User:Westbrookholly/sandbox

= Article Evaluation = Deforestation in Costa Rica

- unnecessary adjectives used in the "Causes and effects" section (i.e. "serious"... a more useful description of the impacts of deforestation could be used)

- sentences are oddly structured/"run on" (i.e. Soil erosion has increased with deforestation with the topsoil washed away from the hills into the streams and out into the oceans, year after year.")

- units used to describe extent of deforestation are not consistent (acres, hectares, feet, miles, metres and kilometres are all used interchangeably)

- lack of explanation for certain claims (i.e. "While certain conservation laws have been passed in Costa Rica, the government lacks the resources to enforce them." + "certain conservation laws" is ambiguous

- unnecessary duplication of words included in a single sentence (i.e. In 1995, the government introduced FURTHER protected areas, and a FURTHER 13% of the country was put under protection through privately owned preserves, particularly those with high biodiversity.")

- paragraph included in the "Response" section includes more sophisticated explanations than the rest of the article + a press release posted to the associated organization's official website is used as a citation (unofficial)

"The National Bamboo Project of Costa Rica was founded in 1986 to help decrease deforestation. The scheme aims at reducing deforestation by means of replacing timber with bamboo as a primary building material and providing low cost housing for Costa Rica's rural poor. By cultivating and building with Guadua species, indigenous giant bamboos, the National Bamboo Project was able to raise thousands of new homes for the poor, benefit the environment, and advance bamboo-based building technology."

- last paragraph of the "Response" section is scattered and not useful

- first portion of "Decentralization efforts" is not cited

- some of the paragraphs in the "Decentralization efforts" section are unrelated and could be included in a new section

Talk Page

- C-class rating

- One critique of article posted in 2009

= Article Selection = Deforestation in Costa Rica

Environmental impact of aviation

Climate change and potatoes

Environmental impact of meat production

Environmental movement in Switzerland

= Citation = - lack of explanation for certain claims (i.e. "While certain conservation laws have been passed in Costa Rica, the government lacks the resources to enforce them." + "certain conservation laws" is ambiguous

Could use this resource (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00751.x) to add more meaningful information regarding Costa Rica's Environmental Policy/Regulation.

= Copy Edit = COPY:

Deforestation in Costa Rica has a serious impact on the environment and therefore may directly or indirectly contribute to flooding, desertification, sedimentation in rivers, loss of wildlife diversity, and the obvious sheer loss of timber. Since the end of World War II, approximately 80% of the forests of Costa Rica have disappeared. Approximately 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of land are deforested annually; in the 1990s the country had one of the worst deforestation rates in Central America.

As the population grew, the people of Costa Rica cut down the forests to provide for pastureland for cattle ranching to produce beef for the world market to raise revenue. Since the 1950s, approximately 60% of Costa Rica has been cleared to make room for cattle ranching. The problem was worsened because during the 1960s, the United States offered Costa Rican cattle ranchers millions of dollars in loans to produce beef. The deforestation of Costa Rica's tropical rain forests as in other countries is a threat to life worldwide with a profound effect on the global climate. Soil erosion has increased with deforestation with the topsoil washed away from the hills into the streams and out into the oceans, year after year.

EDIT:

Deforestation in Costa Rica has a serious negative impact s on the environment and therefore may directly or indirectly contribute to flooding, desertification, sedimentation in rivers, loss of wildlife diversity, and the obvious sheer loss of timber. Since the end of World War II, approximately 80% of the forests of Costa Rica have disappeared (citation?). Approximately 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of land are deforested annually (citation?); in the 1990s the country had one of the worst highest deforestation rates in Central America (citation?).

As the population grew, the people of population of Costa Rica cut down logged the forests to provide for pastureland for cattle ranching. This would to produce beef for the world market to raise revenue (for what?). Since the 1950s, approximately 60% of Costa Rica has been cleared to make room for cattle ranching (citation?). The problem was worsened because during the 1960s, In the 1960s, the problem was amplified because the United States offered Costa Rican cattle ranchers millions of dollars in loans to produce beef. The deforestation of Costa Rica's tropical rain forests as in other countries is a threat to wild life worldwide with and has a profound effect influence on the global climate. Soil erosion has increased with deforestation. The topsoil is washed away from the hills into the streams and out into the oceans, year after year.

= Finalize Topic =

Polar vortex
- adding sections for: Anthropogenic Influences and Ecological Effects

Note: working with Mieleveronica

- seasonal changes

- arctic sea ice decline

= Peer Review = Coadm001

Article: Infiltration (hydrology)

The article seems to have two introductions. Coadm001 is planning on editing the initial paragraph to be more concise and technically correct (editing units and terminology). Her edits improve the article by increasing the clarity of the wording used and introducing a better overall definition of infiltration.

Coadm001 is going to remove the second (redundant) introductory paragraph and replace it with a section called "Factors that affect infiltration". This section will be more useful than the current section that exists. In this section, Coadm001 will include 6 factors affecting infiltration. It looks like Coadm001 has included some useful references for her edits as well.

Sidneysmiith & Schneidl12

Article: Canadian Prairies

These users are editing the "Culture and politics" section of the article. The edits will include re-wording certain sentences to improve clarity and understanding and adding citations to specific claims. This looks like a good start to their contributions to this article.

= Reflective Essay = Note: I forgot to publish my Sandbox changes.

Critiquing Articles

During article evaluation, I learned that Wikipedia can be a very reliable or very unreliable source depending on the "class" of the content. Class A articles have been edited to the point that they are considered "complete" and may actually be very useful. However, Class C articles are less reliable and in some cases, have not been acknowledged for a substantial amount of time (i.e. Deforestation in Costa Rica). When critiquing an article (Polar vortex) on Wikipedia, I first read through the article to establish a general overview on its contents and brainstorm some concepts that may be missing. Then, I corrected grammatical and sentence-structure issues that made the article confusing or misleading. Since I am interested in how humans affect Earth's natural environment and there wasn't a specific section of the article that discussed "anthropogenic effects", I decided to find resources relating to polar vortexes and human activity that could aid in my addition to the original article.

Summarizing Contributions

I am currently working with a classmate (Mieleveronica) on editing the Polar vortex article on Wikipedia. Our plan is to edit the spelling, grammar, and overall organization (citations, sequence of sections, etc.) of the existing article as well as add a new section (Anthropogenic Effects) that will hopefully give the readers of this page an opportunity to connect to the information available. The new article will be organized in a more logical way and will include a new section that relates to an existing one (Climate Change), but elaborates more on the specific role of human interactions with Earth and extreme weather.

Peer Review

My classmates have not completed a peer review on our article contribution (located in Mieleveronica's Sandbox). However, if a review is completed, we will take their suggestions into account before finalizing our article. In my peer reviews, I included information on the changes I can see they have made/are working on as well as how/why I think those changes will affect the quality of the existing article.

Feedback

We have not received any feedback from other Wikipedia editors yet as our edits and ideas are only located within our Sandboxes currently. However, if we publish the changes to the public article, we will most likely receive some criticism regarding the use of primary sources.

Wikipedia Generally

Since becoming an official "Wikipedia Contributor", I have learned that there's a lot more work involved in making additions to articles than I once thought. My classmates and I have completed multiple training modules over the course of a few months and I have learned that the world's largest online encyclopedia is no joke. There's a common misconception that Wikipedia is unreliable since anybody can contribute to it. However, the standards that Wikipedia editors have are very high and careless or lazy contributions will not be accepted. This Wikipedia assignment is unlike any assignment I've ever done. It has been interesting to learn so much about a site that I've been making use of since I understood how to browse the web. Wikipedia articles generally provide a good overview of various subjects, and although they might be missing information sometimes, they are useful for individuals to gain a base-level understanding of any subject without having to navigate scientific journals that can oftentimes be complicated and/or confusing. This is important because Wikipedia can eliminate the excuse for people to be willingly ignorant about environmental issues (which are becoming increasingly important).

= Polar vortex Draft (collaboration with Mieleveronica) = Mieleveronica has edited the existing article's introductory paragraph and added a section describing the types of polar vortexes. I will be removing the existing Climate Change section and adding a section relating to Anthropogenic Effects (Climate Change). We have also added a section called Extreme Weather Events (located in Mieleveronica's Sandbox) which relates to the new Anthropogenic section.

Climate change[edit]
[IMAGES]

Meanders of the northern hemisphere's jet stream developing (a, b) and finally detaching a "drop" of cold air (c); orange: warmer masses of air; pink: jet stream

Southern Hemisphere Ozone Concentration, February 22, 2012

[PARAGRAPH]

A study in 2001 found that stratospheric circulation can have anomalous effects on weather regimes. In the same year, researchers found a statistical correlation between weak polar vortex and outbreaks of severe cold in the Northern Hemisphere. In later years, scientists identified interactions with Arctic sea ice decline, reduced snow cover, evapotranspiration patterns, NAO anomalies or weather anomalies which are linked to the polar vortex and jet stream configuration. However, because the specific observations are considered short-term observations (starting c. 13 years ago) there is considerable uncertainty in the conclusions. Climatology observations require several decades to definitively distinguish natural variability from climate trends.

The general assumption is that reduced snow cover and sea ice reflect less sunlight and therefore evaporation and transpiration increases, which in turn alters the pressure and temperature gradient of the polar vortex, causing it to weaken or collapse. This becomes apparent when the jet stream amplitude increases (meanders) over the northern hemisphere, causing Rossby waves to propagate farther to the south or north, which in turn transports warmer air to the north pole and polar air into lower latitudes. The jet stream amplitude increases with a weaker polar vortex, hence increases the chance for weather systems to become blocked. A blocking event in 2012 emerged when a high-pressure over Greenland steered Hurricane Sandy into the northern Mid-Atlantic states.

Anthropogenic Effects
Polar vortexes aren't considered a single storm or a weather pattern; they are a band of strong winds that are influenced by many external factors. The band traps frigid air within the Earth's arctic region. However, sometimes the polar vortex can become distorted and travel further south than what is normal, resulting in the existence of arctic-like temperatures within the temperate zone of the Earth.

The intrusion of warmer air is the main reason for these band distortions. Many scientists have identified climate change as an influence. A study published by The Journal of Science Advances claims that the band of strong winds is beginning to meander and shift as a result of planetary warming.

Sea ice melting is an indicator of a changing climate and global warming as it results from warmer atmospheric and oceanic temperatures. White sea ice has a high albedo, it reflects more sunlight than it absorbs. Earth's global temperatures are rising and sea ice is beginning to melt. More dark water becomes exposed with this melting. The dark surface absorbs more sunlight than it reflects, contributing to a warmer ocean and further sea ice melting. This warming cycle is responsible for the spurring winds that disrupt the polar vortex (sometimes causing a "polar vortex split") and lead to more frequent extreme cold weather events in the middle-latitudes.

Human activities that involve the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contribute to global warming. The increasing temperature difference between Earth's equator and the north pole strengthen the polar vortex. Extreme cold weather events will only become more intense as the Earth warms at an exponential rate due to human activities.