Talk:Effects of climate change/Archive 9

RfC: when to use excerpts
We've been discussing the use of WP:excerpts a lot, but haven't really come to a conclusion about when their advantages outweight their disadvantages. I'm starting an RfC to establish consensus about when to use them, to get a broader input. I hope that we can develop best practises, that may also be used outside of this particular article.

Femke (talk) 17:02, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * A No particular restrictions
 * B Only use them when the original text is (1) fully cited & a comment is place in the original article that cites should not be removed (some editors prefer leads to be citation-free, which is allowed per WP:LEADCITE)
 * C Only use them as above + (2) the text is either recently reviewed (GA/FA), or reviewed by the person replacing article text with an excerpt for basic accuracy + prose quality.
 * D Only use them as above + (3) also make sure there is no duplication of information with rest of article.


 * Support C/D. Currently, some of the excerpts are not fully cited. Most worryingly is the excerpt about human health, which makes claims about suicide without a source. A delve into the original article shows that there aren't any WP:MEDRS compliant sources for this either. Having sources is a bare minimum. Additionally, if citations had been provided in the glacier retreat section, the outdatedness of claims would be immediately clear.
 * I also think that a review of the text is needed. We're using excerpts from articles without many active writers. There are likely factual errors, and biases. For instance, if we were to excerpt tipping points in the climate system, we would include non-neutral text introduced by a sock. Ocean acidification contains a highly outdated estimate of CO2 absorbed by oceans, which I think is only true under a very low emission scenario.. A recent review at GA level would also work, but poses some risk. We have a non-neutral sentence based on a primary source in sea level rise 'climate change worse than expected'.
 * We now have duplication of content between excerpts of sea level rise and retreat of glaciers since 1850, because that's how these article are logically built up. Using both excerpts leads to a lower-quality article here, so it may be wise to choose one.
 * There are quite a few disadvantages to excerpts that also make me support stricter inclusion requirements. It requires more layers of clicking to update it, the first sentence of an article is often a definition, which is poor prose later in an article. Of course, we desperately need less maintenance work, so that's a pro. Femke (talk) 17:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for starting this important discussion with your excellent points. I am someone who likes to use excerpts a lot. Here are my thoughts:
 * An excerpt is usually taken from the lead of the article but it doesn't have to be from the lead. It could be from any part of the article. So if the lead turned out to be not ideal, let's transcribe a different part of the article (however, if the section heading is changed then the excerpt gets broken; hence the need to add hidden comments to alert people of that).
 * Secondly, if the excerpt is taken from a lead then it'll often be the case that there are no references given because the lead doesn't need to use references (as you pointed out as well). So I don't think that is a conceptual flaw, just following Wikipedia standards. When the reader clicks through, they'll find the sources in the main body of that article. It's not always possible/needed to find sources for the lead for sentences which summarise several paragraphs of the article.
 * If the lead of the other article is of poor quality then it should inspire us to improve that other article's lead as well. We are after all building a web of information, not just focusing on one article and leaving the other sub-articles untouched. E.g. if including the lead of ocean acidification into effects of climate change made an editor like yourself notice that there's something wrong in the ocean acidification article then that's great and there's an easy solution: let's improve that article (or at least its lead) at the same time. Same goes for effects of climate change on human health.
 * A small amount of duplication with the rest of the article is a small price to pay, given that most readers won't read an article from start to end but will jump in whereever they have an interest (and often not read past the lead at all). The leads are so important. If the use of excerpts makes us aware of poorly written leads then that's good, let's work on those leads.
 * So my recommendation would be: Option E: use excerpts where they help to avoid duplication of content between two articles AND ensure that the transcribed text is improved over time (meaning it doesn't have to be perfect yet on the day that the excerpt is added but the intention would be to make it perfect over time); so it's similar to your Option A+C but it takes a staged approach, it doesn't have to be all perfect straight away. EMsmile (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * One of the reasons I would like some basic work to be done before replacing text with an excerpt, is that we're now giving more attention to likely misinformation. I had curated a lot of this article before the various merges/excerpts. Now it's completely unclear how much everything is checked. It seems like you support A. (I can clarify A as "in advance").
 * By supporting using excerpts in the case there are no citations, you may create quite a monster, if the article you're taking text from also uses an excerpt. A lede is furthermore a magnet for newer editors adding their personal beliefs, and it's very difficult to see that if there aren't any references visible in the target article. Femke (talk) 17:38, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinging as he might be aware of similar discussions about the use of excerpts in other WikiProjects? EMsmile (talk) 17:36, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Support A or B because this article is not GA or FA so I think not necessary to have strict rules - editors should be able to decide for themselves. If/when someone is able to prepare it for GA - which would obviously be great - then the person(s) preparing/proposing it and then the reviewer can agree between themselves and make a note for other editors. For example I currently have Electricity sector in Turkey being reviewed, and as the reviewer is very against excerpts have removed them all except the one from an article which is itself GA. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:54, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I do plan to bring this article up to GA if I ever recover. Don't you think A contradictions with WP:V? Femke (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * OK B then. Hope you get well soon. Hey - hope you are well - surely you should be insisting on more cites in the excerpted lead in Talk:Electricity sector in Turkey/GA5 :-) Chidgk1 (talk) 13:10, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support D (which I take to include C and thus also B). Femkemilene's analysis covers my rationales as well. I agree that option A basically conflicts with WP:V policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 * B, but they should be further discouraged. Excerpts break the link between article code and article output. Look at any old version of an article and you will likely see redlinked templates scattered everywhere. Excerpts exacerbate that issue by turning it into actual article content. They also provide a potential avenue for disruption that is not captured by watchlists (related to break between code and output), in a similar way to image vandalism. Regarding C and D, these are nice but not enforceable. Aside from the fact they should be part of the normal editing process, they are also one-off measures relating to the initial excerpt placement, and thus do not help if the excerpted text is later changed. On a prose quality note, excerpts I've run across usually take from the lead. This will usually cause issues as the ways leads are written and formatted are not the same as what is done in a body. Excerpts would theoretically work best when used to reduce duplication horizontally between articles which would have the same text, as opposed to use within the vertical summary-style structure of Wikipedia articles. CMD (talk) 01:03, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I have several opinions which don't align with the choices, exactly. I'm not sure that excerpts are a great idea to begin with, but I also don't really like duplicated prose. I do agree that if you are going to use an excerpt, you should pull any supporting citations from the body into the excerpted intro and put a note not to drop them or move the definition out to the body (for named references used in more than one place). (Though I will confess when writing summaries of articles I sometimes haven't bothered to pull through the citations because it's already a lot of work and they are just a click away.) You should also merge the content you are deleting into the excerpted article and make sure there's no duplication when reading either article. However, there is no requirement to bring the result of your merge or the content of the excerpt up to any particular standard of quality or verification, assuming you've taken the best parts of each article. As long as you haven't made things worse with the rearrangement, you can just tag any unreferenced claims or other failings as you would on any article. It would be nice of you to do cleanup and fact-checking, but as a volunteer there's no requirement that you do all the things that need to be done yourself, and ensuring logical arrangement of material is helpful work unto itself that reduces the amount of material cleaner-uppers and fact-checkers need to wade through. -- Beland (talk) 23:57, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Good point. You're right about not restricting editors in how they want to make improvements. I think my worry is more about decent quality text being replaced by lower-quality text. A check beforehand would make sure that this won't happen.
 * On the other hand, by putting an excerpt in an article, you make it more difficult for other editors to improve it, as it breaks various tools, and requires editors to switch articles. As such, we may say it's best practice to do some work before including the excerpt, but not make this a (soft) requirement. Femke (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the point made above by User:Chipmunkdavis I am not sure what you mean by "Excerpts would theoretically work best when used to reduce duplication horizontally between articles which would have the same text, as opposed to use within the vertical summary-style structure of Wikipedia articles." I think I roughly know what you mean by "horizontal vs. vertical" but in practice it is hard to distinguish; the same article can be seen as a sub-article in one context but as a "parallel" article in another. Perhaps it's helpful if we look at concrete examples: The articles on ocean acidification and sea level rise are so specific and so full of numbers which need to be updated regularly that I think they are prime candidates to be transcribed in many other articles instead of prose and data being duplicated across articles. You can check with the "what links to here" function where the articles are transcribed. For example in the case of ocean acidification, the lead (or the first half of it) is transcribed 9 times so far, i.e. to these articles: Sea level rise is transcluded 6 times so far: I think our top priority should therefore be to make the leads of such articles into excellent leads. If our conclusion is that those leads need to be fully cited so that they lend themselves better for transclusions then that would be an important conclusion, perhaps something that needs to be added to some guidelines somewhere. Personally, I am not sure if this ought to be the case though because if we don't have an overall policy for leads to be full of citations then why should it necessarily be different when the same lead is transcluded somewhere? You'd think the same rule should apply everywhere, whether it's a "normal" lead or a transcribed lead. So therefore, we would then have to argue that ALL leads should be full of citations.
 * Carbon cycle
 * Phytoplankton
 * Hypercapnia
 * Effects of climate change
 * Marine pollution
 * Ocean
 * Ocean chemistry
 * Effects of climate change on oceans
 * Sustainable Development Goal 14
 * Coast
 * Last Glacial Maximum
 * Effects of climate change
 * Marine transgression
 * Effects of climate change on oceans
 * Salt tolerance of crops

Another example worth looking at is water pollution. It uses 13 excerpts. Some might argue that is too many. I think it's fine and due to the nature of water pollution which is a high level overview article that points people to all the relevant sub-articles like groundwater pollution, marine pollution and so forth. EMsmile (talk) 09:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi! I support B or C (but see below) for the following reasons:
 * I don't support A because I think it stands to reason (not to mention WP:V) that content in well-developed, important and high-traffic articles such as this one should have sources (as option B states) and be checked by the person adding it (as option C states). For newer or less important articles, I'd accept A much more readily. Also, note that WP:LEADCITE only allows (it doesn't recommend) keeping citations out of the lead. If a lead is going to be transcluded here, then citations can be incorporated into the lead before doing so, as there'd now be a good reason to do it. Since this is an important article with lots of traffic, I think editors of the transcluded article would easily agree to move citations to the lead in order to have it transcluded here.
 * I don't support C because requiring transcluded articles to be GA/FA seems overkill, since this article isn't a GA/FA itself, and even if it were, an excerpt may be GA/FA quality even if its source article isn't (very often the lead section is the most well-developed part of an article). Now, option C actually is two options in one, the second one being that the person doing the excerpt should check the content for basic accuracy and prose quality. If that's all option C requires, then I totally support it, it even seems common sense to me, especially in important articles.
 * I don't support D because most readers don't read Wikipedia from top to bottom like a book: rather they skim and skip through the TOC in search for what they want (see meta:Research:Which parts of an article do readers read and other research). Thus, if an excerpt happens to repeat some content putting it into context, then all the better for most users. But just to be clear: I'm not advocating repeating content, only that if it does happen, we shouldn't worry too much about it and barely count it as a downside to excerpts.
 * Kind regards, Sophivorus (talk) 14:26, 22 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Option D for this article; invalid RfC for others. All of these factors are reasonable requirements: B per WP:V, C because as a basic good editing practice you should check text before you add it somewhere, and D as a basic prose quality issue. I note that WP:LEADCITE is a particular challenge for excerpts, given that it's not only allowed but encouraged., would it be possible to create a Include refs on transclusion only template that'd wrap a lead and simplify the use of inclusion control for the references in it? Inclusion control can also solve the issue in D if applied well. Lastly, I have to note that, per WP:CONLEVEL, this RfC has no formal precedent-setting power beyond this particular article. Cheers, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 17:42, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sdkb I guess you can wrap tags with tags. However, I don't see where WP:LEADCITE encourages omitting citations from the lead. Rather it says "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus." which could be taken to encourage citations in the lead if it's also an excerpt. Sophivorus (talk) 17:57, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sophivorus, I guess maybe it's not explicit encouragement to drop citations there, but if you show up to FAC with an article that is just as heavily cited in the lead as the body, it'll draw some comments. Wrapping each individual citation in inclusion tags would be cumbersome and would fail as soon as any unsuspecting new editor tries to add a new lead citation. If we ever want excerpts to be adopted widely, we need to have solutions for issues like this that are clean enough they won't throw off even inexperienced editors. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 04:41, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sdkb Wrapping the lead in a template is a no-go since it'll basically make it uneditable in the VisualEditor. It could be wrapped in a instead (content of a divs is editable in the VisualEditor) and a simple CSS line could then hide all references. But it would hide all references. If we wanted to show some, they'd need to be somehow distinguished in the markup so that the CSS doesn't touch them. That being said, this is all madness to me. Wouldn't it'd be much more reasonable to suggest changes to WP:LEADCITE and FAC to contemplate excerpts, since those guidelines were written before excerpts? Sophivorus (talk) 12:56, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sophivorus, the implementation of excerpts needs to serve our existing best practices, not vice versa. WP:LEADCITE is a very longstanding practice, and I don't see it changing soon, as a lot of editors will argue that omitting citations from the lead serves readers better.
 * On the technical end, the div wrapper sounds promising except for the issue you mentioned. Any ideas how we'd create exceptions? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 20:43, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sdkb Unfortunately it seems tags don't accept a "class" attribute and all accepted attributes have very specific meanings, so using any for this new purpose would be quite hacky and unlikely to be accepted or become popular. We could wrap references with  tags, but it doesn't seem much different to me from using tags in the first place? Sophivorus (talk) 21:57, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure what level to start the RfC. In the end I decided that it would probably be good to have more experience with excerpts at GA level before launching a wider RfC (we're preparing for a GAN). I think it can still be useful as informal advice for similar articles. Femke (talk) 18:09, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Looking at PetScan, there are currently seven GAs and four FAs that use excerpts. Cheers, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 04:44, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Question about water security section
Do all the sentences in that section come from the sources that are mentioned? Some of the sentences seem to be unsourced, like "Between 1.5 and 2.5 billion people live in areas with regular water security issues. If global warming would reach 4 °C, water insecurity would affect about twice as many people. Water resources are projected to decrease in most dry subtropical regions and mid-latitudes, but increase in high latitudes." EMsmile (talk) 12:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, the standard way of citing on Wikipedia is not one citation per sentence. See WP:CITEDENSE. Within a paragraph, a source is typically expected to cover everything back to the previous source. So when you add a new sentence+new source mid-paragraph in a paragraph with one citation, you may be to duplicate the citation. It's not a policy, so you're allowed to put redundant citations in. I usually take them out, as it's a small impediment to readability. Femke (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the rule "one reference per paragraph, not one reference per sentence" is fine when the sentences clearly belong together and can be found in the same section of the publication. This is not the case here. I tried to find the exact page number for the three sentences of this paragraph and failed "Between 1.5 and 2.5 billion people live in areas with regular water security issues. If global warming would reach 4 °C, water insecurity would affect about twice as many people. Water resources are projected to decrease in most dry subtropical regions and mid-latitudes, but increase in high latitudes. As streamflow becomes more variable, even regions with increased water resources can experience additional short-term shortages". Apparently they are all from the 5th IPCC report but where?: https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-Chap3_FINAL.pdf The third sentence I could maybe guess came from page 236 but nowhere do I find something about 1.5-2.5 billion people. What I do find is this "About 80% of the world’s population already suffers serious threats to its water security." but that's different. I also searched for the exact source of the second sentence but could not find it in that IPCC report. In any case, I think the three sentences (if they really did come from the same reference) ought to be strung together with a logical flow. Words like "therefore", "despite of this" and so forth would show that they belong together. EMsmile (talk) 10:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I also find the current formulation misleading as it makes it appear that water security is directly a climate change issue. The point is that climate change makes it worse but the other factors leading to water scarcity might be more directly to be blamed (and possibly easier to address); see article on water scarcity. It's easy nowadays to blame every existing problem on climate change, I think we need to be careful with that with respect to water availability. EMsmile (talk) 10:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Completely overlooked that citation to AR5. Now clarified it's found in the AR6 citation. I read it differently from you, but feel free to add something about other factors that impact water security (population / food production). I think it would be misleading to say that water security isn't direclty a climate change issue: According to AR6 WGII FAQ4.2 in the Water chapter: Nearly half a billion people are living in unfamiliar wet conditions, mostly in mid- and high-latitudes, and over 160 million people are living in unfamiliar dry conditions, mostly in the tropics and sub-tropics. Femke (talk) 17:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll take another look at it soon. Thanks for replacing AR5 with AR6 for this. Water resources have been stretched to the limit in many cases due to rapid population growth, "wasting" a lot of water, more and more irrigation in agriculture, building and growing cities in the "wrong places" (arid climates) and using fossil groundwater for water supply etc. Add climate change on top of it and of course it'll make it all worse still! It's like floods, wildfires and droughts: they were there before as well but climate change makes them worse/more frequent etc.... EMsmile (talk) 14:24, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Should floods and droughts be in the section on weather?
I'm undecided: currently floods and droughts is in the section called "Effects on wildlife and nature". I am wondering if most readers would expect them to be in the section on "weather"? Or even in "effects on humans"? EMsmile (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm very keen on reverting back to only having two subsections in 'wildlife and nature": ecosystems on land, and ecosystems in the ocean.
 * As such, I would place the physics of wildfires and floods in the "physical effects" section, and namedrop them in other sections where appropriate (for instance, just note that drought affect agriculture). Femke (talk) 18:49, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I am unsure if the general public things of floods and droughts as a "weather" phenomenon rather than a "physical effects" phenomenon? I mean, both are so closely related to precipitation (too much of it, too little of it). Should they therefore be in the weather section? (I haven't checked yet where the IPCC report places them)EMsmile (talk) 08:44, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
 * About the oceans section: my idea was to make it a Level 1 heading as it's such a massively important topic. I felt that its sub-headings should be visible in the TOC, like "ocean acidification". Also, it would ensure everything is in one place. If you split it up, e.g. "ecosystems in the ocean" back into the "wildlife and nature" section, the rest into the "physical effects" section then the ocean material is not all in the same section anymore. There is so much overlap between the warming, acidification, effects on animals that I felt it would be better to keep it all together. Overall, I am trying to make it easy for readers to find what they are looking for. The term "effects on physical environment" is not easy to grasp for a layperson. Can we call it something simpler? EMsmile (talk) 08:44, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
 * If we want to have ocean as its own section (and I agree sea level rise and ocean acidification belong in the TOC), we need to structure the rest of the article among the same lines. So having all components of the climate system as it's own heading
 * Atmosphere (we could say weather, for ease of reading)
 * On land
 * Ocean
 * Biosphere (wildlife and nature, for ease of reading)
 * Again, I'm very strongly against mixing climate change 'changes' and 'impacts' in the same section. I really like how the Met Office visualises this: as concentrating circles. It starts with rising GHG levels, then changes in the physical environment, then how this affects life. Pinging @Beland here as well, as they've rewritten the ocean section. Femke (talk) 07:59, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Also would like @Chidgk1's opinion here. Does the above structure make sense? Femke (talk) 08:52, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah sorry, I didn't see this before making the change that I just did about "marine ecosystem", where I moved that paragraph back to the "wildlife and nature" section. I'm a bit undecided what to think of the shortened "ocean" section. Now that it's been shortened that much one could argue it might as well just be an excerpt from the other article (e.g. copy this text across to effects of climate change on oceans, then make into excerpt (with a fully cited lead). I would have preferred to have sea level rise and ocean acidification appearing in the TOC. Come to think of it, sea level rise really ought to be in the TOC, doesn't it? EMsmile (talk) 22:07, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * What do you think of the overall structure? With the next level, this could become:
 * 1 Observed and future warming
 * 2 Effects on weather
 * (Atmosphere)
 * 2.1 Precipitation
 * 2.2 Heat waves and temperature extremes
 * 2.3 Tropical cyclones and storms
 * 3 On land
 * 4.1 Atmosphere
 * 3.1 Floods
 * 3.2 Droughts
 * 3.3 Wildfires
 * 3.4 Biogeochemical cycles
 * 3.5 Permafrost
 * 3.6 Ice and snow
 * 4 Effects on oceans
 * 3.1 Sea level rise
 * 3.2 Acidification
 * 3.3 Sea ice
 * 5 Effects on wildlife and nature
 * 5.1 Terrestrial and wetland systems
 * 5.2 Marine ecosystems
 * This has the disadvantage compared to the current structure that biochemical cycles is very much between the different components of the climate system, so its classification under land is rather arbitrary.. Femke (talk) 08:24, 20 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Re the headline question I like that you have put floods and droughts under "land". Re the top level sections above I also like them such as "weather" and "wildlife and nature" as quite understandable: but things like economic and political effects don't seem to be included. Not sure best heading for those kind of things. I guess "Political, economic and social implications" as suggested earlier or ""Political, economic and social effects"? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:09, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I am confused what people mean by "on land". Is it the same as terrestrial? Then shouldn't the section that is called "on wildlife and nature" be below "on land"? Also isn't there overlap between "weather" and "on land"? I do like the distinction between "land ice" and "sea ice", this could be helpful. If we decide to return to having a sub-structure for the section "on oceans" (and I do think that's useful for those terms to appear in the TOC), then I wonder whether "marine ecosystems" fits better under "on oceans"? And as a general comment, we should be consistent: either include the "effects on..." in every section heading or not include it in any. So then it would become "Effects on land" which sounds a little bit weird. EMsmile (talk) 12:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, on land and terrestrial are the same. The second main reason I'd like to treat effects and impacts in different section is that that makes it more likely impacts on ecosystems get WP:DUE weight. Currently, we're dedicating too little attention to this compared to the IPCC. If we put impacts on life under the 'ocean' or 'land' subsection, they risk staying rather small. Femke (talk) 08:44, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Continuing discussion on structure
Coming back to our discussion on structure. I have now moved droughts, floods and wildfires to the section on "weather" as I felt that for the general public those things are usually related to weather conditions, e.g. a drought often leads to a wildfire. Perhaps the section title should become "weather and related effects"? Hmmm... So the current structure looks like this now: 1 Observed and future warming 1.1Greenhouse gas emissions scenarios

2 Weather 2.1Precipitation (rainfall) 2.2Heat waves and temperature extremes 2.3Tropical cyclones and storms 2.4Floods 2.5Droughts 2.6Wildfires

3 Oceans 3.1Sea level rise 3.2Ocean acidification

3.3Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

4 Ice and snow 4.1Glaciers and ice sheets 4.2Sea ice 4.3Greenland and West Antarctic Ice sheets 4.4Permafrost thawing

5 Wildlife and nature 5.1Terrestrial and wetland systems 5.2Marine ecosystems

6 Abrupt or irreversible changes 6.1Tipping points 6.2Irreversible impacts

7 Impacts on humans 7.1Health 7.2Agriculture 7.3Water security 7.4Economic impact 7.5Displacement and migration 7.6Conflict 7.7Social impacts on vulnerable groups 7.8Human settlement 7.9 Especially affected regions


 * Earlier on you (Femkemilene) suggested a section called "on land" but I wonder if that is IPCC jargon perhaps... As a layperson, the term "on land" means nothing to me. Cities are on land, forests, floods affect land. So anything that is not in the ocean could be "on land". So I find that too vague and don't think it would help us to have a section called "on land". With regards to impacts on humans, I am pondering if that should perhaps be renamed to "Political, economic and social implications" (see also comment by User:Chidgk1 above). Because impacts on humans is maybe too vague as well, given that all the other things like sea level rise, heat waves, floods etc. also all affect humans. So splitting off "effects on humans" seems somewhat unhelpful, as if we could clearly delineate which effects of climate change impact on humans and which don't. They all impact humans directly or indirectly, don't they? EMsmile (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * You mentioned above this website (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/effects-of-climate-change) which tries to differentiate between changes (effects?) and impacts. Their listing looks like this:

Changes to the climate system:
 * Changes in the hydrological cycle
 * Warmer land and air
 * Warming oceans
 * Melting ice
 * Rising sea levels
 * Ocean acidification
 * Global greening
 * Changes in ocean currents
 * More extreme weather

Impacts of climate change: When we talk of "effects of climate change" in our article title, we mean the changes and the impacts, don't we. EMsmile (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Risk to water supplies
 * Conflict and climate migrants
 * Localised flooding
 * Flooding of coastal regions
 * Damage to marine ecosystems
 * Fisheries failing
 * Loss of biodiversity
 * Change in seasonality
 * Heat stress
 * Habitable region of pests expands
 * Forest mortality and increased risk of fires
 * Damage to infrastructure
 * Food insecurity
 * I've changed the section headings now to help us delineate changes from impacts. Does this work?:


 * 1Observed and future changes in temperature
 * 1.1Greenhouse gas emissions scenarios
 * 2Weather-related changes
 * 2.1Precipitation (rainfall)
 * 2.2Heat waves and temperature extremes
 * 2.3Tropical cyclones and storms
 * 3Weather-related impacts
 * 3.1Floods
 * 3.2Droughts
 * 3.3Wildfires
 * 4Changes for oceans
 * 4.1Sea level rise
 * 4.2Ocean acidification
 * 4.3Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
 * 5Ice and snow changes
 * 5.1Glaciers and ice sheets decline
 * 5.2Sea ice decline
 * 5.3Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets decline
 * 5.4Permafrost thawing
 * 6Wildlife and nature impacts
 * 6.1Terrestrial and wetland systems
 * 6.2Marine ecosystems
 * 7Abrupt changes and irreversible impacts
 * 7.1Tipping points
 * 7.2Irreversible impacts
 * 8Impacts on humans
 * 8.1Health
 * 8.2Agriculture
 * 8.3Water security
 * 8.4Economic impact
 * 8.5Displacement and migration
 * 8.6Conflict
 * 8.7Social impacts on vulnerable groups
 * 8.8Human settlements
 * 8.9Impacts for humans in especially affected regions EMsmile (talk) 15:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the current top-level structure works. Thanks for rearranging. Also happy with a rename of the "On humans" section into Socio-economic impacts. Not sure if food and health fall under that term. We could split the human section into two as well
 * 8. Health and food
 * 8.1 Health
 * 8.2 Food security
 * 8.3 Water security
 * 9. Socio-economic impact
 * 9.1 Economic impact
 * 9.2 Impacts on vulnerable groups
 * 9.3 Displacement
 * 9.4 Conflict
 * 9.5 Human settlements
 * 9.6 Especially affected regions
 * Femke (talk) 18:58, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Super, I am really glad you like the new structure (I was a bit nervous as it was a big change). I have now split up the section "on humans" as per your suggestion. It's a bit difficult with the agriculture content because I often also see it in the economic impacts sections of articles. Also we should not forget marine food production which might be hugely impacted as well (that's why I added it to the food security section). - The climate change article links to the "on humans" section of this article. Where should it link now instead? EMsmile (talk) 14:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That link can be removed imo. There are already a lot of further reading links, and the main effects of climate change is already linked before. Femke (talk) 17:17, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Reminder: need to add content on forestry
We need to add some content on effects on forestry but I don't have the information at my fingertips. I just read in a book about climate change effects in Germany how profoundly forests in Germany (and presumably similar countries) will be affected: I am thinking here of trees dying due the drought damage coupled with certain pest insects. Changes in types of trees that can grow in the new climate etc. Will try to work on this or if someone else has info available, please add. EMsmile (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Good point. There are two angles we can take: talk about forests (under nature), or forestry (the human management of forests, in "Socio-economic impacts"). I think the first option makes the most sense, and would fit nicely under the heading "terrestrial and wetland systems". The current subsection is a bit too short (typically, one should not split a section with two short paragraphs into subsections, per MOS:OVERSECTION).
 * Talking about that section heading, it's a bit jargonny. Would "ecosystems on land" be better? Femke (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, good idea about "ecosystems on land". Have changed that now. I think the forests and forestry issues belong in two places: once in the "ecosystems on land" section about natural forests, including the Amazon. And once in the economy section when it comes to farmed trees (=forestry) and tourism/recreation? EMsmile (talk) 01:01, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * We could add a short sentence to the agriculture paragraph of the economy section. I don't see how tourism is related to forestry? Not a whole lot of tourism taking place in forests? The European Commission website also groups those together. Tourism is a separate heading. Femke (talk) 08:50, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh but tourism in relationship with forests is huge (do we need to distinguish between forests and forestry perhaps?). Or is it only huge in Germany? Here, many people love to visit forests for weekend recreation or holidays. Think Black Forest, Spessart for example but there are many more. I would assume it's similar for other European countries that still have nice forests (Scandinavian countries maybe?). - And I am wondering if our article on effects of climate change on agriculture ought to be broadened to "effects of climate change on agriculture and forestry". EMsmile (talk) 21:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * What source do you have that states that the effect of climate change on tourism in forests is important? I very much doubt it's due for this article. Tourism in countries that "overheat" during summer and winter sports are much more affected (see f.i. the EC website linked above). Femke (talk) 16:15, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry, nothing at my finger tips (just a Germany book that I am currently reading, detailing how forests in Germany will deteriorate by 2050 but it hasn't got specific figures on tourism numbers). Will keep looking but I also put this section here on the talk page in the hope that it will spark others into action as well, or that someone else has that kind of data at their fingertips. Forestry will be affected, just like agriculture. But it might fit better into a broadened article on effects of climate change on agriculture and forestry. EMsmile (talk) 17:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

How big should the section on "Displacement and migration" be?
I feel that the section on "Displacement and migration" is perhaps a bit too long now and that content should be moved to climate refugee (this topic doesn't exist as a stand-alone article yet, it's part of environmental migrant). Or it could be the other war around: that the bulk of information sits here and that climate refugee links to here for more information. So where should the bulk of information be, which article do we see as main and which as sub? Again, I'd like to avoid too much repetition & overlap between the two articles. EMsmile (talk) 13:09, 21 March 2022 (UTC)


 * As suggested above, I think 2-3 paragraphs is appropriate. I wouldn't like to see this content moved before scrutiny, as part of it is written by a now-blocked user (because of the merge, I don't know which). They had a habit of POV pushing and poor source-text integrity. Note that scientific and legal sources will avoid the term climate refugee, as climate-related migration does not work with the legal definition of refugee. Environmental migrant is definitely the place most of this information sits best. Femke (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes you are right it should be a very short summary here Chidgk1 (talk) 05:47, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll try to help but 2-3 paragraphs would be longer than a very short summary... Hmmm... Also, how could I identify this: "They had a habit of POV pushing and poor source-text integrity."? Are you saying the person added refs to the end of sentences but when one opens those refs they don't actually have those statements in them? - Note also that I have just proposed on the talk page of environmental migrant to create a sub-article called climate migrant. This might make our lives easier. EMsmile (talk) 14:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The sources were misrepresented and cherry-picked in different, sometimes subtle ways. The user exaggerated the migration caused by cliamte change. I've gone over the text once, so the worst should be out. But do be critical when rewriting. Femke (talk) 20:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I have now created a spin-off article called climate migrant from environmental migrant. This should now make it easier to tidy up the section on "Displacement and migration". EMsmile (talk) 08:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

GA: to do list
Feel free to add more things to the list, or write your name if you want to tackle something. I'm still finding duplications of ideas from the almost finished merges. Pinging and
 * 1) Decide on structure ✅
 * 2) Make sure all section have appropriate weight
 * 3) Check if all excerpts agree with RfC. Replace the excerpt about glaciers with up-to-date text
 * 4) Expand subsection terrestrial a bit (+50%?)
 * 5) Integrate tipping points into the text ✅
 * 6) Update (we cite the 2007 IPCC report about 40 times, a lot of which needs updating)
 * 7) Update sea level rise (Femke) ✅
 * 8) Food security
 * 9) Water security ✅
 * 10) Health (note that we need WP:MEDRS)
 * 11) Economics (note that the excerpt is partially off-topic, and partially duplicates food security)
 * 12) More?
 * 13) Completely rewrite displacement (partially written by topic-banned user, who did not take text-source integrity seriously). Condense to two/three paragraphs (Femke)
 * 14) Further eliminate systemic bias (Nigeria + India + China + Indonesia are now mentioned less than the US)
 * 15) Textual
 * 16) Graphs and photos
 * 17) Tag and address unreliable sources/missing sources
 * 18) Sign up for WP:GOCE
 * 19) Improve the section on precipitation (reduce repetition, decide on using only newer sources or also keeping those older sources, e.g. NOAA 2007)

Optional
 * 1) See if the misalignment of figures from excerpts can be fixed by technical editors
 * 2) Provide alts for figures Femke (talk) 17:36, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a great list, thanks for putting it together. It's a daunting task but overall worthwhile to do. I'll try to contribute where I can. EMsmile (talk) 12:03, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Section about Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
Regarding the section about "Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)": I am a bit confused: which is the main sub-article that would feed the content of this section? Is it Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Shutdown of thermohaline circulation? Is there perhaps a case to be made to merge the two articles together? I have the feeling that they overlap a lot and that a merger might reduce the amount of work needed to keep them both up to date? EMsmile (talk) 12:32, 21 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I think the articles as currently organised should be merged. Both cite a lot of medium-old studies (2017 and before), while this is a subject of intense study. Another example where our limited resources are the main reason I'd support a merge to ensure old material is deleted and stays deleted. Femke (talk) 08:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'll add the merger tags but I am unsure which should be merged into which, and what the preferred new article title should be? I am guessing Shutdown of thermohaline circulation should be merged into Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and is that an ideal (or good enough) title? EMsmile (talk) 21:41, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed twice, that is the ideal title :). Femke (talk) 16:12, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * OK, merger tags added. Wondering what other search terms members of the public may use for this. Those search terms should then redirect to there. (Myself, I did know about that ocean current issue but had never heard of AMOC until very recently; just as one example of a member of the public) EMsmile (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The media often confuses the Gulf Stream and AMOC. I've recently seen the term Gulf Stream System used a synonym for AMOC (f.i. this UCL press release). Even if the AMOC were to shut down, the Gulf Stream would remain in some form. Not sure if Gulf Stream System has a unique meaning. Femke (talk) 19:23, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Done that one - while I am in merging mood how about Talk:Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation? Chidgk1 (talk) 12:14, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Sentence about contrasts in precipitation amounts
(moved from above): Regarding this sentence, I also didn't understand it: "Warming has increased contrasts in precipitation amounts between wet and dry seasons and weather regimes over tropical lands. " I have discussed the sentence in question further with Thian. He suggests this new wording which is easier to understand: "Warming by GHG forcing has increased contrasts in precipitation amounts between wet and dry seasons and in regions over tropical lands. It has also resulted in a detectable increase in the precipitation of northern high latitudes." What do you think? EMsmile (talk) 23:32, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The part about northern high latitudes would fit in the first sentence, which talks about geographical increase/decrease. We'd talk about 4 different regions, which is difficult to do in nice prose... Probably split the sentence into one about drying and one about getting rainier.
 * I still don't understand what contrast there is "in regions over tropical lands". Between what? I'd just omit it. Femke (talk) 08:41, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Further e-mail exchanges with Thian has led me now to this formulation: "Warming has increased the contrast in precipitation amounts between wet and dry seasons (colloquially: "wet seasons are getting wetter, dry seasons are getting drier"). Warming has also increased the contrasts between wet and dry tropical weather regimes over tropical regions. Furthermore, it has resulted in a detectable increase in the precipitation of northern high latitudes." What do you think? EMsmile (talk) 17:34, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I would leave out the sentence about weather regimes. I've read it a few times, and still not sure I understand. The other two sentences can be integrated, as long as duplication is avoided. F.i. the first sentence already talks about more precipitation in the subpolar regions. Femke (talk) 18:42, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I think this is potentially important information and we have an author of the WG I report available on tap right now (Thian Gan). He's been trying to improve the sentence over several iterations by now so I don't think we should give up and omit it. In which sense do you find it unclear? I think it's understandable now but perhaps I only think I understand it and if you point out what is unclear exactly then I'll get your point. Overall, is this a good example of how hard it is to translate climate science information into language that is accurate and understandable for the general public? EMsmile (talk) 21:54, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
 * A problem is that most people won't know what a "weather regime" is Chidgk1 (talk) 15:30, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That. Is it a spatio-temporal thing, or mostly spatial, mostly temporal. Is it something that happens on a weekly scale, or more like a monthly scale, or all of it. Meteorology was part of my masters, but I only have a vague idea what it is.. I do not think it's a necessary sentence here either. Even if we explain it well, we already detail many other types of rainfall contrasts, so that our readers will lose interest in the text. Femke (talk) 17:17, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes the "weather regime" part could be explained only in articles about tropical countries where it is important I guess. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I am assuming that "weather regime" could be substituted with "weather pattern", right? (note there is no Wikipedia entry for "weather regime"). With regards to "we already detail many other types of rainfall contrasts, so that our readers will lose interest in the text." - are you referring to the section on "precipitation"? It's true that similar concepts are explained there but I find the references in that entire section are lacking or rather old. A reference from 2007 is cited several times. The first paragraph of "precipitation" has only one reference from 2007. I'd rather replace and improve that with the WG I report content and reference by using an improved version of the sentence that I had proposed above. I am sure there will be a way of paraphrasing it so that it's clear und understandable to everyone. Or we could also investigate other parts of the report to see what it says about your queestion of spatial or temporal. The point is, we have an expert available willing to answer our clarification questions by e-mail (Thian Gan) so why let that rare opportunity pass? (yes, it's time consuming) EMsmile (talk) 09:28, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right about the paragraph being undersourced. Please do replace it. I don't know if weather regime and pattern are the same. If you would really like to include it, feel free to contact Thian again, if you think he really wouldn't mind. Femke (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I got a bit side-tracked but coming back to this now. I asked Thian and he replied Weather regimes aim to describe recurrent, quasi-stationary, and persistent states of the atmospheric circulation in a specific region. Precipitation generally tends to generally exhibit both large spatial and temporal variability, instead of just one or the other. Does this help us? I guess at some point we should work on the article effects of climate change on the water cycle. Recently, I've done a bit of work on water security which also touches on this (again, the readability of that article still needs to be improved). EMsmile (talk) 09:54, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Thinking of converting the referencing style to short ref style
I'm thinking of converting the referencing style to short ref style, for the reasons that I wrote about here. Does anyone object? The article does have lots of references but we'll likely remove some of the earlier IPCC report references (e.g. from 2007) and update them with the 2022 report, so the list might get a little bit shorter. EMsmile (talk) 20:43, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Reworking some content in relation to the water cycle
I received some comments for this article from Kevin E. Trenberth by e-mail in a marked-up Word document which I will add over the coming days. I am still trying to work out how much about the water cycle should be here versus what needs to be moved to effects of climate change on the water cycle. Information about changes to precipitation is strictly speaking one of the components of effects of climate change on the water cycle but one would also expect to see information about it here. I guess the overall idea is to use summary style here and to put further details in the sub-sub-article effects of climate change on the water cycle. It won't be easy but I'll try. EMsmile (talk) 12:20, 29 September 2022 (UTC) Here are some comments that he wrote in the marked-up Word document which I will try to incorporate (after finding the right references):
 * While it is true that land responds faster, the regional changes vary: at high latitudes it is nearly all temperature, while for the oceans and tropics it is rainfall and the water cycle. (edit: I have added this now)
 * This refers to amounts, and those may not change much (partly because of aerosol pollution, but the intensity and frequency changes are more robust.
 * The cause is increased drying, exacerbated by higher temperature. The increased heat contributes to both!
 * And very warm air incursions into the Arctic! (edit: I have added this now)
 * See my book: Increased heating leads to more activity manifested as increased intensity, bigger and longer lasting storms with greater rainfalls.  Not clear wrt number.
 * This shows that the biggest cause of drought is ENSO and when properly accounted for drought is increasing!: Trenberth, K. E., A. Dai, G. van der Schrier, P. D. Jones, J. Barichivich, K. R. Briffa, and J. Sheffield, 2014: Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate Change, 4, 17-22, doi: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2067 EMsmile (talk) 12:26, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Another comment by the same reviewer was that the section on "weather-related changes" should "include aspects related to the intermittency and extremes of the water cycle: the intensity, frequency etc. That also relates to dry spells and drought." not sure yet how to address this. EMsmile (talk) 08:02, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing of sentences that come from the IPCC report?
I am referring to a recent edit that User:Femke made where she put in the edit summary: "please do not use quotes when easy paraphrasing is possible." I have two concerns with this: Or is this nit picking? It's a general concern I have though. I am very hesitant to alter the wording of those important statements from the IPCC report. This is how errors can get introduced. (I wish the IPCC reports were simply open access, then it would be a lot easier and we wouldn't have to artificially alter the text even when their words are clear and easy to understand!) EMsmile (talk) 21:32, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Firstly, we are not really meant to use close paraphrasing WP:CLOP but summarise - which I find very hard when it comes to statements from the IPCC reports.
 * Secondly, the IPCC reports (especially the technical summaries) are already summarised and every single word has been thought about long or hard. If we do close paraphrasing, we might by mistake change the meaning. For example, you have now made it this: There is disagreement in the scientific literature on how droughts are impacted by climate change.. But the original statement was this: In the scientific literature there are "conflicting results of how drought is changing under climate change". I am not sure if "are impacted by CC" is the same as "is changing under CC". I think droughts are changing but not "impacted by" CC. Also I am not sure if "disagreement in the literature" is the same as "conflicting results".
 * Good news, I've just discovered Quillbot thanks to User:Clayoquot here. This will help me enormously with converting quotes into "my own words" / paraphrasing them. It still leaves the risk of changing the (nuanced) meaning from IPCC statements by mistake but I suppose this is a risk we have to manage and live with. EMsmile (talk) 12:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Wrapping my head around the content about "effects on oceans"
I am currently trying to streamline this article with the one on effects of climate change on oceans and effects of climate change on the water cycle. When it comes to oceans the same content could be in all three articles. I assume we want to structure it so that the ocean content at effects of climate change on oceans is high level and then the more detailed content sits at effects of climate change on oceans? For example:
 * I received more comments by Thian Gan (IPCC author): "There isn’t much observations of precipitation and evaporation over oceans, but I believe it is possible to estimate P & E using remote sensing data especially regarding precipitation, e.g., Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and GOES IR brightness temperature data? May be you can add a sentence about such data somewhere?". Should this go here or rather at effects of climate change on oceans?
 * I also received comments by Kevin Trenberth and he commented "Needs a section on ocean heat content." Again, would that go here or at effects of climate change on oceans or both but with different degree of detail?
 * Then there is also the question of excerpts. For an article that is called "effects of ..." I think using excerpts can be good but I can also see the danger of making an article become a bit disjointed and cumbersome to read. If I read the previous discussion right we agreed that excerpts can be used but sparingly. Maybe they are particularly useful when it's about a topic where the numbers are still changing rapidly or continuously (like sea level rise, ocean acidification). EMsmile (talk) 07:16, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I've just made some bold changes to the section on "effects of climate change on oceans". I know we have talked about excerpts before - theirs pros and cons. This is what I did:


 * I have now replaced the text about oceans that was there with one long excerpt from the lead of effects of climate change on oceans (taking the entire lead). The text that I replaced was essentially nearly the same as the lead of the sub-article because I had earlier used the text to build up & improve the sub-article's lead. So no content was lost.
 * I then deleted the excerpts that were there for SRL, ocean acidification and ocean heat content.
 * I also deleted the text about AMOC (that text was too focussed on the collapse of the AMOC which we now know is not regarded likely, only a weakening is likely - and this is explained in detail in the effects of climate change on oceans article). So essentially, I've replaced 3 excerpts with one. EMsmile (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If people think some of those excerpts need to come back, then perhaps the one on sea level rise might be a candidate to be brought back but perhaps not so much in the section on oceans but in the section on coasts/people as it will affect habitats along the coast. EMsmile (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I know the problem with excerpts and sub-articles can be that it distorts the WP:DUE weight that a topic should get. But I think because the transcribed text from the effects of climate change on oceans is now quite long and detailed, this should be OK. For any other solution I think it would be hard to prevent excessive overlap and additional workload for having to always updated two articles about oceans instead of one. EMsmile (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Also if anyone has time, I welcome you to take a look at effects of climate change on oceans. It's taking shape nicely. I am not quite finished with my reworking efforts (which are based on comments by Tim Jickells who had also kindly helped to improve the ocean article last year) but nearly there. EMsmile (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Changing over to long ref style
I plan to convert this article's ref list to long ref style to make it more consistent, easier to move content from one article to another, easier for newcomers. Also the long ref style works better when articles use excerpts from other articles. Does anyone object? I've recently made this conversion at ocean heat content and sea level rise, too. I guess the default for this article is already long ref style, and only 13 are in the short ref style so it shouldn't be controversial. Not sure if there was a reason some time ago to have this mixture? Perhaps it came about because content was copied from climate change, which uses short ref style. Not sure. EMsmile (talk) 20:55, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Principles of Ecology
— Assignment last updated by Brooklynbiology (talk) 21:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA22 - Sect 200 - Thu
— Assignment last updated by VenusL (talk) 17:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA22 - Sect 201 - Thu
— Assignment last updated by Sssara7 (talk) 21:00, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Content removed that had been added by a student on 22 Nov
I am removing this content that was added by a student (User:Curioussoul25) on 22 Nov. This content is not encyclopedic (things like "are known for their great buildings"), it is using a primary source from an older ref (2016) and it is writing about content that is already covered elsewhere in the article. This is the text block that I removed:

Low Lying Coastal Regions


Sea level rise is a growing issue for coastal areas. Due to low elevation and increasing temperatures, cities are at great risk of being flooded. The population, area, and tree species will be affected and consequently city infrastructure will face severe damage as well, which will result in failures and destruction of critical infrastructure, immobilization due to transportation system breakdowns, blackouts, and salinity increasing in water supplies. Cities are robust and have numerous important infrastructures and are known for their great buildings, however, due to inland flooding and high levels of precipitation can cause erosion and damage to the infrastructures. Furthermore, the continuing sea-level rise will cause the loss of soil storage capacity due to extreme flooding which can impact soil quality and tree health. "When the water level is high it allows the waves and the erosion process to act farther up on the beach profile, causing a readjustment and resulting in a net erosion of the beach." EMsmile (talk) 10:42, 13 December 2022 (UTC) EMsmile (talk) 10:42, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

More content removed that had been added by a student on 22 Nov
I am also removing this content for similar reasons as above. In addition, if anything, this should go in to the sub-article: effects of climate change on health and effects of climate change on mental health. However, I see that it is not using recent references, not following WP:MEDRS, some of it is WP:SYNTH. I am sorry to disappoint this student but I think there is no other option than to remove this. Effects of Climate Change on Mental Health According to Deutsches Arzteblatt International, many studies have highlighted the risk of mental illness being higher in cities than in rural areas. The world is already facing the effects of climate change and is said to continue to experience various impacts of climate change on mental health causing mental health to be a growing concern. Physical health impacts such as air quality and respiratory illness, injury from extreme weather conditions, spread of vector borne disease s are due to the effects of climate change. These health impacts burden mostly on low-income or vulnerable populations. Furthermore, extreme weather conditions cause interference in social, economic, and environmental systems and distress about the future, leading to health and mental health problems. Rising temperature can lead to an increase in sea levels and an increase in natural disasters, resulting in cities and communities being heavily impacted. These events can cause acute traumatic stress that is alleviated after conditions are stabilized, but also many residents can also face post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that can affect and trigger depression, anxiety, and fear. Some studies suggest that sea level rise, heavy precipitation, and coastal flooding can cause gastrointestinal illness. Research on a community impacted by Hurricane Katrina revealed high rates of depression, domestic violence, suicide attempts, and cases of PTSD. Due to displacement, loss of employment, and infrastructure damage, many community members experienced stress, increasing cases of abuse and violence on both adults and children.

Increase in seasonal allergies due to Climate change

Urban areas are also a hotspot for the impacts of climate change has caused temperatures and CO2 levels to increase. According to a study by the United Nations, cities account for 75 percent of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors. A highly controlled experiment by Zika and Caulfield illustrated the increase of CO2 causing an increase in photosynthesis, vegetative growth, and pollen production. The genus Ambrosia that consists of A artemisiifolia and A trifida which causes allergic rhinitis increasing seasonal allergies. During various experiments done to find the correlation between climate change in urban areas, the growth response of ragweed occurred 3–4 days earlier in urban sites and above ground biomass increased by 8%-10% at semi-rural sites, 61%-66% in the suburban sites in 2000-2001 and by 189% at the urban site in 2001. Subsequently, earlier pollen shed at urbanized sites. Climate change caused varying production rates of pollen in different areas. In cities rising temperatures and CO2 levels caused to show a relation between climate change and exposure to pollen due to increased biomass of ragweed plants that cause allergies. EMsmile (talk) 10:51, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Content removed about lightning
I am removing this content about lightning which was added by a student User:Eisha Afzal on 22 Nov. It is going into too much detail and thus not following WP:DUE, also difficult to understand, using outdated sources. We could say something about lightning but then it should come from the latest IPCC AR 6 WG I report. I had a quick look and the situation is quite complex, as far as I can see. So we would have to get it right and accurate. I see lightning, an in particular NOx lightning is mentioned in the WG I report but it's not mentioned in the summary for policy makers nor the technical summary. The main climate change article says nothing about lightning.

Lightning


Lightning strikes occur more frequently in hot weather. According to a study published in 2014, the number of lightning strikes will increase by about 12% for every degree of rise in global average air temperature. However, the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. The well developed cities exert its consequences or influences upon the climate and the pollution of the city which in return affects the frequency and the effects of the thunderstorms and the lightning. The mid developed cities were found to have less impact on the thunderstorm while the large cities had warmer temperatures which lead to increased severity of the thunderstorms. The studies show that the urban areas modify their climate in terms of temperature and the rainfall it receives. Convection is one of the ways that the urban areas are able to change their climate. Two cities larger in size had dramatic differences in terms of the thunderstorm and the lightning they received, the differences were due to the population that each city held. The city with the most population produced more convection and the results related to the formation of the thunderstorms. The cities which are mid sized produced almost the same amount of the influences to modify their climate but the results do not explicitly show the effects on the convection. In Atlanta, the thunderstorms were happening at much more higher frequency on the weekdays than on the weekends. The effects of the lightining are also crucial to the trees and the ecosystem. The study done in 2016, by Abatzpglou and Williams, the percentage of the fires caused by the lightning was 40% from 1992 to 2013 in the Western areas of the United States. The lightning affects the trees which are planted in the certain areas which receives the most lightning and affecting the carbon cycle of the trees. The study done in 2009 by Bell el al, shows that the level of the aerosol have increased by the middle of the week by the amount of the people travelling through transportation. The increase in transportation and the aerosol gives rise to the thunderstorms especially in the cities where the humidity level are high or the temperature which is higher due to infrastructure such as; buildings which capture the heat.

EMsmile (talk) 11:09, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Content removed about urban floods
I'm sorry but I need to remove more of the student-added content. This was also added by User:Eisha Afzal on 22 November. It makes sweeping statements (a sentence such as "The urban areas are prone to receiving more rainfall"), is poorly sourced, deviating from main topic and giving overly specific examples from the United States. Note we have a separate article on urban flooding. Using the IPCC AR 6 report as a reference would be so much better.

This is the removed text: "The urban areas are prone to receiving more rainfall. The enormous amount of rainfall produces the pluvial flooding. The rural areas do not receive such type of flooding due to their infrastructure and the amount of the roads which cover the areas. The urban areas have concrete roads and the amount of the surface which has the ability to absorb the water is less than the rural or non-urban areas. Due to the surface differences, the water builds up in the cities and causing floods which also damage the infrastructure and the mass density of the people residing in the cities. Salt Creek, Illinois face both the small and large floods, and there has been increase in the small floods by 200 percent and due to the frequency that the small floods occur in, the consequence can be same as the large floods. The data showed direct correlation between the increase in floods and increase in urbanization. In Maryland, the frequency of the moderate floods had increased from 1940 in which the state experienced the floods once or twice a year to 1990 in which the flood was experienced up to six times. " EMsmile (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Removed sentences that had been added to the lead
The students will hate me but I am sorry I need to removed this content that was added to the lead by User:Ablip on 14 November. The statements are too sweeping, poorly sourced and e.g. the content about sea level rise is repetitive. Why did the students add such old publications in their edits, why not use the latest IPCC AR 6 WG I report for new content? I don't understand that. Here is the removed text: "Species biodiversity in urban areas is at risk due to the effects of climate change. Urbanization and industrialization have been linked to various factors of climate change such as pollution and temperature changes. Sea level rise remains a major concern for cities are along coastlines, affecting human settlements and infrastructure. The cities with warmer temperatures tend to have more frequent and severe thunderstorms and lightning." EMsmile (talk) 11:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Removed content about urban development
I also removed this text block that was added by User:Ablip on 14 November. It's a wild mixture of topics and jumps around a lot. Also it uses a reference from 2006. Why are you adding content in 2022 by using references from 16 years ago. I really don't get it. This is the text block: "Urban development and population contributes to climate change through factors such as pollution, deforestation, habitat destruction, and spread of disease. Scientists have linked these changes to a decrease in biodiversity in urban regions as a result of human interference. Ecologists Limburg and Schmidt found that there is a higher water temperature and temperature change in urban environments compared to non urban environments. Moreover, most major cities are found along coastal zones and are home to a number of diverse species. Urbanization through building structures and city design like flood defenses in turn impact biodiversity. Storm flooding and coastal erosion in these regions can lead to more water pollution, such as finding metals and ammonia in stream water, can lead to a decline in aquatic biota. Climate change also affects the amount of precipitation annually and seasonally; a reduction in the amount of snowfall in the winter months affects the spring vegetation and overall health of plants. " EMsmile (talk) 11:34, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Lost good content about floods? And multiple images
Hi USer:RCraig09 I think you have by mistake removed a whole paragraph on good content about floods when you made this change here. Could you please review that? It took me a while to find the occasion where the good content about floods that we had in this article got lost. I think it was in your edit and I assume it was by accident? EMsmile (talk) 11:25, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The edit you mention adds an image. It doesn't delete a paragraph. You can add back the paragraph based on older versions of the article. — RCraig09 (talk) 17:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That edit of yours on 8 November didn't just add an image, it also overwrote a paragraph of text. The one starting with "A warming climate will intensify rainfall events." I have re-instated the text now but I had just wanted to check if you had intentionally removed that paragraph or if it happened by mistake. EMsmile (talk) 08:25, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Now I see. That paragraph had been embedded after an earlier image without a line break. Changing to  made the paragraph disappear! — RCraig09 (talk) 16:40, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, good to know. Myself, I haven't worked much with multiple images before, except for those image collages (2x2) in the lead. What is your philosophy with multiple images, i.e. when would you say they are good to have, and how wide can they get, and do they display well on mobile phones? Just curious. EMsmile (talk) 10:31, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Comments about the student-added content that I removed
I just wanted to give a wrap-up about all the student-added content that I had removed earlier in the week (see above on this talk page and in the revision history page). I am actually a bit sad about it because I am sure the students meant well and now their content had to be removed. I feel that they should have been guided better. Some thoughts:
 * In particular, they should have been guided to not use old publications when writing about the effects of climate change (from 2006!?) but to mainly refer to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report for newer content and publications.
 * Their content was technically not wrong but too low-quality for an article such as this one which is high level and which were are trying to eventually bring to WP:GA. Many of the statements were "sweeping", in effect blaming climate change for a range of other things like the effects of urbanisation, pollution etc.
 * I also wrote on the instructor's talk page about it (here). The course description was here.
 * Perhaps it would have been better to let the students work on the smaller sub-articles like effects of climate change on terrestrial animals, effects of climate change in New Zealand. Some of their content I moved to those sub-articles and their talk pages.
 * I am also a bit disappointed that it took me (and other Wikipedians) so long to spot this quality problem, even though I and many others have this page on our watchlist (those student edits started about six weeks ago). It's hard to find the time to keep up with everything though. Also, given that this was not spam-type content, it was harder to spot that it wasn't high enough quality, I would say. EMsmile (talk) 10:40, 15 December 2022 (UTC)


 * If I understood the course page right it seems that the instructor was hoping the students would be able to start new articles. If the students had seen the list of requested articles from redirects at WikiProject Climate change they could perhaps have attempted Earth System Model. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:34, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Article Strengths and overall status
This article is great following the wikipedia guidelines. In addition the images provide a great enhanced understanding of the topic. And they are laid out in a very appealing way. Also, the article provides a neutral and lengthy value in of information, giving a enough representation over each subtopic. Delbel4567 (talk) 21:28, 1 February 2023 (UTC) Delbel4567 (talk) 02:29, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Plant Ecology Winter 2023
— Assignment last updated by Dracaena trifasciata (talk) 01:30, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Worked on heatwave section, needs more work
I've done a bit of work on the heatwave section. I've moved content from heat wave to here, then transcribed the section to heat wave by using the excerpt function. I still need to tidy up the refs (short ref style not so suitable for excerpts). I think we should also replace the IPCC AR5 (2013) report with the newer IPCC AR6 report (2022). If anyone has time to do this, feel free. You might get there before I do. I mean these three sentences which all come from the 2013 report: "Climate change will lead to more very hot days and fewer very cold days. The frequency, length and intensity of heat waves will very likely increase over most land areas. Higher growth in greenhouse gas emissions would cause more frequent and severe temperature extremes. " EMsmile (talk) 21:02, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

The sentence from the lead about regional changes
I am removing this for now as I couldn't find it in those (or similar) words in Kevin Trenberth's book. I have the book in front of me and can see info on high latitudes etc but not the exact same statement. Have also messaged him to ask if maybe a different ref would be better. Perhaps the sentence is not overly clear either: "The regional changes vary: at high latitudes it is the average temperature that is increasing, while for the oceans and tropics it is in particular the rainfall and the water cycle where changes are observed." EMsmile (talk) 16:21, 28 March 2023 (UTC) EMsmile (talk) 16:21, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Here is the answer I received from Kevin Trenberth. How can we utilise it? I am unsure: "That is a sound statement but not sure where if it is stated anywhere in my papers. It is effectively stated in and in Similarly it is implicit in my book but not stated quite that way so succinctly. At high latitudes there is next to no moisture in the air: it is freeze dried whether over land or ocean or ice.  Land vs ocean matters little as both are covered in ice.  Land in lower latitudes is an exception because it depends on water availability: e.g. deserts.  It never rains!  So available excess energy goes into evaporation where moisture is available but increases with Clausius Clapeyron at rate of 7% per deg C temperature, which is what rules out the high latitudes."

Wiki Education assignment: WR120
— Assignment last updated by WilsonSaintusJr (talk) 05:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The mentioning of the term disaster
I noticed that we have mentioned the term disaster a few times but have not wikilinked it. Should we wikilink it to disaster or to natural disaster? In the context of climate change the term "natural disaster" can be less useful. An expert - who's giving me advice for the article effects of climate change on human health pointed out: "The SREX was clear that disasters arise from the intersection of weather events and underlying human/natural system vulnerabilities. There are no natural disasters." (SREX is this report from 2011)

Maybe we have purposefully not mentioned the term natural disaster in this article, only disaster? (the AR 6 WG II report defines disaster in its glossary as this "A ‘serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts’"

Is the right approach still to wikilink the term disaster to natural disaster as that is what the relevant article is called? EMsmile (talk) 09:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, the main climate change article does not mention disaster once and the term disastrous only once. I guess that is not a coincidence. EMsmile (talk) 09:55, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I wlinked Disaster as it covers both natural and unnatural. But I don’t feel strongly if anyone wants to change or undo Chidgk1 (talk) 10:52, 24 April 2023 (UTC)