. The remainder is due to a human-induced intensification of the greenhouse effect. This seems completely NPOV to me, and in fact gives a bit too much weight to "natural processes". Please do list the sentences you have questions with. Also, please sign your comments with "~~~~". thanks. bikeable (talk) 22:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict - reply to the original poster):The article primarily describes the current scientific consensus. In fact, it gives rather more weight to the sceptics than appropriate. Some people have been working on this careful balance for a long time, and have seen, discussed, and rejected very many arguments (btw, on either side of the fence - see e.g. Talk:Global warming/extreme weather extrapolation graph). That's why some reappearing arguments often get reverted rather quickly. If you have any concrete stuff you want to have in, try to suggest it here on talk. --Stephan Schulz 22:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that this theory is correct. This article does not ignore the alternative viewpoints but neither does it give them equal weight. This is in line with Misplaced Pages policy. --NHSavage 22:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, next time you'd better avoid the sentence "... is a theory not fact". It has rather negative associations, e.g. with evolution (theory not fact) and WMD (fact not theory). :) Count Iblis 23:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Cla's suggestions

I understand everyone's point of view on the matter, and appreciate the serious thought and analysis everyone has put into making this entry as good as it is. And, I should add, that the scientific explanations in the article are excellent. But, the apparent point of view of portions of the entry is what I'm talking about. I notice that this has been a fairly contentious debate, since I see on the discussion page for "Global Warming Controversy" that two of the users featuring prominently in this discussion were placed on probation for engaging in "revert wars." Anyway, I'll list the statements I think aren't neutral along with my suggestion on how to mitigate them in italics. Here we go:

• (1st paragarph) The remainder is due to a human-induced intensification of the greenhouse effect. This statement isn't qualified, but stating an absolute that at least some of global warming is due to human-induced effects. There are some out there who disagree that any of the effects of global warming are due to human-related actions. Therefore, it should say something like, "Most (or many) of the scientific community believe that the remainder is due to human-induced...."

• There is no-one with any serious scientific credentials that believes what you've said. Even Michaels doesn't believe it. Also, your proposition doesn't even make sense: some of the effect is natural; some believe that the remainder is human-caused: what are you proposing, that some believe that its caused by space aliens? In fact that sentence really needs re-ordering, to put human cause first William M. Connolley 19:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• (1st paragraph of Overview section) The scientific consensus on global warming is that the Earth is warming, and that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are making a significant contribution. I suggest that using the word "consensus" throughout this sentence indicates bias towards one side of the debate. I would suggest using, "The scientific consensus on global warming is that the Earth is warming, and much of the scientific community believes that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are making..."

• Sounds pointless; "sci cons" qualifies both halves of the sentence already William M. Connolley 19:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

There is in fact a strong scientific consensus about these issues. The IPCC report is already a fusion document. It has been explicitely endorsed by essentially all relevant scientific bodies. And when the Bush administration went opinion shopping, the US associations issued further confirming reports. I personally was also very impressed by Naomi Oreskes's analysis in Science.--Stephan Schulz 20:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• (Last paragraph under Causes of Global Warming) At present, none of these has more than a small number of supporters within the climate science community. This sentence isn't necessary, since it has already been stated that most within the scientific community theorize that human-induced elements are responsible at least in part for global warming. It makes the article look like it is biased towards one side of the discussion or debate.

• Disagree. It needs to be pointed out there that those theories are only listed for completeness: they are non-runners. William M. Connolley 19:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• (Under Public Controversy) Although not fully settled, the current consensus from the official scientific communities on climate change is that recent warming is largely human-caused. There is near consensus among scientists that global warming is already occurring due to greenhouse gases. I know this is arguable, but I think "consensus" is too strong of a word. From what I've read, including in this discussion page, there isn't precisely a "general agreement" that recent warming is largely human-caused. Therefore, I suggest saying something like, "...many from the scientific communities on climate change..."

• Here you are simply wrong. We have listed the opinions of the science academies around the world... you have listed... your own personal opinion based, as far as can be seen, on nothing at all William M. Connolley 19:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

As pointed out, the article does state some of the opposing points of view. That's not in dispute here. It's just that, in spite of all that, the article still appears to favor one side over the other, which is a Misplaced Pages no-no. If an article wants to promote a particular point of view, then it belongs on a different web forum or needs the "POV" banner at the top of the main page. 30 Mar 06 "~~~~" cla68

Deeerrrr... you're not supposed to put in the "nowiki" bit too William M. Connolley 19:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Connolley, If you're one of the main authors of the article, I'm fairly sure you're able, if not necessarily willing, to engage in constructive debate over this issue. After looking through the entries for global warming controversy, State of Fear, and Michael Crichton, I now understand that you might be somewhat weary from your constant disagreements with others over ideas that you appear to firmly believe in. However, I hope that you don't give up on engaging in constructive and civil debate over these topics, as one of the great things about Misplaced Pages is that it provides this mechanism to do it, but only if all are willing and able to do so. cla68

Dr Connolley to you, though in fact my username or just WMC is better. And *please* learn to sign your name, its really not difficult, you just put four tilde's in a row. Constructive debate... sure. What else is the above? You've made a pile of the conventional sort of errors; hopefully you'll be able to learn from them. William M. Connolley 19:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the debate and discussion on my suggestions. I think we've made our points and, thus, the entry is continuing to evolve with community involvement as it should. Others can read the article, read the discussion, explore the related Misplaced Pages and external links, and hopefully make up their own minds on where the "truth" lies. Cla68 14:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

About the consensus thing: It is being posted quite often now, but I kindly suggest reading the following Oreskes Article about the scientific consensus (and when you like the Blog entries about the following discussion) as well as a report about US newspapers and their coverage of global warming as a topic, called "Balance as Bias".

See also Scientific opinion on climate change. Cheers, Hardern 17:48, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Rendering - Pic

File:Global Warming - Rendering Issue.PNG

Neutrality

Reading the following quote gave me a much better understanding of one aspect of the conflict in discussions about GW:

"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus....There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." - Michael Crichton

The more that the word "consensus" is used in this article (whether in support of or against GW), the weaker the arguments become. Gather the facts (hard, emperical data), and let the facts speak for themselves. The best weapon against misinformation and propaganda (which can come from both directions) is cold, hard facts. I expect that there's more than enough emperical data to open people's eyes to the reality of GW (whatever that reality is).

Ideally, I'd like to see this article have three main sections:

1. What the theory of GW is (it's fair to start with this since it's an article about the theory of GW, regardless of whether people agree with the theory or not)
2. Data in favor of GW (again, since the article is about the theory itself, it's reasonable to first present the data in support of the theory)
3. Data against GW

The article should contain no opinions, other than as necessary for describing what the theory of GW is. Any additional opinions should be limited to external links, with each set of links clearly labelled as to whether they support or are against the theory of GW. --Flash 04:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Crichton is cr*p. The quote from him, above, is rubbish. Of course its rubbish: how can it possibly be true to say that something is wrong simply because people agree on it? You've started from such a bad premise, I don't see how you'll recover. William M. Connolley 08:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Did Crichton say something is wrong simply because people agree on it? Aren't you attacking a staw man?--Silverback 00:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree about Crichton (although "Prey" is in my "to read" stack). He is not a scientist and he does not understand science. I'd like to see his list of "great scientists" that broke with the then-current scientific consensus. As for the rest: What you propose is a) unrealistic and b) original research. There are at least hundreds of reputable papers published on different relevant aspects of climate and global warming. We cannot explain things starting at first principles. Luckily, we don't have to, as several scientific organizations have published summaries of the science. And since they all essentially agree, and since nearly all competent scientists agree as well, we call that "scientific consensus". --Stephan Schulz 12:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Even a great idiot can sometimes say useful and wise things. Ideas should be judged on their own, without being prejudiced by prior notions about the people behind them.

Right. And I've explained, above, why Crichtons ideas are junk. I await your rebuttal to that; and your reply to Stephans point about scientific opinion, and... William M. Connolley 16:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

My wife points out that rather than calling Crichton the bozo that he is, it might be more helpful to point to the various RC posts taking him to bits: they are http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion-ii-the-climatologists-return/ and http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/09/inhofe-and-crichton-together-at-last/, if you've previously missed them :-) William M. Connolley 20:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I notice that in the first reference Hansen's predictions are discussed. Notice that in his scenerio C with GHGs held at 2000 levels, there is no further temperature increases. This contradicts the climate commitment results and shows that the "good match" he achieved in scenerio B must have attributed warming to GHG that was actually due to climate commitment. His old work was obviously wrong, even when the fit was "good".--Silverback 00:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

There is only a little increase, which is interesting. Could be just nat var; who knows? But I don't see how your conclusion follows William M. Connolley 08:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

If something is unrealistic, that doesn't by itself mean that it shouldn't be a goal that people strive for. In the event that GW is real, it's unrealistic to expect people to change their lifestyles to accomodate this, but it is nonetheless essential to make the effort. It's unrealistic to expect people across the world to stop waging war and committing genocide, but it's essential to make the effort. Having an ideal in mind, can help to bring valuable progress towards it, even if the goal is never completely reachable.

This article is primarily about the science of GW, not about the political consequences William M. Connolley 16:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

A few examples of "great scientists" breaking with the consensus:

• Einstein: The notion of time being relative, and of matter and energy being equivalent
• Galileo and Kepler: The notion of the earth revolving around the sun
• Darwin: Natural selection and evolution
• Hawking and Penrose: The big bang (a derisive term coined by their peers)
• Newton: The concept of light as a particle

This isn't to suggest that anyone who breaks from the consensus is automatically a great scientist, but if a scientist's work was remarkable, that tends to suggest that they strayed in a significant way from what their peers knew or believed--otherwise there was nothing remarkable about it. More importantly, if a scientist's work is sound, and if their results are concrete, then the data will hold up on its own, regardless of whether it goes with or against the consensus views of the time. --Flash 16:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hawking and Penrose didn't do the BB. But quite apart from that... all of the people above actually produced good evidence for their views. They didn't just wurble something about "oh, its the consensus, it must be wrong, so I must be right" William M. Connolley 16:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. Looks like the role Hawking and Penrose played was more in providing mathematical support for the Big Bang theory. So I'd substitute "Georges Lemaître" for Hawking and Penrose on that list. I went back and wikified the names on the list to make it easier to catch any other inaccuracies. --Flash 16:48, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Flash, I think you make a good point on how the issue should be addressed in the article and your suggestion is appreciated. Others who read this discussion section, whether or not they post their own reply, will be able to see your point and be able to consider it in forming their own opinions. Unfortunately, if you read the discussion sections for this and the other GW-related topics (global warming controversy, Michael Crichton, etc) you'll quickly see that several of the human-induced GW theory advocates who participate in these discussions (and one especially in particular) appear to be exceptionally "thin-skinned" and pejorative when it comes to discussing alternative ideas on the issue (but, to be fair, many of the posts advocating other positions appear to be inappropriately emotional and personal also). But, again, I think your suggestion is a good one and should be seriously considered by the community. Cla68 15:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Finding the gems of insight which go against scientific consensus is the job of other scientists, not an encyclopedia. To rewrite the article to give weight to an extremely marginal (in terms of number of professional adherants) view because you believe it to be correct is the very definition of original research. --TeaDrinker 16:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The idea isn't to go against (or with) the consensus, but to simply present the facts as they are. Why would it necessarily give weight to the minority, rather than to the majority? If the theory of GW is sound, focusing on the facts will strengthen the theory (and will also improve the quality of the article). In science, it's never a bad idea to present facts. Facts are only a detriment in the realm of misinformation and propaganda. --Flash 17:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The writing of encyclopedias is about cataloging human understanding, and on scientific topics, the understanding of scientists. For practical reasons, Misplaced Pages takes consensus driven approach in how it approaches all issues (see WP:NPOV#Undue weight), such that every significant opinion should be reported in rough proportion to which it is held. Still Flash, your objection is a good one. This is not science, and Misplaced Pages is not a scientific publication. The act of writing an encyclopedia is more akin to science journalism than actual science. We are not here to form a new synthesis or reach any new conclusions. We are only here to report on the shape of the debate, and provide such information as is relevant to understanding what global warming is about. And yes that means reporting on people's opinions and the "consensus" such as it is. As for "cold, hard facts", I agree that this article is benefitted by the inclusion of such facts, particularly those which are widely agreed upon by all sides, as such facts set the stage for the debate. However, you must also realize that there are many "facts" that are in reality the interpretations of data. For example, John Q. Scientist might state that temperatures in Nome, AL are rising because 40 years of measurements tell him so, but Roger Argues-Alot might dispute this with arguments about calibration, or heat islands or other things. So ultimately there is very little data that can be regarded as black or white, for or against. Most data is subject to interpretation, reevaluation and ultimately opinion. Which brings me right back to saying that the point of an encyclopedia is give people an understanding of the shape of the issue by fairly reporting on the majority and minority opinions. Dragons flight 17:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

In the bigger picture, this touches on how to encourage people with a wide range of views to be able to work together constructively and peacefully towards a common goal. Opinions seem to have a way of dividing people more than bringing them together. If the goal of this article is to present a consensus, opinions do not lead in that direction; opinions lead in the direction of escalating disagreement.

Facts are a neutral medium for discussion and collaboration; there's nothing inherently emotional or biased about raw scientific measurements. Data can be misused and distorted, but that shouldn't be an argument for avoiding data; it should be an argument for finding more-reliable ways to gather and present it, decreasing the chance of it having been influenced or altered.

One of the natural functions of Misplaced Pages is weeding out information that can't survive being held up to public scrutiny (and the internet in general is a powerful tool for exposing misinformation). This happens to some extent with every article. It should be possible to apply this somewhat to existing data regarding GW, without being non-encyclopedic, and without requiring original research. --Flash 20:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Raw scientific data on climate change is nice, but unusable in this article. To make it usable, it needs to be quality checked, processed, averaged and turned into something that applies to more than one weather station. Like the graph that we have on the page already. Or the 0.6 +/- 0.2 thats on the page already. But you can't put up the raw data. There is also no way we can write an article on wiki about GW and not mention, prominently, the most likely explanation for it William M. Connolley 20:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970?

Is the full text of the article by Solanki (2003) available free of charge on the internet someplace? I can find lots of cites of it but not the article itself. An example web page citing it is here . Here is an excerpt:

"They took the measured and calculated variations in the solar brightness over the last 150 years and compared them to the temperature of the Earth. Although the changes in the two values tend to follow each other for roughly the first 120 years, the Earth’s temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time."

If this excerpt is an example of the reasoning in the Solanki article then it is faulty. Note, that Solar actitivity would not have had to increase in the last 30 years to cause a temperature rise. Climate commitment studies show that the temperature can increase under constant forcing, if the oceans have not yet equilibrated. A process that may take centuries. With solar activity at a high plateau for the last 70 years, and equilibration interrupted or even partially reversed by the aerosol caused cooling during part of this period of high solar activity, climate commitment from solar forcing can account for part of the increase even when solar forcing is constant.--Silverback 10:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

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