# Talk:Lake Chad

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It is important to note that the facts and figures may vary with this lake due to the lake's characteristics and locale. Em3rald 18:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


### Size of the lake
According to a swedish newspaper the size of the lake is not more than 304km2, instead of the 1540km2 suggested in the article.  ~ Dodde 05:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Why does the article say (in the last paragraph of the history section) that the surface area of Chad is comparable to Victoria and Tanganyika when it most certainly is not? Those two lakes are far larger by any measure; surface area, depth, volume.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.151.9.97 (talk) 01:20, 31 January 2014 (UTC) 


#### Depth of the lake
The correct depth is 1.5m, not 4.1 like the info box says, I'm removing an old reference that is way too out of date for a lake that changes this quick.  Going to figure out how to fix the infobox Drunken Pirate 07:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Science writer Michael Chrichton said:

It turns out Lake Chad has actually been dry multiple times in the past: in 8500 BC, 5500 BC, 2000 BC and 100 BC. Though Wikipedia and a paper in Journal of Geophysical Research on the topic agree that global climate change may have played a role, they also report that the major factors were significant local changes - a rapidly expanding population drawing water from the lake, the introduction of irrigation technologies and local overgrazing. Yes, these are anthropogenic causes, but they are neither global nor warming, and are utterly independent of CO2 . In addition, Africa as a continent experienced a dramatic shift towards dryer weather in the end of the 19th century that is not generally attributed to CO2. (Coe, M.T. and J.A. Foley, Human and natural impacts on the water resources of the Lake Chad basin. Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres) 106, D4, 3349-3356. 2001) [1]
Is this significant? Should we write about the history of this lake drying up in the past? Are journal articles about the cause relevant? 
I think readers would like to know whether human activity other than CO2 emissions have been a factor in turning this lake into a swamp. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed from article:
"In 1970, Lake Chad covered 18,130km² (7000mi²) with a reported maximum depth of 4 feet with only 2 feet total variance in depth.
In 1970, Lake Chad covered 18,130km² (7000mi²) with a reported maximum depth of 4 feet with only 2 feet total variance in depth.
In 1973, varying seasonally, Lake Chad covered 12,950km²-26,000km² (5,000mi²-10,000mi²) and had depths ranging from 3 feet in the North-West to less than 20 feet in the south.  Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia (1973) records that Lake Chad "is steadily decreasing in size because of evaporation and underground seepage."
In 1983, Lake Chad, varying seasonally, covered 10,000km²-25,000km² (3,861mi²-9652mi²) , had a maximum depth of 36 feet, and a volume of 72km3 (17.27mi3).
In 1988, Lake Chad, varying seasonally, covered 10,000km²-26,000km² (4,000mi²-10,000mi²).
In 1990, Lake Chad, varying seasonally, covered 8,130km²-51,800km² (7,000mi²-20,000mi²); reported maximum 10 feet depth.
In 1997, Lake Chad, varying seasonally, covered 10,000km²-26,000km² (4,000mi²-10,000mi²).
This material presents a bad example of original research by compiling data from different points in time from various sources of uneven crediblity. Dictionaries and encycolpedia do not make good sources of data for this kind of comparision. Surely some published studies discuss the lake's variation over the 20th Century. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Have deleted a claim cited from an academically trivial source. The source is a polemic by a "policy advisor" to a British prime minister, where no sources are cited. In a document whose mission is to impeach a mountain of scientific literature, the characterization "policy advisor" is clearly weasel wording. If he were a policy advisor on science or weather, he would surely have claimed so. Evidently, he has no more professional credentials in this field than, say, 99.9 percent of Wikipedia editors. But of course that is not the main objection. The most important thing is the merits of his argument; and in that regard, he cites no sources. That's not good enough for this article. Wikipedia's mission is to offer high quality information. The Reliable Source policy is only a necessary criterion, not a sufficient criterion. Wikipedia has thousands of volunteers with college educations who know how to research the valid, relevant literature. 
Elsewhere in the article, it is already reported that Lake Chad has experienced multiple shrinkages and expansions. Surely it is possible to find expert sources, in engineering or scientific literature, that give evidence for the chronology of these fluctuations. Hurmata (talk) 20:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

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"Lake Chad's receding waters linked to European air pollution – Climate Home – climate change news" . Climate Home – climate change news. 18 June 2013. Retrieved 5 December 2015.

I remain highly skeptical of source #24.  I Googled the broken link and could not verify it was based on any peer-reviewed scientific studies or journals.
It just says at the end: "This article was produced by the Climate News Network"
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2013/06/18/lake-chads-receding-waters-linked-to-european-air-pollution/
Someone with more free time than me should clean up this entire Wikipedia article about Lake Chad and file these speculations under a new subsection about speculations of cause, as opposed to hypothesises and theories about it.  (They are not one and the same.)
If someone can expand the article to include scientific studies and journals, that would be fantastic.

I concur (source now#32). The given reference links to tabloid science claiming European emissions. This then simply links to the Geophysical Research Letters homepage, not the actual research paper.
This is the correct link to 'Yen-Ting Hwang's paper:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50502

This paper says nothing about 'European air pollution'. It merely names emissions from the Northern hemisphere. It also mentions numerous other papers postulating a wide range of other causes for lake Chad shrinking.
I will amend, removing 'European' and change reference link within 24h.92.12.81.11 (talk) 08:55, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
The article section this discussion pertains to appears to have been deleted94.173.223.14 (talk) 16:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/lake-chad-the-worlds-most-complex-humanitarian-disaster
--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 14:03, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

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Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140911201524/http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/nigeria-contributes-5m-to-restore-receding-lake-chad/176595/ to http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/nigeria-contributes-5m-to-restore-receding-lake-chad/176595/
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I just changed the history section as it implied that the maximum extent of the lake existed in history, whereas the references state that the quoted maximum was derived from data taken by the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission and occurred in prehistory, before the area was inhabited. Dates for the maximum extent from the source information are quoted as not being accurate or reliable so I did not add them.
I created a separate section titled Pre-History and moved this non historical information into it.
I also changes all dimensions to use the convert template, so that US units are also shown and metric spelling is according to the convert template convention.
Lkingscott (talk) 12:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)