Talk:Climate change/Archive 12

message: 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)
replies: text: I have modified this article to reference the bullying tactics of the global warmng lobby against dissenters as revealed by a major scientist in todays wall street journal.  I have also changed the "small" mininority of dissenters by eliminating the adjective which is pov and not verified.  I full expect these edits to be reversed by the emotional charlatins who have no real knowledge of the issue.  I may or may not be back to try and correct this infantile page.Incorrect 14:29, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Further, global warming, since it reduces extremes of temperture, should DECREASE storms, hurricanes, etc (wsjournal April 12, 2006), I've noticed that in my further edit.Incorrect 14:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, I reverted your changes for the following reasons (notice I write "reasons" instead of what you expected it to be): Why should a warming atmosphere and thus warming sea surface temperatures DECREASE storm intensity? (also, GW does not reduce extremes of temperatures, but to the contrary increases them) Studies by Emanuel and Webster et al. measured an INCREASE in destructiveness of (atlantic) hurricanes during the last few decades, and to my knowledge climate models let expect more severe cliamte anomalies, including extreme events. furthermore, a small minority is a small minority. please read the scientific literature about global warming consensus, e.g. Oreskes 2004 (it's linked somewhere on this disc page already). thus, this position is indeed verified, and I think nearly everyone who participated in IPCC processes will also agree to this from his or her personal experience (as far as I'm aware). one last point: your language indicates to me that people contributing to this article are not the "emotional charlatans" you want them to be, but someone else looks like his description fits himself quite properly... Hardern 15:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text:  Indeed, Incorrect. There was a time at which scientists believed the sun did not circle the earth, and they were in fact, proven incorrect.  Now please compare the number of scientists and the volume of scientific data that supported the theory of the sun orbiting the earth ( circa 1700? i can't put a pin on it exactly ) to the number of scientists and the volume of scientific datat that supports the theory of global warming. That should put your little analogy in the proper perspective. 128.195.94.157 03:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: A Mr. William M. Connolley, a real believer in scientific freedoms, did something never before seen - he vandalzied the TALK section here by removing 6 or 8 lines quoting an MIT Prof. of Climatology stating that GW was an exaggerated concern supported by the usual pc lobby.  Vandal Connolley is obviouly so insecure that he wasn't willing to see his position being attacked even here on the talk page.  Connnolley, you've hit an all time low, you bring disrepute to your side of the argument, to Wikipedia, and to your morality.  DisgusingIncorrect 07:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You silly little person, I moved the text to the end. New talk goes at the end. You're hopeless William M. Connolley 08:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You did move it, I didn't know new talk is at the end, I appologize. All ad hominem statements are withdrawn. Incorrect 12:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  some book I've read / Further Support 

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

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

text: 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)

text: politics doesn't play a role in thise debate?  Read April 12,2006 story by a MIT prof in climate studies on the role of politics in all of this.Incorrect 14:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  section 'Climate Models',is misleading 

message: '''
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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

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

message: Silverback is limited to 1RR/7 Wikipedia: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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  Silverback and 1RR/7 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text:  Something's wrong, I can't get my comments posted on Realclimate Hans Erren 23:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the realclimate.org link (no. 34) 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Silverback wasting our time again 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: "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)
replies: text:  Sticking to the science is a good idea. Its why I removed Singer. William M. Connolley 20:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  "rv. Nothing "especially" controversial, of course" 

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

message: 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 à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 16:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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 à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 15:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text:  Nice idea. William M. Connolley 23:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice dream - and might as well make 'em invisible in a printout for the paper lovers :-) Vsmith 02:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation format 

message: 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. Wikipedia 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 à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 22:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  Oh no more language issues. In the UK, its the same as "wazzed" or "newted" :-) William M. Connolley 19:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Trolleyed more like.--NHSavage 19:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: 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)
replies: text:  *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)
thread_title: Missing the point

message: 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)
thread_title:  Clathrate gun section 

message: A non peer reviewed blog reference replaced my peer reviewed IPCC tar reference. Hans Erren 11:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you be a bit vaguer, please? William M. Connolley 11:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  bias 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Move of two external links to talk page 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  What's wrong with utterly NPOV? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Simplified version? 

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  External links 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  gci.uk.org was recently cited as a source 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Need more info 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Spam markers 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Non-science, misinformation external links 

message: I reverted the latest three edits by User:Butchnovak for the following reasons: 
You wrote: "[Earth is warmer than it would be without] 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: "[IPCC sayd temperatures might increase about 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius] 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: "[Models showed the 1.4-5.8 degrees figure] 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)
replies: text: Also see my remark at User talk:Butchnovak--Stephan Schulz 13:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted edits by Butchnovak 

message: Is the full text of the article with the above title 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)
replies: text: From the website of the second author .  They find best relationship with a lag of about a decade (e.g Figure 2C).  Everything else aside, the correlation is pretty striking.  Thanks for pointing this paper out.  Dragons flight 10:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanx.  Good find!--Silverback 10:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: What you are looking at, I think, is the primitiveness of the level of the solar-climate connection. They really still are at the level of correlating things and matching wiggles on graphs. Whereas the GCM people have been doing far more sophisticated attribution. And the answer to your question is of course "no". William M. Connolley 10:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970? 

message: Ok, I'm confused. The edit summary said "Added stuff that I heard on NPR about emigration from Tuvalu" and all those sources were already in on the last edit as far as I can tell. So is the new material in those sources or not? JoshuaZ 23:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, that's fine then. I'll bring it over then. Sorry for the confusion. JoshuaZ 02:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New section and Radio 

message: Well, I was "bold" and extracted the "adaptation" text from the Mitigation of global warming article into a new article Adaptation of global warming as suggested by others in the Talk:Mitigation of global warming page.  Within minutes, the new article was put up as a candidate for deletion on the grounds that it was a "how-to" article which violated WP:NOT or that it was original research which violated WP:NOR.  Other people said that it was not encyclopedic.
I have addressed these issues by expanding the article significantly and providing references to sources.  Hopefully, this will convince those who voted for deletion to change their minds.
Just in case it doesn't, would you take a look at the Adaptation to global warming article and then vote to keep or delete the article?
If the vote is to delete the article then I will bring much of that text back into the Mitigation of global warming article which will make it longer and harder to read (which is why I created the new article in the first place).
Thanks.
Richard 05:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request review of [[Adaptation to global warming]] article 

message: I personally think more content on controversy regarding Global warming should be added to this article to be more neutral. In fact, I think the article should be restructured to create two distinct sections : theories, datas and scientists who support global warming and theories, datas and scientists who oppose global warming. The current article isn't biased in any way, but the mention on the opposition of the theory of global warming is a bit scattered. any opposition and comment?--Exir KamalabadiJoin Esperanza! 12:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is structured as it is because it foremost documents the current state of knowledge. There is no serious scientific opposition to the consensus view. In particular, there is no coherent alternative model or theory. That is why the opposition appears scattered - it is. We have a couple of other articles on the topic - see especially List of scientists opposing global warming consensus and Global warming controversy. Since there is no serious scientific dissent, I dislike your proposed structure. Instead of starting from the strong, well justified consensus model, it would start from a mostly non-existing dichtonomy.  We don't start the article on Earth by discussing the flat- vs. the roundearthers (and the flat-earthers at least more or less agree on one view).--Stephan Schulz 12:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd second Stephan; and in fact even if there was such a split, just "presenting opposing views" isn't a good idea on a science article William M. Connolley 12:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Stephan and William. About scientific consensus: See my last post under Cla'S suggestion. Hardern 13:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Gosh! Its nice to hear people changing their minds in response to reasoned argument, it gives one some faith in the process of discussion! William M. Connolley 14:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More content on regarding on Global warming 

message: Hi,
WMC has mentioned a couple of times that some people (like Silverback) have changed text that has been the subject of long debate.  I've looked at the Talk page but it's simply not practical to read all the archives of the Talk page and learn what all the "decisions" are that have been made.
This is especially true because the archives have not been organized by topic.  It would be good to have an archive called "Decisions" where key decisions are documented.  The article text could then have  strategically placed comments that link to the "Decisions" archive.
The comment should say that changing text that has been tagged as "decided" is frowned upon unless the proposed change has been discussed on the Talk page first.
This won't deter determined editors but it will give people like me an idea of which topics are "hot potatoes" and which topics can reasonably be changed without ruffling too many feathers.
Richard 18:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye, very good idea! Hardern 18:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we document "decisions" in comments? 

message: The whole article needs better organization and I think I see what part of the problem is.
I added subsection titles to the Overview and it has become obvious that the structure of the Overview section doesn't match the structure of the article.  This gives the impression that either the Overview or the article is a mish-mash.  The solution is to make the structure of the overview match the structure of the article or vice versa.
I don't have time to do that today.  I just wanted to throw out my thoughts on this issue and see what you guys think.
Richard 19:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article needs restructuring 

message: Suppressed by this community, but accepted by the scientific community because it has survived peer review, twice as a matter of fact, is research showing that there is only an 8% probability that this current period of high solar activity can last another 50 years.  The literature has already been discussed on this page,    There is no dispute in the literature of this evidence of the probabilities of high solar activity being sustained.  WMC has reverted the proposed text, without supporting what we must assume is his mere assertion of irrelevance.  The is the full proposed text that the community is allowing to be suppressed. --Silverback 10:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Gosh you are getting paranoid. You are leaning on Solanki because he tells you what you want to hear; but predicting solar output is distinctly dodgy, and probably unimportant anyway William M. Connolley 11:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

text: SB, if you can find a good reference for the anticipated impact of a return to average/normal solar forcing, then I'd support mentioning that the solar forcing is likely to decline.  I believe the scale of the effect is something like 0.3°C.  Dragons flight 03:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly one of the scenerios that should be considered is a return to average or normal solar forcing.  The solar reconstructions should be able to provide a couple additional scenerios to bracket most of the probability over this century.  I've already provided good references from the journal Nature.  One that says the current solar forcing has for 70 years been at its highest in the last 8000 years, and a response that argues that the current high solar forcing is comparable to forcing that has occurred twice before in the last millenium, although those episodes were shorter than the current unusually long one.  Your estimate of 0.3 degrees is roughly half the warming that has been observed in the last century.  Since the correlations with solar variation in the literature are stronger than models can currently seem to account for, there is missing physics in this area.  I don't think we need a reference for the anticipated impact in order to report the current state of the solar reconstructions, and the rarity of sustaining current levels of solar forcing for much longer.--Silverback 06:23, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't make a lot of sense to say that solar forcing could lessen without telling people whether it or not it will be important.  If solar effects lead to cooling of only ~0.3C (and I don't know that this is the right number) on a warming of 1.4-5.8C then we probably shouldn't be worrying about it too much, but I do agree that solar changes seem much more likely to help us than to hurt us.  Dragons flight 08:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 0.6 degrees of warming was important enough to get many concerned about global warming.  The -0.3 is off that figure.  Since GHGs provide positive feedback for higher solar activity, the effect will probably be larger than -0.3 off the high end predictions.  Of course any future IPCC predictions should be based on the lower expected solar output if they are to have any credibility, but those haven't been made yet.  That is no reason to not to report how usually long and high the current level of solar activity is, and that the reconstructions show that very few such periods have continued more than 50 years longer.--Silverback 10:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  And this is your problem. As you see it, you own personal research has demonstrated an effect so important that the IPCC projections have no crdibility without it. But wiki isn't here for your personal research, or anyone elses William M. Connolley 18:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it not my "own personal research", it is published reasearch.  All I demand is that it make sense and not brush asside problems, such as the problem repesented by much stronger solar correlations in the paleo-climate than we think we can explain with what we know by measured solar variation and than is captured in the models.  Combine this with model predictions for the next century that exceed GHG sensitivity in the paleo record, especially since we know the attribution to GHGs made in the TAR had problems with the solar component and did not account for warming due to climate commitment from the early period of warming.  My "original research" is just to understand that when you have models that may underattribute solar forcing, and you tune them to 20th century data that has a warming trend, then that warming will be misattributed to some other forcing in the model. Frankly, noone should be confident and complacent about this science of climate prediction until discrepancies such as solar correlation are resolved and not just tuned over, especially where there are "clues" to the infancy of the science such as known deficiencies in cloud physics and wide variations in the predictions.  You may call my understanding of this "original research", but it is more basic an insight into deficiencies of modeling than what you are willing to call "basic science" elsewhere.--Silverback 11:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SUPPRESSED: there is only an 8% probability that this current period of high activity can last another 50 years 

message: (in Relationship to ozone depletion)
is it a mistake? Shouldn't it be  
"One of the strongest predictions of the Greenhouse effect theory"
?
: You're probably right. I've made the change William M. Connolley 21:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: One of the strongest predictions of the global warming theory

message: Hi,
Someone just added an "opposing view" to the Effects of global warming article.  I'm not sure what the "official" consensus of the Global warming editors is but, whatever it is, the Effects of global warming article should follow the same policy.
Please check out the most recent edit to the Effects of global warming article and either edit it or revert it as appropriate.  Thanks.
BTW, it would probably be useful to put together a comprehensive editorial policy regarding opposing POV for the following articles:
Global warming
Effects of global warming
Mitigation of global warming
Adaptation to global warming
Politics of global warming
Economics of global warming
This policy could be posted on the Talk pages of all the above articles.
Thanx.
Richard 04:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That someone was me!  I added the same mild quote about there being little support for the increasing cost of severe weather events being due to their increasing strength to this article, following three quotes from the peer-reviewed scientific climate literature explaining that storm strength is directly related to temperature.  I also added the same set of four preceding quotes to Extreme weather.  I did that to try to balance this edit by Pol098.  I thought the quote was particularly mild, and served to illustrate that the fourteen AMA meteorologists weren't contradicting, just claiming little support for severe weather cost increases due to global warming. --James S. 04:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've just removed the para. Its too big for an article with a see-main. Please try to avoid bloating the GW article. Not desperately happy with the content, either William M. Connolley 11:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please add [[Effects of global warming]] to your watchlist 

message: The possible physical mechanisms should be mentioned which could make this a significant effect. E.g. I know about the theory that increase magnetic flux during high solar activity shields the earth from cosmic rays which inhibits cloud formation and thereby leads to warming.
Count Iblis 01:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you will find well referenced information related to your concerns was suppressed here  and here , although WMC was correct to restore the inadvertently deleted 2300 year cycle.--Silverback 12:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those look like good references.--Technicaltechy 12:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is more detail in the talk page discussions:  .--Silverback 13:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Please avoid personal attacks. "paranoia"? Come on, William. --Uncle Ed 17:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solar Variation 

message: Just for the record, I took out some of the information in the introduction, that was repeated verbatim elsewhere in the article.  It has the effect of shortening the article, but all the information is still in the article. Ramsquire 16:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put it back in, important enough to state up front, if redundant or ver batum then maybe it needs rewording in the second occurrence. Plus the format of the article was messed up w/out it there :-) Vsmith 16:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I removed some redundancy. 

message: Is the current formatting a bit broken? The "minority position" now appears just under the TOC, which is odd... 
William M. Connolley 08:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken? 

message: I reverted m2c's removal of so much stuff from the intro. I think that stuff is important to have up front. William M. Connolley 18:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a dilemma that users come across when trying to "fix" the introduction.  The current intro by William M. Connolley, is fine except that the same information is repeated verbatim in the article at various points.  This would seem to require that either it's taken out or summarized in the introduction or, conversely if you leave the introduction alone, then the body of the article should be edited where the repeated language appears.  However edits to the body of the article, will require a re-writing of other parts to the body of the article, which no one seems eager to do.  So a couple of users, myself included, have attempted to take the easy way out and just take the repeated language out of the introduction, even though it is probably more appropriate to edit the body of the article.  Ramsquire 18:59, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Its not just mine. It would read slightly differently if it were. As I see it, most of the repeats occur in the overview section, and its not really clear why it is repeated in that section. William M. Connolley 19:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, sorry about that, I misread the history tab, I guess you were just reverting to an earlier version of the introduction.  I thought you created a new intro incorporating the previously deleted info. Ramsquire 19:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Part is mine ;-). Anyways, I just looked at the dilemna. At the moment, we are using the American Journalism approach "Tell it, tell it again, then tell it once more". As I see it, with the extensive introduction, we could probably get rid of the Overview section and migrate whatever is only there to the introduction or the main body, respectively. Comments?--Stephan Schulz 19:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  My vote would be to delete the overview, but then you'd probably have to change the article headings and make changes throughout the article to make sure it stays coherent.  Ramsquire 19:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it is probably okish for length (Wikipedia:Lead section suggests three or four paras for long articles) but I would be tempted to snip the second paragraph completely. The point that climate change is about more than temperature is covered in para 3 and the bit about feedbacks should proabably be covered in the main part of the article (not quite sure where though).Just my 2p worth.--NHSavage 21:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro again 

message: I propose that the sections need to be reordered:
    * 1 Historical warming of the Earth
    * 2 Causes
          o 2.1 Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
          o 2.2 Sources of greenhouse gas emissions
          o 2.3 Alternative theories
                + 2.3.1 Solar variation theory
    * 3 Potential negative effects
          o 3.1 Effects on ecosystems
          o 3.2 Impact on glaciers
          o 3.3 Destabilisation of ocean currents
          o 3.4 Environmental refugees
          o 3.5 Spread of disease
          o 3.6 Financial effects
    * 4 Potential positive effects
    * 5 Responses
    * 6 Climate models
    * 7 Issues (renamed to "Other related issues")
          o 7.1 Relationship to ozone depletion
          o 7.2 Relationship to global dimming
          o 7.3 Pre-human global warming
    * 8 References
    * 9 See also
    * 10 External links
          o 10.1 Scientific
          o 10.2 Other
This makes the article flow more logically IMHO. Comments?--NHSavage 07:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks ok to me, but I would then prefer to split the article into 8 separate articles. This article would then be the preface plus table of contents, the 8 others would be chapters 1 to 7 and 8+9+10. Count Iblis 13:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is this becoming a bit strange? You're not distinguishing, above, between brief see-main sections (climate models; effects) and things actually covered in this article William M. Connolley 15:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The current article is quite long. If we have an article for each chapter then you could expand all the chapters without worrying too much about the size. Of course, you could group some of the shorter chapters into one article, and if that get's too large, you split it up.Count Iblis 15:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  There may well be something to that idea. I would not want to lose any of the core of the article, though William M. Connolley 17:26, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't see what is any more strange in my proposed reordering of the content (I have not changed the level of anything). I agree that as a result of trying to keep this article short but covering all aspects the article is somewhat uneven, but that is there irrespective of the order of the bits. I would rather see this remain as it is - a summary of the main points with links to more detailed articles than being broken up further. I might change my mind if I saw a more concrete proposal though.--NHSavage 19:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I decided to be bold and do it anyway.--NHSavage 21:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reorder sections?

message: The top most diagram starting in 1850s is of no value; since that date corresponds with the end of the little ice age and you can't easily see how much of the rise was simple getting back up to pre-little ice age (or compare with middle ages). I propose that the historic peroid picture that starts around AD 1 be placed there instead, since it provides the historical comparisions. Joncnunn 13:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The current image has a number of advantages. First, it reflects the instrument record, not a reconstruction. Secondly, it covers most of the industrialization era. And thirdly, because of this restriction, it is possible to recognize the temperature and its development in some detail. Compare even the 1000 year reconstructions a bit further down - the 19th and 20th century are effectively unresolvable. A 2000 year graph would be even worse.--Stephan Schulz 14:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree with Stephan. Also, the "end-of-LIA" argument has no clear merit. William M. Connolley 15:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Top Most graph [since 1850s] should be replaced with the historical peroid graph

message: I don't see a dicussion on the "a few" language, that El C reverted without comment and Schulz restored with an uninformative comment.  It seems inherently POV.--Poodleboy 18:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Might be helpful to actually read the page.  See #Some_vs._Most.3B_Minority_vs._Small_Minority higher up the page.  Guettarda 18:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...plus several other discussions in the archives. This page has a long history. If I want some peace, I go over to Creationism or Muhammad ;-). Nowadays I normally just point to the Oreskes analysis (in short, she looked at about 1000 peer-reviewed scientific papers and found a lot of support, but no dissent for the core theses of the IPCC). --Stephan Schulz 18:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If some POV language is that controversial, the justification for the language should be preserved in references near the text.  These few scientists should be able to easily be countered by large numbers of scientists that believe that  there are no "uncertainties exist regarding how much climate change should be expected in the future", and presumably it should be easy to document that nearly all scientists know what "should be done to reduce or reverse future warming, and how to cope with the consequences."  Oreskes analysis was of abstracts not scientists (a poor methodology and design if she was intending to assess scientific opinion).  Science is not a democracy, none of these numbers of supporters should matter to them or us.--Poodleboy 19:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your misreading the article. The scope of the "few scientists" is only the first sentence of that paragraph. All the rest is part of the consensus. I'll try to make it clearer. As for Oreskes: Papers are where scientists proclaim their professional opinion. Yes, science is not a democracy. But the standard rules apply: Most scientists are neither stupid, incompetent or liars. If they overwhemlingly support a certain position in their field of knowledge, it's very good evidence that that position is right, or at least better than the alternatives.--Stephan Schulz 19:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Abstracts are for results, and necessarily have little room for opinions.  Even in full text articles, opinions would be limited to the discussion and conclusions.  However, in wikipedia, any POV language should be justified near the text in the article since it is likely to inspire controversy.  And, there certainly should be informative edit summaries when undocumented POV language is summarily reverted back into the text.  Thanx for your efforts to clarify the paragraph.  It is sad that we have to quibble numbers of scientists in a scientific article.  They should be irrelevant. --Poodleboy 19:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I objected to the reversion without a reason.  It was of course compounded by the POV language, why is a reversion being used on something like that?  I really don't care, but we should care if, in the article, references to numbers is associated with language that implies that they increase or decrease the credibility of any particular scientific point.  When I say, I don't care, I mean that I personally can see through such irrelevancies and would not be influenced by them.  Hopefully others are similar in their critical thinking. --Poodleboy 20:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  We don't really care about your personal opinions. What matters is the text on the page. So, do you care, or not, as to whether the page says "a few"? "a few" is accurate (well, as Stephan says, its probably over-generous) as measured against, say, contributors to the IPCC reports William M. Connolley 20:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Firstly, I think it was wrong (but understandable given the amount of vandalism this article suffers) not to have an explanation in the original revert edit summary. I have been rereading the article carefully and I wonder if we should have There are a few not There are only a few. This is just about the tone I know, but I feel the former is both NPOV and accurate. The only crept in in the last edit and was not there before.--NHSavage 21:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it did not quite "creep" in, I put it there quite on purpose to help illustrate the contrast between the extreme minority position and the more reasonable open questions below. --Stephan Schulz 22:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK fair enough but I do think it starts to border on the POV the way it is phrased. How about: Uncertainties exist regarding how much climate change should be expected in the future, and a hotly-contested political and public debate exists over what, if anything, should be done to reduce or reverse future warming, and how to cope with the consequences. A few scientists even contest the view that humanity's actions have played a significant role in increasing recent temperatures. . I think this works better becaue it puts the open questions first and the extreme minority position last.--NHSavage 07:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I searched on "few" and "El C" and don't see a discussion 

message: I have heard some talk about climate changes on some other planets in our solar system, most notably on mars. Most of what I could find was either pointed at a defunct Denver Post article, or was touted as the silver bullet against Global Warming. I was able to find an unbiased article on the current state of warming on Mars, located at Space.com. The article does not address "mars global warming", but does explore how that planet is currently in a state of warming. There does not seem to be any part of this Wikiarticle that addresses the possible parallels between a simultaneous warming of earth and mars. Thus I would like to get some feedback on possibly introducing a NPOV exploration of the possible implications. Regards. --Coldbourne 10:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You want http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/ William M. Connolley 10:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In addition, you might be interested in http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/theres-global-warming-on-mars-too.html --Hardern 10:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, look at where the nonsensical claim "Mars is warming, therefore the Sun is responsible for GW on Earth" is coming from.  I'm not aware of any peer-reviewed paper that claims this relationship. So what kind of qualification do the proponents have? As an example, Lubos is what, a string theoretician? I'm sure he has a nice model of the climate working from first principles at the sub-atomic level. Indeed, what kind of qualification would make someone more competent for this question than that of a climatologist? Also notice that RC does cite primary sources. I know where I see the prevalence of evidence in this case... --Stephan Schulz 07:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Cb seems to have failed to notice that the Mars post is a guest post, written by someone with astronomical qualifications. Cb: as Stephan says, since no-one actually takes the Mars-Earth parallels seriously, I doubt you'll find any papers on it. A good argument for not mentioning it in the article. I'm fairly sure the RC post is mentionned on Mars, though William M. Connolley 20:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Observed Solar Variables