Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antarctica cooling controversy


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was no consensus to delete, default to keep. Sandstein 20:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Antarctica cooling controversy

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

There is no controversy behind this. There is only a cooling trend in some parts of the cold continent, which everyone agrees about. So, the article is really a WP:SYN. It is also worth mentioning that Doran, the scientist referenced, complained about his work being misused by the author mentioned in the article. Finally, renaming is not good since without the controversy hype in the title the material really does not deserve its own page (it would be a gross violation of weight.) Brusegadi 02:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment Go here to see Doran's piece in the NYtimes. Brusegadi 02:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Response What is a Wikipedia article but a collection of data from various sources? This article does that and seems balanced. The first line of Doran's NYtimes piecesays


 * In the debate on global warming, the data on the climate of Antarctica has been distorted, at different times, by both sides.


 * and then it goes on to explain the controversy that Brusegadi claims does not exist.


 * Brusegadi deleted similar (almost identical) data from Global warming controversy without any explanation on the talk page. He did say that he would edit the material because it had "undue weight and it is not factual" - and then he deleted it all. This action also supports the position that this data is controversial - why else would he delete it before anyone else has made a comment. Also, I don't understand how facts provide "undue weight". Q Science 05:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I was going to fix it, but on a closer look realized that the material did not merit so much weight in that article, much less merit its own article. Look at the refs, there must be abundant talk about a controversy surrounding the temperature trends in Antarctica.  The refs DO NOT SUPPORT that. Finally, wikipedia is not merely a collection of sources.  Please read WP:SYN.  We are not allowed to have collections of sources that violate synthesis.  If you want to say there is a controversy, you cant simply pull stuff that SEEMS controversial out of a hat, you have to have sources describing such controversy. This is just too specific for such sources to be found.  Finally, no one complained about my edits in the Talk: Global warming controversy page.  If you feel bad, please state your feelings there.  I think no one has complained there because no one thought it was a bad edit. Brusegadi 23:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * National Geographic says that this is controversial - That study sparked a controversy because it suggested the Antarctic is not doing what most scientists expect it to do: grow warmer. And at some point, there should be a controversy about the current interpretation of ice cores since Antarctica gets colder when the rest of the planet gets warmer, and vice versa ... but so far, I have not seen published papers pointing out this possible inverse correlation. Q Science 07:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Now you are talking. That is the type of reference I was looking for.  It takes care of some of the synthesis in the article.  Note the national geo link, as of now, is not in the article.  Yet, I still feel that having an entire article is too much for something so small. Brusegadi 23:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggestion Global warming controversy is currently 122 KB and Global warming is currently 83 KB ... and in both cases, wikipedia suggests It may be appropriate to split these articles into smaller, more specific articles. While I agree that a separate page gives "Antarctica cooling controversy" too much weight, it is already 41 KB (16 KB text only). At any rate, I think that it is time to review and restructure the entire Global Warming topic into a collection of smaller articles (not add even more information to existing pages). In addition, I think that the readers will be better served if NPV applies to the entire topic and not to every individual page. In several cases, the talk pages provide a better understanding of certain topics than the associated page ... partly because NPV is not followed ... and some of that should be included in the page proper. I also feel that most of the pages should be "semi-protected" on a permanent basis (I know this violates the guidelines) because way too much time is spent fixing vandalism. Q Science 03:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep. The references to Michael Crichton and others seem more than adequate to justify notability and the term controversy.  Brusegadi seems to be pushing a POV and so his proposal is not in good faith.  Colonel Warden 17:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Crichton's mention of the temperature trends in the cold continent did not create fuss.  The controversy behind his book was his, in general, misunderstanding of the science.  Look him up, whenever he is mentioned, it is not for the specific Antarctica issue, there are many errors in that book and the best we can do is to say that the book caused controversy, but to say that a specific theme in the book caused controversy, well, that requires good sourcing. Brusegadi 23:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep but move I don't think there is enough notable coverage to warrant the term 'controversy'. I'd rather it was titled Antarctica cooling theory and present it as a theory from all positions. The word 'controversy' to me is not neutral. My view is that some of Michael Crichton's theories verge on fringe theories. --Neon white 18:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Brusegadi. It's thinly sourced for any real controversy. smb 20:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge The controversy, such as it exists, is almost completely confined to the realm of Michael Crichton and a few political writers. Any useful factual bits can be merged into Climate of Antarctica while the manufactured "controversy" deserves little more than a passing mention in Global warming controversy. The article as presently written misleads the reader into thinking there is a substantial scientific controversy. Raymond Arritt 00:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment from the main contributor to the dispute article Mariordo 00:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC) (1) I agree that the title would reflect better the content if it is called "The Antarctica cooling trend debate" or just "The Antarctica cooling debate", and as such it would belong as a section of the article Global warming controversy, from where if was deleted without fair notice. I also did that summary and the cross reference to the disputed article; (2) I could put more references to the actual debate, in fact, I included only one reference (not text) as an example, which was deleted by Neon white, just before Brusegadi set the flag on the article. On a second-thought I agree with that deletion because even thought it will demonstrate the existence of a controversy, most of those materials come from radical advocates of both sides, politicized comments and lots of personal attacks, instead of attacking the arguments, in summary, it will introduced improper opinions to the article/ (3) As I did answer to Neon white, I was still researching in the web for to more pieces of information, such as the reply from the authors of the research, which I knew existed and I already found (it’s the same NY Times OP-ED mentioned above), and later (since this task is going to take lots of reading), I was going to try to summarized what the new 2007 IPPC Report says on this subject, regarding model simulation limitations in the Southern Ocean and lower confidence with Antarctica’s climate, and, the regional forecasting from the IPPC. As an example, I will edit today Mr. Doran rebuttal to the misuses of this research. (4) If you read the whole article, you can see that NASA has published independent information from Doran et al, showing that indeed there is a cooling trend, together with NASA’s official explanation in the context of global warming. So, it is not just a debate regarding Doran et al research. With more time, other scientific papers on the issue would be added, enriching the article; (5) I am relatively new to contributing to Wiki (which I also do for the Spanish and Portuguese sites), so I am not very familiar with the formats for referencing at the end of the article, format that I already studied, and was planning to use/edit after completing the two additions mentioned above. Anyway, the references are everywhere in the article and at the end, they are just not properly formatted. I will wait for your decision before working more on this article, except for the inclusion of Doran’s response to the debate. Thanks.
 * Comment The delete source was from the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, which has a clear POV and is not a great source for anything accurate and in my opinion didn't comply with WP:V. I still favour keeping the article in some form. --Neon white 00:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * PS Comment After adding Mr. Doran response, I now have no doubt there is a real debate, just search the Web as he recommends. He defends better than me the validity of this article. Please read it. Also, click the wiki entry for Peter Doran. Mariordo —Preceding comment was added at 01:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Please read WP:NOR, specially WP:SYN. You cannot take something Crichton said, the response by Doran, and then write an article calling it a controversy if their dispute has not been documented by observers outside such 'controversy.'  So you have plenty of sources, but none actually advances the position of the article (calling the mess a controversy.)  By having this article, we convey on the readers the impression that there exists a massive controversy (like Global warming controversy) when there is really none.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Per WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOTABILITY you will need a couple of verifiable sources discussing the 'controversy' as outsiders to merit an entire article to the subject. Brusegadi 06:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment That is exactly why i favour retitling it Antarctica cooling theory. --Neon white 14:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment It's not just Crichton/Doran. Here's a Senate speech which includes Antartcia as an issue: Third, CNN’s O’Brien, claimed that my speech earlier contained errors regarding climate science. O’Brien said my claim that the Antarctic was actually cooling and gaining ice was incorrect. But both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding – on balance – Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice. .  The Senate Environment Chairman and CNN are both notable and disagree = controversy. Q.E.D.  Colonel Warden 18:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But not a scientific controversy -- just clueless politicians and reporters. Raymond Arritt 18:29, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't understand the use of the word "theory", I thought it was an unexpected fact that Antarctica is cooling. And what difference does it make if the controversy is scientific or not - if the newspapers and other non-scientific publications make an issue out of this, then discussing it here will help to clear the air. In fact, not discussing it will support the position that there is some kind of conspiracy to hide the facts. Instead, this page will provide a venue to explain how Global Warming requires that Antarctica gets colder. Q Science 19:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comemnt - I agree that explaining it is good. Yet, explaining it in its own page brings forward weight issues.  We can have a redirect and move the relevant material to either the Global warming controversy or to the Antarctica climate article. Brusegadi 23:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Final Comment I did review WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOTABILITY, and fully agree that balance and neutrality is a must. So let me make some final comments (I hope): (1) Regarding the title: whether as an independent article or as part of another as Brusegadi suggested, the word “Controversy” must be deleted. My suggestion is to change the title to “The Antarctica cooling argument” or “The Antarctica cooling debate”, and definitely is not a “Theory” because; (2) Clearly, the debate is not regarding the cooling trend, I checked other scientific sources and all are in agreement with the observed data, but I think NASA’s picture should be enough (even the 2007 IPPC Report acknowledges this trend, recognizing that the warming was observed only in the Antarctic Peninsula -see section 11.8.2- and discusses the challenges it represents for the simulation models, which I intend to summarized in the article, if it survives); (3) The debate is definitely not within the scientific community, but rather a public debate and one big issue is the misuse of research results. Therefore, I modified the beginning of the article to simplify, to make it more neutral, and to make clear what the real issue is (trying to follow the content of the first paragraph in the Global warming controversy article). Please read it. Also I tried to make clear what the climate scientists’ participation has been (which I am not sure if it is appropriate for WP:WEIGHT). Editing improvements are welcome to achieve neutrality in the article, and as a previous commentator suggested, the article can be enriched by other wiki contributors and the addition of future research results. Mariordo  —Preceding comment was added at 01:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I just made an editing pass to cut some tendentious stuff and reduce the overall weight. Seems fine now.  Colonel Warden 09:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * comment: I think NASA’s picture should be enough - I've just removed the picture. Its wrong. And misleading, in that it appears to carry too much weight. I don't think the cooling trend is well established: the AR4, ref'd apparently in support of cooling above, actually says Observational studies have presented evidence of pronounced warming over the Antarctic Peninsula, but little change over the rest of the continent during the last half of the 20th century William M. Connolley 14:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The editing by Colonel Warden was great for balance, but the latest from William M. Connolley I think was hasty and shows he did not make enough research or has other intentions. I do dispute the deletion of the NASA picture, which is properly referenced and hosted and explained in a NASA site. First, NASA's info is much more comprehensive than Doran et al, covering a wider area, and actually NASA's picture did not say anything about how much the temperature drop was. Second, read carefully the IPPC report, when they say the change in temperature is almost nill, they are talking over a longer period than the 20 years covered by NASA (which of course will reduce the mean and by the way, that text does not presents the citation for that conclusion), which is when the trend is detected. Here it seems to me the editor is trying to bias/skew the information presented directly from a reliable source. As Brusegadi at the beginning of this discussion: "There is no controversy behind this. There is only a cooling trend in some parts of the cold continent, which everyone agrees about". This latest editing is trying to hide this fact, or at least, trying to minimize the existance of the cooling trend, which I thought was not under question (there are plenty of references in the WEB, and will bring more if necessary).Mariordo 15:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The NASA picture was the best bit. I'll revert that deletion if you haven't already. Colonel Warden 15:14, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * CommentThanks, and notice that if you follow the web link provided by William M. Connolley all you get is raw temperature data from Antarctic Weather Stations, nothing to support his claim.Mariordo 15:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * delete - if the NASA pic was the best bit, and its wrong, then the article should die William M. Connolley 15:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * comment - it was best in the sense that it showed the issue in a clear, graphical manner. If you dispute the actual data then this is an interesting aspect to the controversy.  Brusegadi contends above that 'everyone agrees' that there is a cooling trend in this area. Colonel Warden 16:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - If by "this area" you mean "some parts of the cold continent" (what I said) then yes. Brusegadi 23:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * comment Mr. Brusegadi, given that you started the revision of this article for deletion, please go to the discussion page of the article, and check the discussion we had about sources, etc. regarding the NASA picture, including Colonel Warden constructive participation. I don't think William M. Connolley has a neutral position on this issue. On the RealClimate page he appears as co-author of some of the responses in the GW controversy. So I think he is in a conflict-of-interest position and if he couldn't maintain a neutral position, he should have refrained from participating in this discussion, or hastily deleting a reliable source (NASA) based on his original research or personnal interpretation of data. Actually, the author, Mr. Comiso did a similar analysis for the Artic, and there are several papers by him on this area of research (using satellite pics to define trends). It's all in the discussion page of the disputed article Mariordo 00:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - A good faith interpretation of Dr.Connolley's action is that he is an expert in the field in question concerned about the factual accuracy of wikipedia. It is not uncommon for organizations to publish over-simplified images for the general public when the same images would not survive the scrutiny of the experts in the relevant field.  You are using the image to illustrate the point made by Doran et al.  So, you are using an image that was not meant for peer-reviewed use to illustrate something discussed in a peer-reviewed publication.  This association is dangerous because it guides the reader to an over-estimation of the image's validity.  I think that if you want to illustrate the paper, you should try to find highly scrutinized visual aides, preferably from the paper. Brusegadi 01:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation and your patience, but the picture is indeed based on research published on peer-reviewed paper by Mr. Comiso, see The Journal of Science 13:1674-96, 2000 (you can read it at [] There the sat pics for every year are shown, which will be too much space comsuming for a Wiki article. I know he is a reputable climate scientist (I Wiki his name), and just by chance, the two citations/transcriptions I put from the beginning in this article happens to be organizations that Mr.Connolley participate or work for. He has done research (regarding to the ice thickness) finding there is a better approach to make the estimates than NASA's approach. So, sorry, but he doesn't seems to be neutral about this discussion. In my view, the way the scientific method works, all serious parties are welcome to a scientific debate, thus the Antarctica cooling article should include his findings (even if only applied to the methodology/and I don't know if this violates Wiki policy), and some others peer-reviewed publications after (e.g. see Thompsom and Solomon, Science, 2002) and what the 2007 IPCC has to said about Antarctica. Science progresses by a bunch of people resolving parts of the puzzle and it is not reasonable to expect 100% consistency, or have one of the puzzle solvers type delete without consulting others. Anyway, so far I have not found a single scientific source denying the slightly cooling trend of some areas in the interior of Antarctica (particularly near the South Pole Area, which is exactly what the picture shows). Even RealClimate and the British Antarctic Survey (Mr.Connolley organization's) accept this trend as a fact. Mariordo 03:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - He removed this picture, which does not show up on the link you provided. Brusegadi 04:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Sorry I didn't wrote it clear. The paper presents the information disaggregated, this is, one picture for every year, that's why it is not practical to put it here, there are too many photos. For the specific references in NASA's website see, Comiso's research is cited below that webpage, together with others sources. The actual picture in Wiki says "NASA Earth Observatory image based on data provided by Josefino Comiso, NASA-GSFC". Mariordo 05:16, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The picture is *not* based on peer-reviewed research, it is in fact directly contradicted by reseach published by Comiso, as I've explained on the articles talk page William M. Connolley 19:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment I thought thes issue discussed in the article was only debated on the public domain. The latest editing by Mr. Connolley can now mislead the readers suggesting there is indeed some controversy among the climate researchers, in which clearly he has a strong position. Anyway, this latest editing requires improvement, now the beginning of the article reads very weird and unbalanced. Finally, I have to agree with Colonel Warden, this now is looking a lot like Connolley's original research and the deletion of NASA's picture looks a lot like censorship. I am finished working on this article since it has become the property of Mr. Connolley. Mariordo 22:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You're mistaking this page for the talk page of the the article itself - see you there. It also isn't the ranting-about-censorship page either. And who is Mr Connolley? William M. Connolley 22:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Apparently the reason for deleting it is that a few people on their own personal opinion think the concept invalid. This is an absurd response to a WP article--if the article needs balancing ,discuss it on the talk page. If one's opinion about the actual scientific status of the subject is not supported, that is not an acceptable reason to try to delete the article. A purely POV-influenced nomination. Thirty references, all on the subject -- a few from possibly non reliable web sources, but the majority of them sound. IDGG (talk) 03:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - "Personal" opinion based on WP:SYN, WP:NN and WP:WEIGHT. Brusegadi 04:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment DGG is missing the target here. The issue at hand is the contention that there's a "controversy" over the matter, not the scientific status of Antarctic climate. BTW your contention that this is "purely a POV-influenced nomination" is way out of line and is not the type of civil and constructive behavior that you're known for. Raymond Arritt 13:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep agree with DGG... nom looks political.Balloonman 07:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep There is some politics here, and I see some "model people" dumping on "data people". However, the fact that this topic has received some attention in the media and by elected officials and in the book of a well known author should be enough to make it notable. The bottom line is, our simple models are sometimes a bit too simple. And that is not a reason to censor this sort of information because it does not fit some sort of political agenda pushed by some people here. What is Wikipedia supposed to be, a scientific journal? Is it supposed to be a religious tract?--Filll 04:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.