User:Acostadc/sandbox

Article Evaluation - Holocene - holocene

Content


 * The information of the article is relevant to the topic Holocene since it mentions the dates and stages. It talks about the climatic of it which we have discussed in class, how the ice age temperature changes went from slower cooling to rapid warming periods. A distraction that happened during the reading of the article was the amount of glacial periods mentioned at points would be confusing.
 * Some information that could be added to improve the article is the mentioning of the Milankovitch cycles/forcing of ice ages and the rapid variations (eg. El Nino) since it will allow the reader to understand the climate variability that the Holocene had. The dates and divisions of the Holocene article are outdated and not consistent.
 * The organization of the article can be improved in a way that the information flows and does not have run off sentences. The article had the same layout as an online article called “Holocene Epoch” on the website Geology page. This article was not even referenced which can be considered plagiarism. The article overall lacks original research and verifiability.

Tone


 * The article is indeed neutral since there are no claims being done. Instead it is using previous research conclusions to help support evidences of climate and geology during the Holocene era.
 * The article was underrepresenting the Holocene as the “age of humans” since it only focused on the human developments that came after human species evolve. It should have given even a brief explanation of how the human species evolved/contributed during the Holocene era to help understand more.

Sources


 * The links to the reference list does work, however, some of the pages that opened where just graphs and pictures instead of more peer reviewed articles to support the topic. Some the links were private and was unable to open the website and check the information. The links in the reference section would open a new tab in wikipedia itself, which was not a reliable reference to include. Some of the references were not even used in the article had, hence here was no relevance or connection.

Talk Page


 * There was a conversation about what makes Holocene distinct from the Pleistocene, the lack of proper pronunciation throughout the article, and the dates and divisions of the holocene are incorrect and unofficial. People have edited the article in different areas to improve the article but there is still room for improvement.
 * This article has been rated as start-class (meaning an intermediate article with room of improvement) and high importance. It is also part of the WikiProject for geology.
 * This topic of Holocene on Wikipedia branches out more on ecological and human developments compared in class we have focused more on the climate and geology part of it. We have discussed about the temperature changes of the ice age and the primary effects such as tectonics and changes to Earth.

Article Selection


 * 1) 1 - climate change and ecosystems

This article's content is very relevant to the topic in discussing the impacts of forest, mountains, agriculture as well as the ecological productivity. The information in the article is presented to not biased, and seems to come from reliable sources (although not hyperlinked), used in text citations. Some of the citations are from peer reviewed articles that are reliable. This article is rated C-class on quality scale and is part of the WikiProject Ecology, Environment, and Future studies.

Information that can be added: The article can include the impacts climate change has towards water quality. Under the sub heading of impacts, it can elaborate more on the extinction the arctic species such as the polar bears are facing. This topic can expand in how glaciers are melting and how this is affecting both species and the environment around them.


 * 1) 2 - ecology

This article's content is very relevant to the topic where the give a variety of topics that include the biology, biodiversity, distribution, biomass, and populations of organisms, as well as the competition between species. The definition of ecology is explained in the introduction. This article provides a generous amount of reliable sources with in text citations included. The article is written in a neutral language and very scientific.


 * 1) 3 - carbon cycle

This article provides definition of the carbon cycle and the main components that are involved. It is relevant to the topic in order to understand the function of the carbon cycle. The section of human influence is not well cited. There are some in text citations missing and majority of the references listed are from websites and not enough peer reviewed articles.

Adding a Citation to article - Climate change and ecosystems

The drastic decrease in polar bears due to the climate change in arctic does not only have an impact on the species but also future human activities.

Can include a bit of how new technology has advance such as remote sensing, this allows for researchers and scientist to keep a track of the polar bear species.

Article to copyedit - Climate change and ecosystems

Selected Topic, Sources, and Information to Add for Climate change and ecosystems

Information that can be added: The article can include the impacts climate change has towards water quality. Under the sub heading of impacts, it can elaborate more on the extinction the arctic species such as the polar bears are facing. This topic can expand in how glaciers are melting and how this is affecting both species and the environment around them.

Selected Topic, Sources, and Information to add for Climate change and ecosystems
Extension on the polar species and how they are effected by the climate change

Polar bears species are affected by the climate change, through the changes in sea ice, permafrost, and prey species in the Arctic and subarctic. This issue does range region to region, for instance in Hudson Bay, Canada, there has been studies on climate change and results have shown reduction in location for the  polar bears are dependent on seals for food but since there has been low sea ice next to the shore, this cause reduction of food for polar bears. All these factors are causing threats to the polar bear species, that will also have a negative effect on the Native people who depend on this species as a food source.

Extension on impacts, specifically on freshwater ecosystems

A key factor in freshwater ecosystems is the land change and nitrogen deposition. The conversion of forest to non-forest generally releases CO2 from biomass and soils into the atmosphere (causing warming globally), which may result in an increase in seasonally averaged albedo and a decrease in transpiration. For instance, boreal and tropical forests influence the climate for different reasons. Boreal forests have low albedo, they reflect less solar radiation and tropical forests pump more water and aerosols into the atmosphere than non-forest systems in similar climates. Nitrogen deposition collect and concentrate excess nitrogen from the land and industrial effluents often are displayed in freshwater ecosystems as well.

Peer Review - 2 Articles

 * 1) User: BN1998 - Freshwater Acidification (review comment left on the talk page)
 * 2) User: Coadm001 - Factors effect infiltration (review comment left on the talk page)

Reflective Essay
1. Critiquing Articles

During the article evaluation, I never realized how many observations and critique approaches there needs to be done to an article. There was four different components to these critique approaches that were important when evaluating an article, such as content, tone, sources, and talk page. I was only familiar with two out of the four and learned the other two when working on evaluating articles. Content was one that you need to make sure the information is relevant to the topic and it flows in an organized structure. The tone of the articles had to deal with how neutral the writer is and has no bias towards an particular position. Sources is key for the article evaluation to be considered since they need to be peer reviewed, the link to the reference needs to work, and the sources support the article. The talk page was new since I was unaware there was a section of this on wikipedia. This section is where others on wikipedia talk about the article and the rating of the article as well. The article can be rated with a start and can be part of a WikiProject. The holocene article evaluation that I evaluated was a start class meaning it was intermediate and it was part of the WikiProject for geology.

2. Summarizing your contributions

The edits that were involved in my article for climate change and ecosystems was mainly on how climate change plays a role in polar bear extinction and impacts on freshwater ecosystems. I explained the key factors that affect the freshwater ecosystems such as land change and nitrogen deposition. Freshwater ecosystems, was mentioned in the article of climate change and ecosystem and wanted to explain more on this section.

3. Peer Review

On the peer review, I did two peer’s contributions. For each review, I took the critique approaches of seeing if the content is related to the topic, the tone of the work is neutral, and if the sources were reliable as well. I give feedback on how their they can improve if needed. I was given two reviews on my talk page. I have been given feedback on how to improve my writing in areas to include and fix up. I have taken these suggestions into account for my further continuation of adding information into my article. Overall, these reviews were helpful and were fairly nice.

4. Feedback

Unfortunately, I did not receive any feedback from Wikipedia editors.

5. Wikipedia generally

I learned quite a bit from contributing to Wikipedia. I learned that it requires more time and effort when it comes to ensuring reliable contributions are made. I have never done a project like this in the past and had different stages for completing the article. Wikipedia can be used to improve public understanding in being a free source of information about variety of topics. Information is always being add and deleted by any Wikipedia user and whoever uses it needs to be precaution. Always just needs to check if the information is reliable for future work.

Climate change and ecosystems - Final Article
Climate Change effects on Polar Bear Species (adding to Section 2: Impacts in article)

Polar bears species have been affected by the climate change, through the changes in sea ice, permafrost, and prey species in the Arctic and subarctic. This issue does range region to region, for instance in Hudson Bay, Canada, there has been studies on climate change and results have shown reduction in location for the polar bears are dependent on seals for food but since there has been low sea ice next to the shore, this cause reduction of food for polar bears. With the increase of temperature, the sea ice to become more breakable that leads to lower survival rates for polar bears. The sea ice plays a major role for the polar bears survival since this is a resource of food for them. They depend on these sea ice to hunt; however, other species they prey and rely as food source would be exposed to the same situation. Climate change overall forces relocation of species and possible extinction. The drastic decrease in polar bears due to the climate change in arctic does not only have an impact on the species but also future human activities.

Systems and Impacts on Freshwater Ecosystems (adding to Section 1: General in article; specifically under freshwater ecosystems)

A key factor in freshwater ecosystems is the land change and nitrogen deposition. The conversion of forest to non-forest generally releases CO2 from biomass and soils into the atmosphere (causing warming globally), which may result in an increase in seasonally averaged albedo and a decrease in transpiration. For instance, boreal and tropical forests influence the climate for different reasons. Boreal forests have low albedo, they reflect less solar radiation and tropical forests pump more water and aerosols into the atmosphere than non-forest systems in similar climates. Nitrogen deposition collect and concentrate excess nitrogen from the land and industrial effluents often are displayed in freshwater ecosystems as well. Since the industrial era, anthropogenic has contributed to nitrogen deposition into the atmosphere and freshwaters through runoff of agricultural land due to fertilizers. It can cause an affect towards the structure and function of the ecosystem.

Suggest New Section Called Droughts (which would include the agricultural information as well as hydrological and meteorological droughts)

Droughts are an extended period when a region received a deficiency in water supply, whether atmospheric, surface, or groundwater. Climate change impacts droughts through the integration processes and stores that including precipitation, evaporation, and soil moisture storage. There are primary three different types of droughts; meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological.

Meteorological droughts occur in drier weather areas that result from precipitation deficiency (amount, intensity, timing), that will further contribute reduction of infiltration, runoff, deep percolation, and groundwater recharge. Regions with high temperature, high winds, low relative humidity, greater sunshine, and less cloud cover will increased evaporation and transpiration. Duffy et al. concluded that greenhouse gases and deforestation (land change) in the Amazonia reduce the amount of precipitation. This will result with a meteorological drought. These factors lead to soil water deficiency that can be further explained in agricultural droughts.

Hydrological droughts occur with effects of  precipitation deficiency on surface water supply. Research continues to be conducted and Prudhomme et al. concluded that there is an uncertainty with drought since it can occur in specific region areas due to the increase of climate change and human intervention. For instance, drought frequency and severity will increase in areas such as Central Africa, New Zealand, South America, etc. A warmer climate region will tend to increase evaporation, which will further decrease precipitation, soil moisture deficit will build up and cause droughts. Hydrological droughts reduce streamflow, inflow to reservoirs, lakes, and ponds. This results in wetlands and wildlife habitat also being affected by this type of drought.