Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Runaway climate change


 * 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. Peter Symonds ( talk ) 11:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Runaway climate change

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There is a lot wrong with this page. The main problem is that it has no clear definition. Indeed the current [ when I wrote this] text starts Whilst the term runaway climate change has no widely-accepted definition... following extensive crit on talk about lack of defn. The author has attempted to cure this by continuing it are [sic] used to describe periods of self-sustaining climate change in scientific literature... but the two references he has managed to find to back this up are deeply unimpressive, and far away from the climatological literature you would expect ( . In essence they confirm that the term isn't used in the scientific literature. We're so desperate for a defn that the opening para concludes A blog dedicated to the concept also exists which is an obviously NN blog with only one post . If we knew what RAC is, we could attempt to clean it up and make sense of it. For example, I doubt that [[arctic shrinkage]] counts as RAC; but since we don't know what RAC is it's rather hard to argue one way or the other. William M. Connolley (talk) 09:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Update: the author has added a defn from a newspaper. If the article is to be about media coverage of the concept, that would be fine. But it isn't; it aspires to be about a scientific concept William M. Connolley (talk) 09:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. OK science meets dodgy data meets The Tipping Point meets various other things and it's all something of a content fork. Bits and pieces are worthwhile so the creator should userfy it and perhaps recycle bits of it elsewhere, once these have been checked carefully. Problems start with the very subject of the first sentence, as The Guardian is no longer a broadsheet. (Oh, and if I may defend The Guardian, it's also no tabloid and it is good enough to present Ben Goldacre to the reading masses.) Morenoodles (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. I was originally happy to have the article merged with tipping point (climatology) (as one can see on the talk page), but after further research on the issue I'm convinced it's not appropriate.  Definition has been found and added added from a respected mass media source  Guardian newspaper.  I have cited 8 references for the term in use, not 2, and have added a 9th from a peer-reviewed? journal.  The grounds for inclusion are not that it is an 'official' scientific term (I've made it clear that it's not), but that it's in general use - including by some scientists.  Wiki does NOT demand that terms are in general use by scientists to justify their inclusion.  Further, the article with which it will be merged/redirected to is actually a slightly different concept.  Tipping point (climatology) describes the event that starts the runaway climate change, not the change itself.  (Minor points...  1) The grammar error was not mine, and has been corrected.  A simple check of the edit history would have revealed this.  2)I accept the blog is non-notable in general, but the identical name makes it worth a mention in this article.  It could be removed if needed. Andrewjlockley (talk) 10:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Climate change as a field of inquiry is so notable both to academics and the public that there will be many notable subtopics. This term is widely enough used, and the article is well sourced. DGG (talk)
 * Weak keep for the time being. I can understand William M. Connolley's viewpoint, and I share the concern that this could become a content fork.  However, there are sources and it does satisfy the WP:V and WP:N criteria, which means I don't feel able to support an immediate "delete" on an article that's still clearly a work in progress. I'd like to reserve judgment until I can see it in a more final form. -- I feel it'll be very important to monitor this article for non-NPOV material appearing, so I'll put it on my watch list and would encourage others to do the same.-- S Marshall   Talk / Cont  10:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge to the appropriate article on Effects of global warming. This looks like a rehash of material more properly covered there, a case of WP:CFORK, I believe. The term itself is a rather trivial extrapolation from the current debate. Ray (talk) 14:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What about tipping point (climatology) or abrupt climate change? I've now expanded the section suggested using material from this article.Andrewjlockley (talk) 15:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Tipping point (climatology) looks like a weak article, barely above a dictionary definition, and susceptible of the same criticism; however, we are not discussing its merits here. I find it bizarre that we are extending pop-science/business jargon into the scientific realm. Abrupt climate change looks like an article describing an altogether different class of meterological phenomenon quite removed from the current debate, and a worthy article in its own right. Ray (talk) 19:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Suggestion based on views There seems to be some consensus for keeping the article as a primarily 'non-scientific' article explaining the use of the term in general media, and moving the 'hard science' concepts elsewhere. Do people agree?  If so, where should the various bits go? Effects of global warming, Tipping point (climatology), abrupt climate change are all possibilities.Andrewjlockley (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect. The article as it is written today is about something. However, from the article and discussion on the talk page, I do not understand what that something is supposed to be. A literature search shows no use of this term in the climatology or planetary journals. There appears to be some use of this term in the media. If the article is rewritten using media sources about their usage and not as a science article, then it could possibly be kept. The science bits would then be merged (if needed) into the appropriate articles, likely Tipping point (climatology). However, I don't think there is a need for an article on this media term. Therefore it should be deleted and a redirect added (to either Greenhouse effect or Tipping point (climatology)) as a likely search term. -Atmoz (talk) 18:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Why delete before redirecting? The edit history might be useful. -- Explodicle (T/C) 16:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The delete is because I think the edit history is not useful, nor will ever be useful. The redirect is because it's a likely search term. (Also, if the page is deleted, it's likely the user will ask for it to be userfied, so it won't actually be lost anyway.) -Atmoz (talk) 21:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep as a 'media article', strip out hard science and move to ???Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * nb: this is this users second "keep" vote William M. Connolley (talk) 21:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sure it's a second keep but with different suggested actions.  I've left the first up as a record.  In the meantime I've spoken to many scientists by email and the most common opinon I've got back is that RAC is now a de facto term, and trying to file the concept under some obscure scientific term that no-ones' ever heard of is not productive.  I suggest we keep as a media term and skeleton science, and move the detailed science elsewhere.  I think it's hard to argue for a full delete, and I note even William M. Connolley (talk) said this above and he tagged the deletion.  Can we now conclude this?Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In these cases it's usual to strikethrough your previous words to show there's a subsequent post explaining your current view.-- S Marshall  Talk / Cont  15:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've spoken to many scientists by email and the most common opinon I've got back is that RAC is now a de facto term - this is meaningless. What would have been meaningful would be if one of these very many people could have pointed you to even one defn. But they haven't. As a media article, this article would be fine. But with no weaselly "skeleton science" in there. With no defn, there can be no meaningful science William M. Connolley (talk) 19:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You may have noticed I've been trying to move the science to GW. You 3rr warned me for my efforts.  You also haven't addressed the comparable lack of an agreed definition for GW or CC.  Andrewjlockley (talk) 02:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: When I wrote my delete vote, up near the top, I had Gladwell's little book directly in mind; I hadn't realized that there actually was an article Tipping point (climatology) (A). I take the point that (A) is not the same as "runaway climate change" (B), but instead '"describes the event that starts" (B). However, the notion of (A) seems to make no sense without (B). Do descriptions of (B) also all assume (A)? Would it make sense to merge the two in some way and under some title? Morenoodles (talk) 08:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Tipping point should stay, but RAC is so frequently used (and now I've found it in papers) that I am sure we need to keepAndrewjlockley (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge A google search had over 50,000 hits (when using double quotes). Because I don't see a big difference between "runaway", "tipping point", and "abrupt", I suggest having a single page and redirecting those to it. If there are subtle differences in meaning, point them out on a single page. Both scientific and popular definitions should be included because an encyclopedia should report usage, not try and control it. It would not be appropriate to merge this with Effects of global warming because abrupt change could also be caused by cooling, changes in solar radiation, and the like. Side topics, like Mitigation, should have their own pages and NOT be included. Q Science (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment this argument is a fallacious one see wp:ATA --DFS454 (talk) 11:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Update

I've just been sent a big list of papers that use the term. Please holdon until I've had a chance to rework.Andrewjlockley (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep at least for now. I would be more inclined to merge Tipping point (climatology) into this than the other way 'round.  The concept of tipping points isn't specific to climatology, as far as I understand, whereas the effects of passing a tipping point in climate are.  The only argument I've seen for deleting this is that the citations aren't up to standard a few days after the article was created.  But there are stubs around that are a lot older than that with no citations at all.  If no satisfactory citations are found after a bunch of people have looked, then I might change my mind. Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 07:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've started working on this. Let me know what you think.  I don't think tipping point should be merged, as it's a different concept and lots of articles link to it.  A tipping point also does not exclusively preceed runaway climate change, it can precede other climate events.Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * delete massive original research, not based not upon common denominator or concept. Even where known concepts are used, they are synthesized into something that is unrecognizable, when checking with the references. Where science sources are used, they are cherry-picked, with no weighting. Its basically pseudoscience at this point. The suggestion that it should be based upon what media says, seems to be a suggestion that entails that the main writer can now pick and choose amongst the most alarming and least scientific sources that can be found. We've tried to salvage, and to find some sort of common footstep. But to no avail. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What elements constitute OR? What sections, if any, do you think should be removed?  Which sources do you object to?Andrewjlockley (talk) 03:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Would a move to runaway (climate change) help remove any ambiguity with similar terms such as runaway greenhouse effect?Andrewjlockley (talk) 16:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge sourced content. The opening paragraph definition says it all. The person at NASA does not use this phrase. There is vast amounts of original reserach trying to masquerade as a scientific concept. This is mostly a term coined by the media. --DFS454 (talk) 11:54, 8 February 2009 (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.