User:Shadowlifts/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because it discusses a topic that I have studied and have interest in. This is an important topic as it discusses climate change in relation to atmospheric carbon emissions. From a glance, this is a rather wordy, but well-written and thought-out discussion of atmospheric CO2.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The content in the page is all relevant to CO2 and its effect on the earth. It includes several different sections that discuss different aspects, such as ocean acidification, the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle, and more. There is also a discussion on how to lower concentration as well as direct and indirect impacts. None of the visuals were distracting, they were actually quite informative. The data is from 2022 and is therefore slightly outdated, especially when discussing minute fluctuations in atmospheric gas concentrations. There was no mention of disproportionate levels of CO2 emissions in cities with primarily POC or any mention of environmental injustice and how that pertains to climate change. I think that is a very important aspect to mention especially when discussing affects of atmospheric pollution. In fact, I would mention that the only aspect noticeably missing is the impact to human health from these increased levels of pollution. However, overall the tone does speak neutrally and sound professional. I would only mention there are a few grammatical choices I would change just due to the nature of the article (i.e. run-on sentences and awkward phrases such as "Indeed, higher CO2 concentrations..." and "Earlier still, a 200-million year period of intermittent, widespread glaciation extending close to the equator...").

The sources do seem to be a valid variety of sources. It ranges from data from IPPC reports to peer reviewed journals. There is a variety in dates ranging from the 1970s to within the last few years. All of the link randomly clicked did work and supported the information reported. The Talk page pointed out some math errors that were caught. There was a note similar to my comment regarding the lengthy nature of this article. It mentions that perhaps as it is one of the few wiki articles about climate change, it should be more general and then link more specific articles for different topics. It is rated C-class and has low-importance for weather, mid-importance for environment, and high-importance for climate change. I would argue this article discusses climate change similarly to discussions we have had in class.

However, overall this is a good overview of climate change in relation to CO2 concentrations. While there are some tweaks that could improve the overall experience of this article, it is well-developed and researched.