User:Yunxin Song/sandbox

Article Evaluation for Urban Heat Island
By evaluating content, everything in the article is associated with the article topic of Urban Heat Island. The tone of this article is neutral since the article does not have absolute words such as "the best" and "the most important". Throughout the entire article, it does not contain the unreliable statement such as "some people think or believe", which is one of the indicators of the reliable article. Additionally, the article's structure is quite clear because the article arranged by titles and subtitles with appropriate and relevant figures. For example, it provides a figure that shows the temperature trend in Tokyo, to indicate Tokyo is one of the examples of urban heat island. This figure provides a clear understanding for readers. The sources of the article are relevant to the topic and it offers reliable resources which cited throughout the article. However, some information is out of date, which cited from the 20th century. Authors should replace them with up-to-date sources. Furthermore, it is better to add more information regarding case studies of cities that have been experiencing urban heat island and actions those cities took to reduce it.

--Yunxin Song (talk) 07:37, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Article Selection
The topic I interested in is ecosystem ecology and I found a Wikipedia article called Ecosystem ecology that is related to my interest field.

Critique
This wikipedia article, "Ecosystem Ecology", has a neutral tone because the article does not indicate statements such as "I think or I believe". It represents all the different viewpoints based on related reliable sources. Everything in this article is related to this topic "ecosystem ecology". The structure of the article is easy to follow since it provides titles and subtitles, as well as figures related to the topic. However, the article does not provide many good sourcing because some sources are out of date. In addition, several sources in this article are not reliable because some of them are not peer-reviewed and are not directly related to the topic.

My notes to improve the articles

 * 1) add more details related to this topic, creating more subheadings in this article.
 * 2) explore ecology of different ecosystem such as desert ecosystem ecology, oceanic ecosystem ecology, grassland ecosystem ecology, and so on.
 * 3) explain the principles of ecosystem ecology and the importance of studying it
 * 4) provide more details on research contents of ecosystem ecology.

Potential sources associated with this topic
Agren, G. I., Ågren, G. I., & Bosatta, E. (1998). Theoretical ecosystem ecology: understanding element cycles. Cambridge University Press

Kremen, C. (2005). Managing ecosystem services: what do we need to know about their ecology?. Ecology letters, 8(5), 468-479.

Likens, G. E. (1989). Long-term studies in ecology. New York etc.: Springer.

Post, D. M., & Palkovacs, E. P. (2009). Eco-evolutionary feedbacks in community and ecosystem ecology: interactions between the ecological theatre and the evolutionary play. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 364(1523), 1629-1640.

Bibliography added on Ecosystem Ecology
There is a journal article written by David, Palkovacs, and Eric that is tightly associated with this topic - Ecosystem Ecology.

Copy Edit on Urban Heat Island
The article I edited is Urban heat island.

Edit:

In the article, I rewrite the statement "As UHI raises the temperature of cities, it also increases the concentration of ozone, a greenhouse gas whose production accelerates with an increase in temperature" to UHI not only raises urban temperatures but also increases ozone concentrations because ozone is a green house gas whose formation will accelerate with the increase of temperature, which make sentence more logical and easier to understand.

The sentence "The absence of solar heating causes the atmospheric convection to decrease, and the urban boundary layer begins to stabilize" is edited that the absence of solar heating leads to the decrease of atmospheric convection and the stabilization of urban boundary layer.

In addition, changing "forming the nighttime warmer air temperatures within the UHI" to leading to the warmer nighttime air temperatures within the UHI.

"This is particularly so in regions where snow is pervasive, as cities generally retain snow for much shorter time periods than the surrounding countryside (due to higher capacity to retain heat, as well as human-activity such as plowing)" is edited that this is especially true in areas where snow is common, as cities tend to hold snow for shorter periods of time than surrounding rural areas (this is due to the higher insulation capacity of cities, as well as human activities such as plowing).

Moreover, "However, some studies suggest the possibility that health impacts from UHIs are disproportionate because the impacts can be unevenly distributed based on a variety of factors" is changed that some studies suggest that the effects of UHIs on health may be disproportionate, since the impacts may be unevenly distributed based on a variety of factors such as age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Edit Summary: Make some complex sentences to understand more easier.

Finalize My Topic
My final topic is urban heat island.

Additional sources include:

Peer Review 1: Clay
I reviewed the article edited by HannahWV.

Overall, this is a very well done dray because the tone is neutral and the structure is well organised and easy to read through by using several sub-headings. The article gives a clear definition of clay and explains the identification of clay. It also provides a detailed information of historical and modern uses of clay, such as medical uses, which is help reader to recognize the importance of clay. Majority of references are peer-reviewed article and they are reliable. It is better to provide more detailed information about the characteristics of clay such as porosity and its distribution. After all, this is a nice draft!

Peer Review 2: Ecological stability
I reviewed the article edited by Yunbing Song.

This is a well constructed article edited by Yunbing Song. You make some complex sentences more easier to understand and edited them into a formal language, which is really good. The structure is clear and organized well. You also provide 3 sources for this article, which not only gives more details about your topic but also they are all reliable journal articles and closely related to your topic. The tone is neutral. It would be better if you add some pictures or tables that are associated with you topics because it can make your article more interesting. Overall, you did a very great job!

Responding to Peer-Reviews
Thank you for giving suggestions for me and I will try to find more details of urban heat island to improve the article and provide information of how human activities impact on urban heat island.

Reflective Essay
Through the whole semester, I acquired a lot of meaningful knowledge regarding Wikipedia articles. I learned how to find a good Wikipedia article by looking at an assessment table in each article's talk page, which shows quality and importance level of the article. Therefore, based on the assessment table, I finalized my topic of Urban Heat Island because this article is assigned low quality but high importance. In addition, I realized that not only the assessment table in the talk page but also other techniques can help me to evaluate whether a Wikipedia article is good or not. To be more specific, if an article has a neutral tone, balanced content, well-organized structure, and reliable sources, then this article is going to be a high-quality Wikipedia article. The skills of evaluation help me to finalize my topic which I would like to edit. By evaluating my final article which I chose - Urban Heat Island, this article has a neutral tone and reliable sources, but it lacks of several detailed section such as the impact of human activities on urban heat island and effective solutions of urban heat island.

To improve my article, it is better to add more details of urban heat island. The original article only talked about how does issues of urban heat island affect species, health, and environment, but it did not provide any of the solutions of urban heat island issues. I think it is very necessary to discuss how to eliminate the effect of urban heat island. In addition, although the article gives an explanation of causes of urban heat island, it only indicates environmental factors (i.e. Albedo). However, human activities are the other major factor causing urban heat island, therefore, the article supposed to give more information of how human activities impact urban heat island. If those information is added to the original article, the latest version seems better than the previous versions.

I peer reviewed two person's draft article, one is HannahWV's and the other is Yunbing Song's. They two both did a very good job on their draft article. I also gave suggestions to HannahWV that it is better to discuss more on the characteristics of clay such as porosity and its spatial distribution.

I received 3 feedback from my classmates. Their suggestions is very useful for me and I will take their advises into consideration to improve my article.

Overall, the Wikipedia assignment is different from my other assignments because it provides me a lot of online training, which is really helpful for me to get familiar with Wikipedia editing as soon as possible. The online modules are really helpful and it includes a lot of knowledge, such as detailed guidelines of plagiarism recognition, evaluations of articles, adding citations, and so on. Wikipedia article provides a clear and general understanding of one topic and also gives detailed discussion by using reliable sources, which improves public understanding.

Causes
1. Reduced Green Space:

Less green space in cities is also a major reason of urban heat island.With the increase of urban population and the development of urbanization, buildings, squares and roads in the city are expanded greatly, but the green space decreases correspondingly, which weakens the ability to alleviate the heat island effect. In other words, less green spaces reduces the efficiency of cooling because trees are able to intercept incoming solar radiation by shading and to absorb carbon dioxide, which belongs to green house gases, from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. If the forests or trees are removed, the incoming solar radiation will be directly absorbed by urban land and increases temperature of urban heat island significantly, causing urban heat island.

2. Increased Use of Artificial Heat Sources:

The city has a large number of boilers, heaters and other energy-consuming devices as well as a variety of motor vehicles.These machines and human activities consume a great deal of energy, most of which is transmitted to the urban atmospheric space in the form of heat.Factories, transportation and people's life all need to burn all kinds of fuels and release a lot of heat every day.Factories, motor vehicles, and people's lives burn all kinds of fuels and consume a lot of energy.

For example, with development of technology, air conditioner is produced to help people cool themselves during the summer time. However, although air conditioner decreases in-door temperature, it absorbs heat from inside and then releases it to outside environment, which increases the temperature of atmosphere and leads to urban heat island.

3. Moisture influence:

In addition to the green space can effectively alleviate the urban heat island effect, surface wind and other factors are also causing the urban heat island. The heat capacity of water is large. It means that under the condition of absorbing the same heat, changes in temperature is the smallest compared to other sources. Furthermore, water absorbs heat through evaporation, which decreases the temperature of atmosphere. Wind energy is able to take away the heat in the city, and can also alleviate the urban heat island to a certain extent. However, the speed of wind is reduced as a result of many tall and dense buildings in the city, causing heat is trapped within the city and aggravating the effect of urban heat island.

Solutions of Urban Heat Island
Sailors indicated that there are two strategies to eliminate the effect of urban heat island, including increasing the albedo of surface and promoting the evaportranspiration of vegetation.

1.Increase albedo of urban surface:

Albedo is a term to describe the efficiency of surface's reflectivity. Higher albedo means the surface can reflect more heat from the surface to the atmosphere. Therefore, it is important for urban roads to have a higher albedo so that urban surface can absorb less heat and reflect more heat to the atmosphere. Specifically, using a light colored material to construct roofing and pavement is a useful strategy to increase the albedo of urban surface because darker-colored materials are able to absorb more heat than light-colored materials. Compared by roofing materials with albedo of 0.6 and 0.2, scientists found that the temperature of roof materials whose albedo is about 0.6 is 25 degree Celsius lower than that with albedo of 0.2. However, changing albedo is not a simple task, especially for the residential buildings because many people are not willing to use light-colored roofs that may make their houses look dirty over a long time.

2. Environmental Afforestation:

The efficient and beautiful greening forms, such as street parks and roof greening, can effectively reduce the heat island effect and obtain a fresh and pleasant indoor and outdoor environment. Increased evaportranspiration can be achieved by increasing green spaces and growing more vegetation such as trees. It is very important to plant more trees in city centers where population and traffic are the most concentrated and carbon dioxide emissions are the highest because trees can help absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The scientists observed that for every 10% increase in the number of vegetation, the temperature of atmosphere usually decreases by 0.6K.