Talk:Effects of climate change/Archive 10

Can the 4th sentence be further improved?
@User:EMsmile Your change to

The effects of human-caused climate change are broad and far-reaching, and can only be limited if significant climate action takes place now.

is better than before but can it be improved further anyone? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I don’t have a better idea but I am concerned that readers might understand that there will definitely be a tipping point if significant action is not taken now. Maybe that is true though? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:59, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * So the old version was "The effects of human-caused climate change are broad and far-reaching, especially if significant climate action fails to materialise." I tried to improve it purely from a readability point of view as I felt that for non-native speakers it is not clear what "fails to materialise" means. But it's possible that my new version has perhaps changed the meaning a little bit. Perhaps a completely different sentence is better? What are we trying to say? That we still have a hope to avert the worst but only if we act now... But then how do we ensure it doesn't sound like advocacy. EMsmile (talk) 12:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think the new sentence is supported by the body or true. If we start mitigation in ten years, we will still limit some impacts. Conversely, the current impacts are already broad and far-reaching. The risks of having more broad and far-reaching impacts become higher if there is no significant ramp-up of climate action. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * How about “"The effects of human-caused climate change are broad and far-reaching, especially if significant climate action is not taken."?
 * Because I agree with @EMsmile that “fails to materialize” is not good. For one thing it sounds too passive - like the action might just happen by itself. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:10, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that is good, thanks. EMsmile (talk) 11:03, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

The section on displacement and migration
I see the section on displacement and migration has recently been updated which is great. I noticed that a similar section at climate change adaptation has also recently been updated so I wonder if we should refer across to that, or copy anything useful from there to here. This is the section I mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_adaptation#Added_migration_pressures. For example this seems quite relevant (but perhaps we've covered it already): Many discussions around migration are based on projections, while relatively few use current migration data. Migration related to sudden events like hurricanes, wildfires, heavy rains, floods, and landslides is often short-distance, involuntary, and temporary. Slow-impact events, such as droughts and slowly rising temperatures, have more mixed effects, but are more likely to lead to longer-term changes. EMsmile (talk) 08:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC) EMsmile (talk) 08:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Can we use in-line citations for these sources rather?
In the sources section, two public domain sources are listed and it says material from them was incorporated. I do wonder though if this is still current now. The sources are from 2012 and quite possibly whatever was taken from them has now been replaced in the meantime with inline citations. Is there a way of checking what sentences was taken from those sources? If so, could we rather use inline citations and then remove these two bullet points? EMsmile (talk) 07:53, 26 April 2023 (UTC)


 * You may be able to figure it out with WP:wikiblame, WP:WhoWroteThat and/or WP:earwig. I wouldn't be surprised if that information is indeed replaced. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I tried with "who wrote that" (but it didn't tell me who had added those sources) and also with Earwig. I could find no evidence that any of that text from those old EPA reports are still in the article now so I have boldly removed that.
 * But Earwig did bring up quite a few possible copyright vios. The first one is not a real one as the paper that it's picked up is under a compatible licence. It did also pick up copyvios from this website which I think were real copyvios so have removed that. There are still some more copyvios that Earwag flagged up which I haven't had time yet to investigate. EMsmile (talk) 08:25, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks :). That had all the hallmarks of copyvio with the wrong tone (our emissions) and meh source, so embarrassed I just read over it twice without checking. I checked the first 6 entries on earwig, but I don't see any more copyvio in the ones that didn't time out (2nd/4th/5th timed out). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 April 2023
Suggest insertion of edited text from IPCC AR6 chapter 2 page 367 "The Climate of the Pliocene (Around 3 Million Years Ago), When CO2 Concentrations Were Last Similar to Those of the Present Day" 210.9.26.74 (talk) 05:47, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting question.svg Question: Where, specifically? I notice the article mentions temperatures similar to that epoch in the second paragraph under the 'Changes in temperature' section - were you looking for it to be integrated there? Tollens (talk) 05:57, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Making info on floods more nuanced/accurate
I've just made a change to the section on floods. I think this is really important and we need to stay very close to the source (AR 6 WG I report, page 1155-1156). The report says basically "when floods do occur they will be more severe". But it's not saying that there will be more floods everywhere. One aspect is about intensity, the other is about frequency.

My proposed new wording is Due to an increase in heavy rainfall events, floods are expected to become more severe in future when they do occur. However, the interactions between rainfall and flooding are complex. There are in fact some regions in which flooding is expected to become rarer.. Compare with previous wording: Due to an increase in heavy rainfall events, floods are expected to become more extreme under climate change. However, there are a few regions in which flooding is expected to become rarer..

This is also an example where paraphrasing (and extreme shortening) might introduce errors. E.g. using "extreme" might not be correct as a replacement for "severe".

I was pointed to this sentence by an expert reviewer who is helping me at effects of climate change on human health where we had the same sentence about floods and the expert said "As noted in my email, these statements lack nuance. Not all floods will be more severe. This reduces the credibility of the entry". EMsmile (talk) 09:43, 27 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Extreme is a perfectly fine synonym for severe. New text is fine, doesn't have the false equivalence of the text I amended. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:20, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * My gut feeling is that extreme is more than just severe and that it sounds more alarmist than severe (but I am not a native English speaker). Also if IPCC used the term severe they probably had a reason for that. But I have no way of proving or disproving this, so it's all good; perhaps partly down to personal preference which term to use... EMsmile (talk) 09:46, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Native speaker (Br. Eng.) opinion - I think ‘extreme’ is nearly a synonym of ‘severe’ but a little bit more - so on balance I would slightly prefer ‘severe’ if that was the word used in the source. Chidgk1 (talk) 09:50, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Cities
Hello @Anteater23 - Your addition is nicely written and well cited but could you possibly move it to Climate change and cities? Because this article is about effects rather than causes Chidgk1 (talk) 17:32, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh and you can add it directly into that article rather than on the talk page. If anyone reverts it then you can discuss it on talk. You only need to go to the talk page first for edits which might be controversial or to the leads of featured articles Chidgk1 (talk) 17:38, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

The paragraph on glaciers
I think the paragraph on glaciers is now better than before but I find this sentence is not very easy to understand: Those glaciers that are not associated with the polar ice sheets lost around 8% of their mass between 1971 and 2019.. I find the wording "not associated with" a bit odd. I take it that it came from paraphrasing of the original wording "Excluding peripheral glaciers of ice sheets". But I think there must be a better solution? Also, we might as well make the same improvements to the article retreat of glaciers since 1850 which is where I took the sentences and refs from that I had copied in this edit, thus improving two articles on one go. EMsmile (talk) 07:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Be bold :). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I am confused about the economic damages graph
Hello @RCraig09

I don’t want to go back to the caption I wrote for that graph because you are right it was not good. But the current caption saying ‘ Rich nations have done the most to fuel climate change but have not yet been severely harmed by it economically’ seems debatable as

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/2022-us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters-historical-context#:~:text=Adding%20the%202022%20events%20to,reaching%20or%20exceeding%20%241%20billion.

says USA has had over 2 trillion dollars damage. So that seems to contradict the graph which shows 2 trillion globally by USA if I understood right.

I am not an expert on economics and I think Wikipedia is generally weak on climate economics.

Do you or anyone else have any idea how to clarify this? Maybe we should just remove the graph from the article for now? Chidgk1 (talk) 11:01, 10 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Or we could revise the caption to say that poorer countries have lost a bigger percentage of GDP per https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add3726?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D55427380907147007360115305422850798293%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1666967345&_ga=2.234386078.141924857.1666966755-1613553250.1620722239 Chidgk1 (talk) 11:13, 10 May 2023 (UTC)


 * US GDP is ~20 T, so 2T damages in 40 years is ~0.25% of GDP, which is a rounding error. Numbers aren't large by themselves, only by comparison to other numbers William M. Connolley (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The original caption is a nearly-verbatim rendering from of The Guardian source: "What they found was a perniciously uneven picture – rich nations in northerly latitudes, such as those in north America and Europe, have done the most to fuel climate change but have not yet been severely harmed by it economically." I've just simplified the caption to remove the part about not being severely harmed, so the caption is more self-evident. Separately, one might conceivably form a caption from the Nature Communications paper instead, but the graphic itself shouldn't be in question. — RCraig09 (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

DYK?
Well done on the GA. So as @Femke is hopefully enjoying time with her family maybe @EMsmile or I should put it in for DYK as if I remember right there is a seven day time limit Chidgk1 (talk) 09:39, 16 May 2023 (UTC)


 * At least as a placeholder until Femke returns - don’t know if she wants to put DYK in ASAP or wait as long as COP28 in November Chidgk1 (talk) 09:43, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Good idea, please go ahead to not miss the 7 day deadline (?). And do you have the energy to tackle climate change mitigation or climate change adaptation for the GA process next? :-) EMsmile (talk) 09:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry can’t commit to another GA as hoping Agriculture in Turkey will be reviewed shortly and expecting reviewer to be very thorough Chidgk1 (talk) 10:51, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Have my doubts about statement about ENSO
I've removed this recently added sentence with the following justification: "I find this source too weak for such a strong statement. Moving to talk page for discussion. Might be better off at the ENSO article". Also, would our readers understand the relevance of this? If not, can we explain how this is important with respect to the effects of climate change on people's lives or ecosystems? What do others think about it?: Climate change affects not only specific events but also the multi-year El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Strong El Niño events become 2 times more common and strong La Niña events 9 times more common due to climate change. If the climate will continue to change the impacts will also continue to increase. EMsmile (talk) 19:42, 22 May 2023 (UTC) EMsmile (talk) 19:42, 22 May 2023 (UTC)