User:Anth1112/sandbox

I chose to read the Paleoclimatology page. Overall, I thought it was relatively well written, but there were a few things I would like to mention. The article is well-cited and contains many links to more specific pages. It's a broad page with multiple links to other, more specific scientific pages with tons of good citations in them. The citations placed on the pictures were relevant and properly done. Everything in the article was relevant, and there wasn't really anything that distracted me, and nothing in the article seemed biased; it was neutral throughout. After clicking on some of the sources, overall, the article included a lot of references from reliable, unbiased sources, such as the IPCC and Nature journal. However, the first source is the Royal Society, and I am, admittedly, unfamiliar with their views and even with their mission. The article did not seem to paraphrase or copy direct quotes from the sources.

Perhaps the biggest thing I noticed about the article that confused me was the timeline and the section of Earth's three atmospheres. I thought this section was the weakest section because although it is a broad overview of this topic, it did not go into any detail about why these changes in the atmosphere occurred. This was the only section that I did not understand after reading and had many more questions than answered. In order to improve this article, I would definitely include some more history and facts about these changes.

The article was not locked, which I do not think is a bad thing by any means, and everything was up to date with the oldest cited article that I could find being 2003.

Evaluation of Climate Proxy

In terms of discussing dendrochronology as a paleoclimate proxy, this article needs a lot of work. While it contains a lot of good information about the theory behind why and how tree rings work as a proxy, it doesn't explain the calibration well. Cronin's textbook mentions that calibration is one of the most important aspects of using proxies, and it is only briefly mentioned in the article. I took a class before where we did discuss the calibration curve of dendrochronology, but the article doesn't explain how or even why this needs to be done. It has the section on the dendrological equation, but this does not equate to the calibration, and when I finished the article, I did not understand this in the slightest.

Another major omission is the fact that the article does not discuss the pros/cons of dendrochronology. It does discuss the relative time-span the proxy covers, but it doesn't discuss other pros/cons. One question I had when I finished reading the article was, "How does this proxy compare to others?" The article should definitely have included more coverage on the strengths of dendrochronology, but also on its shortcomings, especially in comparison to other proxies. At looking at other comments on the talk page, I noticed that one person mentioned that the specific application on climatology is vague and minimum, and I couldn't agree more. After reading, I understand better the concept of tree rings and some of the finer details that complicate the issue (such as alternating poor/favorable conditions and "missing rings"), but I don't understand all of the applications to understanding past climates.

The sources used in the article are mostly peer-reviewed and seem relevant for the most part. There are a few particularly detailed, applicable peer-reviewed articles in the "growth rings" section, especially (Walker, 2013). However, the article doesn't do a good job of combining all of these sources into a detailed account of dendrochronology and its use as a climate proxy. It jumps around and briefly skirts by important topics; in fact, my biggest complaint is that the article needs to simply go more in depth on the real use of dendrochronology and establish a clear focus. As far as assumptions go, I couldn't really find much about this. Citations were used correctly, and there was nothing in the article that seemed "off" or made me really question its validity. This article provides a heavily scientifically detailed analysis of a specific example of tree rings being used to reconstruct past climates.
 * 1) Yang, Bao, et al. "Temperature Changes On The Tibetan Plateau During The Past 600 Years Inferred From Ice Cores And Tree Rings." Global & Planetary Change 69.1/2 (2009): 71-78. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

2. Singh, J., R. R. Yadav, and M. Wilmking. "A 694-Year Tree-Ring Based Rainfall Reconstruction from Himachal Pradesh, India." Climate Dynamics 33.7-8 (2009): 1149-58. SCOPUS. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

3. Hughes, M. K. "Dendrochronology in Climatology - the State of the Art." Dendrochronologia 20.1-2 (2002): 95-116. SCOPUS. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

This article in particular is what I would have modeled the Wikipedia article after. It gives a detailed analysis of dendrochronology's applications to climatology as a proxy.

To improve this article, I would have broadened its scope. I would include more details about the calibration, the science of actually "reading" the tree rings, and more data about how different trees are affected by climate changes. I also would have provided some examples of dendrochronology actually being used, such as in the second article I cited above. Finally, the article's citations are good for the most part, but it needs to be more focused in (as I mentioned above) on the climatic aspects and give all of these topics equal weight.