Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change/Archive 9

Requested move at Talk:Debate over China's economic responsibilities for climate change mitigation
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Debate over China's economic responsibilities for climate change mitigation that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 21:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

What to do about greenhouse gas inventory
I am struggeling with the article greenhouse gas inventory. It might contain some useful content but doesn't it overlap a lot with carbon footprint, carbon accounting and greenhouse gas emissions? Wondering if some of its content should be moved/condensed/updated and then the article could be re-focused. Pinging User:Dtetta. EMsmile (talk) 15:30, 31 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Agree the article needs a lot of work. I think it should focus largely on national/international government inventory efforts. The production/consumption aspects could be shortened, IMO, buy they are still relevant to GHG inventory work. There is some overlap in these concepts, but that is what the “See also” links are for. I think they are largely distinct, and are all techniques in the more general field of measuring and assigning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. Dtetta (talk) 20:45, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll copy your comments across to the talk page of greenhouse gas inventory and hope that someone will have time in future to work on this. I also think the production/consumption aspects could be shortened but I am undecided if bits should be deleted or merged into carbon footprint which also covers the production/consumption aspects. EMsmile (talk) 12:54, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Redirect Total equivalent warming impact?
I propose to delete the content that is currently at Total equivalent warming impact and to redirect it to carbon footprint as the nearest term/concept. Unless this term is up and coming? EMsmile (talk) 16:08, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Good idea Chidgk1 (talk) 16:26, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It actually appears to have been a briefly considered alternative (since the only references are from 1990s), so it might be worth it to be briefly mention somewhere in the destination that it was an alternative term for the cumulative impact that's seemingly not used anymore. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 10:52, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a good suggestion. I did a quick Google search and found that TEWI seems to be used to compare GHGEs from refrigeration systems. Therefore, I've added a quick paragraph about TEWI to the carbon footprint article like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint#Trends_and_similar_concepts . I can then redirect the TEWI article to that section. EMsmile (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Done, redirect from Total equivalent warming impact to carbon footprint is in place. EMsmile (talk) 11:45, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Merge the article low-carbon economy to climate change mitigation?
Your inputs are invited to a discussion on the way forward for the low-carbon economy article which is currently in a rather poor state. I've just performed a major cull of outdated or poorly written content and am now wondering if the article is better off to be merged into climate change mitigation (or possibly into net zero emissions) or should stay (but in a shorter, more focused form than before). Your thoughts? The discussion is here. EMsmile (talk) 23:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The mitigation article is already quite large and attempts to cover so many things. I don't think that a merge would be beneficial. If anything, we might end up having to move certain details from the mitigation article if the need for more sections there arises. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:18, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. That's also the direction in which the discussion headed here, I think. EMsmile (talk) 15:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Article on Kyoto Protocol - high pageviews, low quality
I noticed that the article on the Kyoto Protocol still has surprisingly high pageviews, given that the Paris Agreement is now the more current agreement. Both have around 1000 to 1400 pageviews per day, see |Paris_Agreement here. Motivated by those high pageviews and the rather poor quality of the Kyoto Protocol article, I've made some quick improvements today. Mainly by culling out some outdated or digressing content that is now covered better in other Wikipedia articles. Would anyone like to provide some broad pointers or guidance for further improvements (either here or on the talk page of that article)? EMsmile (talk) 15:47, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Merge Antarctica cooling controversy into Climate change in Antarctica?
See the discussion here. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:19, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Merge marine ice sheet instability into Ice-sheet dynamics?
The discussion is here. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:28, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

What do do about Top contributors to climate change?
I've just come across this article for the first time: Top contributors to climate change. It has about 100 pageviews per day. It's been around for a while but has been expanded in June this year. To me it looks rather messy and I am not sure that such a simplistic article makes much sense. Perhaps its title should be changed to be more specific Top emission sources of greenhouse gases but then it'll overlap with greenhouse gas emissions. Do we really need this article? Isn't it more of a nightmare to maintain it? (I think it used to have a different article title in the past which might have been better) EMsmile (talk) 16:49, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I came across it some years ago but lost interest once there was no threat of a Turkish entry. I would support a rename which would define the scope as point sources, but I can only think of a clunky Biggest point sources of greenhouse gas pollution. It would need some definition of how large an area a point source could cover.
 * It should be easier to maintain nowadays as we could just copy some info from https://climatetrace.org/compare once we have agreed on ‘point’. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * On the other hand it could be limited to organisations rather than points. Dunno Chidgk1 (talk) 17:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It contains important information which clearly deserves a place here. However, I agree that its current state is not ideal. To me, it should be made into a list - i.e. I think List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions could work.
 * Additionally, we can resolve the issues with the recent carbon bomb (an article which barely meets notability criteria under WP:NEO and where much of the content is WP:SYNTH) by merging it there, since the actual meaning of the term is about proposed fossil fuel projects likely to join that list if they were carried out. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 10:48, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * See also Template talk:Infobox company Chidgk1 (talk) 11:09, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I like your proposal to convert the article to List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions, User:InformationToKnowledge. I think this could work. EMsmile (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Pinging User:IPagelocation because they are the person who has done most work on that article. Will also write on the article's talk page (I guess the discussion should continue there). EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I've now moved the page to List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions. EMsmile (talk) 12:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Carbon bombs
Hello everyone ! I just created the article Carbon bomb, translated from the French WP. I improved it a bit. Could you have a look ? Thanks ! Effco (talk) 10:23, 4 November 2023 (UTC)


 * If you are quick you can put it up for Did you know Chidgk1 (talk) 14:32, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Effco I believe that this article currently has significant issues with WP:SYNTH. To put it plainly, the term comes specifically from a single paper authored last year - a paper which is very specifically focused on fossil fuel projects and does not discuss anything else. From what I can tell, this is also the way this term is used in reference 4 and 10, and the Francophone references 1, 5 and 11 (all of which would collectively more than satisfy the main WP:NEO criteria of three separate references using the term in the same manner.)
 * Yet, the article keeps trying to drag natural feedbacks into its scope, when there is no evidence that this kind of usage was intended by any of the paper's authors. I.e. there is no evidence that the author of reference #2 from CNN was aware of the paper and is using the word "bomb" in the same way, rather than colloquially. However, it at least uses the same word - references 12 and 13 do not, so their inclusion is pure WP:OR.
 * Further, the way this article uses reference 12 is explicitly contradicted by WP:RS. Not only does it make an error by referring to "melting permafrost", rather than "thawing" (see this discussion to understand the difference), but the largest, most authoritative review of permafrost's role in climate change to date strictly rejects any bomb analogies. Likewise, the idea of methane hydrates playing any real role in climate change in our lifetimes (let alone being a "bomb") has been conclusively rejected by the IPCC - see either that article, or clathrate gun hypothesis. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:35, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Good points, InformationToKnowledge. So the way forward would be to merge it into List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions (see above)? EMsmile (talk) 11:34, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, absolutely. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:00, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I've done the merger now and also removed the content about those climate feedback processes from the description of "carbon bomb". See here: List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions. EMsmile (talk) 12:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Global Tipping Points Report 2023
https://global-tipping-points.org/

This was published in the middle of COP28, but somehow went unnoticed here at the time, unlike some of the other end-of-year reports. It's from many of the same scientists as the 2022 paper that is already featured prominently at tipping points in the climate system and related articles, so many of the points are familiar, but there is a fair amount of new material as well - most notably with the large sections on "social tipping points" and "positive tipping points". Those have the potential to be useful in a lot of articles here. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Article on Climate change in Asia is needed urgently
Yes, this article does not actually exist - there is a link, but it's a redirect to a fairly poor two-paragraph summary in the actual Asia article. That summary has a whole lot of "Further information" links, but they either point you to, which REALLY does not seem to be in line with WP:MOS, or to a mix of what are mostly other redirects. So, Climate change in Southeast Asia and Climate change in Central Asia just lead you to single short paragraphs in those articles (mere two sentences for the latter), while Climate change in North Asia is a redirect to Climate change in Russia. Climate change in East Asia is a disambig that points to pages for country-level climate change articles.

Climate change in South Asia is the only link which actually leads to a separate article, and it's not even as bad as it could have been. We'll probably end up merging it into the new continent-scale article, but I'm not 100% sure on this yet. What is certain, though, is that we needed to have the continent-scale article yesterday. The immediate obstacle which prompted me to look into this is that it's hard to move (excessive) regional detail from the sea level rise article, when there is a lack of a developed destination article, but the issues obviously do not stop here.

Strictly speaking, probably the only continental-scale articles that are in an acceptable state are Climate change in Antarctica after the recent overhaul and merge (though the biodiversity section is still a mess for now) and maybe Climate change in Australia (which is also a country-scale article). Climate change in North America and Climate change in South America do not exist either and instead redirect you to Climate change in the Americas, which is another disambiguation page. It would probably be a good idea to keep those two as redirects but turn the disambiguation page into a proper article (since a separate North America article would certainly end up dominated by the USA content, and the South America one would probably be mainly about Brazil). Climate change in Africa and Climate change in Europe at least exist as proper articles, though both seem to have very significant issues with bloat, referencing, etc.

However, Asia is the continent which accounts for the majority of human population, so its article is clearly needed before all the others. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:40, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. (but I couldn't motivate myself to set it up at the moment). Those "climate change in country X or in region X or in continent X articles" are good and useful but strangely, they tend to linger at low pageviews. They are good articles for students to sink their teeth in, I think. This has been done e.g. as part of this work by Swedish professor Olle Terenius: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/users/Olle%20Terenius%20(UU) . See e.g. here: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Ecology_and_genetics_Uppsala_University/Ecological_effects_and_Climate_change_(Spring_2023)/articles/edited? . The work of his students has often been rather good, I find. Usually much better than what has come out of many U.S. university course assignments. Some of that content at Climate change in Antarctica came from his students.
 * About two years ago, I pushed for a standard structure for these articles to make it easier for everyone to set them up and to read them. This standard structure is available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Style_guide#Outline_for_articles_about_specific_countries_or_geographies . EMsmile (talk) 10:43, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It's a good structure, and at first glance, I do not really see anything I would disagree with or add to. I also agree that the improvements to regional articles appear to be fairly good. I wish there were a lot more images there, and I doubt it would be that difficult to find them. However, with their (currently) limited views, that doesn't seem to be a particularly reasonable undertaking for most of us, for now. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Using Copernicus Programme images in Wikimedia
The Copernicus Programme (related: Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3) has generated some excellent graphics, including both satellite images and data charts. See Commons Category:Copernicus Sentinel Satellite Imagery and Copernicus' own legal notice.

After discussion at Talk:Sea surface temperature, User:Uwappa uploaded the image shown at right after obtaining informal agreement at Commons:Village pump/Copyright.

There is a Commons template, Template:Attribution-Copernicus, that refers to "data from a satellite". Most images using the template are satellite images, but my concern is that data does not have the same copyright protection as expressions of data (that is, charts like the one at right).

''Before we go headlong into using (any and all?) Copernicus images, does anyone have authoritative proof we're safe to use them on Wikimedia projects? Are there limitations on the type of image (satellite images versus charted data) we can use?'' — RCraig09 (talk) 15:50, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree, Copernicus has some excellent graphics. Same questions apply to other charts, uploaded earlier by OptimusPrimeBot:
 * The Mediterranean file shows more than raw satellite data such as city names and country borders. The temperature anomalies require comparison against a standard value. The 3 small charts at the bottom are charted data. Uwappa (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Discussion moved to the Commons Village pump for copyright. — RCraig09 (talk) 04:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Discussion at the Village Pump fizzled out, being archived without a definite conclusion. The narrow issue is whether Copernicus graphics that require creative originality fall within Copernicus' generally broad permission. The language of their permission is ambiguous. (Satellite photos, which are most of what are uploaded to Wikimedia, aren't at issue.) — RCraig09 (talk) 16:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't see that discussion since I'm mainly active on German Wikipedia. A few points:
 * There is currently a very short survey on the Copernicus Climate Change Service. I put in that I want a clear indication of the image licence when clicking on dowload like on the Image of the Day site with the satellite observations. Feel free to do the same.
 * Here it says: "Is Copernicus data and information free of charge? Yes. Considered as a public good, Earth observation data delivered by the Sentinel satellites, and the data and information delivered by the 6 Copernicus services are available to users on a free, full, and open basis. [...]" - the Climate Change Service is one of the 6 services.
 * there is also Copyright and licences where I don't see commercial use prohibited. The required acknowledgements can be made. Any issues?
 * one could also just use the data like The Guardian
 * yes, the template on commons only talks about images derived from Sentinel satellite data, which doesn't fit these images - should be modified?
 * Lupe (talk) 10:53, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Lupe. I was not worried about data, or simple charting of data (both are clearly licensed). Copernicus' attitude seems lenient. However, I was concerned with downloading Copernicus charts that required "originality". Apparently, no one has found a clear licensing for free use of Copernicus charts that required "originality". — RCraig09 (talk) 22:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I uploaded another image from here (Image of the Day). It says "The imagery, data and information produced by the Copernicus programme of the European Union is made available on a full, free and open basis to businesses, scientists and citizens." Lupe (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Recent paper relying on WikiProject Climate Change data
Hey all, discovered this paper that uses WikiProject Climate Change data to look at reader attention to climate topics on top 20 Wikipedias: https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/650852934/Meier_Wiki_Climate.pdf Sadads (talk) 12:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Article on habitat destruction has a section on climate change
I like to include content on climate change in articles where readers might not specifically look for it. The article on habitat destruction gets around 370 pageviews per day (not that many but OK) and had an outdated section on climate change which basically only mentioned polar bears. I've updated that a bit now and linked better to related articles.

Broadly speaking there are three main areas where I think CC leads to habitat destruction: (1) melting of sea ice, (2) sea level rise and (3) destroying coral reefs. The other things are more nuanced, right, where habitats are changing, like getting too wet, too dry, too hot. This is probably better covered in effects of climate change on biomes, which I have linked to. - The article on habitat destruction is overall pretty bad but for now I just wanted to ensure that at least its climate change section is OK. Have I missed anything important here? EMsmile (talk) 14:48, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * It might be worth highlighting climate soultions and maladaptation: i.e. humans change the environment to adapt to climate change, but leads to extensive habitat destruction, because they misunderstand the effects they are having. Examples, include things like bad coastal management or the recent consideration of daming another river in order to deal with drought effects on the panama canal. Sadads (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, thanks. By the way a better wikilink for maladaptation is this one: Climate change adaptation. I could maybe repeat some content from there at the habitat destruction article or find other examples plus sources, avoiding writing about WP:OR. EMsmile (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Invasive species
Invasive species has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. &#126;~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Problem with very strange peer-reviewed article about Greenhouse gases saturation
In the past few days a very strange article [] was published in the peer-reviewed journal "Applications in Engineering Science" (Elsevier), which was immediately used by some deniers in the czwiki. What to do with it?? Have we to wait until some scientific critiques will appear?

When I pointed out the content of the article to a Czech climatologist - representative in the IPCC, he wrote to me:

"If someone measures the thermal radiation from the Moon at the Earth's surface, finds that it is negligible, and concludes that CO2 in the atmosphere does not absorb this radiation??? And therefore does not absorb thermal radiation in the opposite direction (from the Earth's surface)?

I looked up the lead author (Institute of Optolelectronics, Military University of Technology, Kaliskiego 2, Warsaw 00-908, Poland) and his work. Opto-electronically it has measured definitely correctly. But where did he get the idea that heat from the moon reaches the Earth??? And it is also stated at the end: "No data was used for the research described in the article." So that explains everything." Jirka Dl (talk) 06:53, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * There are different kinds of peer-reviewed journals. While this one is part of the generally respected (for academic rigour, if not for their business model) Elsevier family, it has a CiteScore of 2.1, which means that it is extremely minor and obscure. Genuinely compelling findings would have been published in a much more prominent journal. That's not even to mention that instrumental observations are only one line of evidence, and paleoclimate reconstructions which can only be explained by greenhouse effect are another, which this article does nothing to address.
 * Considering the strength and extent of the scientific consensus on climate change (does Czech wiki have a version of that article yet?), there is no need to pay attention to it. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:13, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Pageviews for AMOC spiking and generally going up
This is a nice example of how news stories make people go to Wikipedia and look up stuff: See the spike in the pageviews for AMOC here around 10 Feb. There were news reports about AMOC weakening or collapsing. Wondering if information from those new studies should be added to the AMOC article but don't have the expertise, time, energy to do it myself. EMsmile (talk) 09:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Rewilding (conservation biology)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Rewilding (conservation biology) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

A section on "threats" for each plant and animal article?
I've started a discussion at WikiProject Tree of Life arguing that each plant and animal article ought to have a main level heading on "threats" (which is also where any threats from climate change could go in future). This was prompted by User:InformationToKnowledge's addition of climate change effects content to flowering plant, somewhat hidden in the section on "conservation". If you are interested, please participate in the discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Proposal_about_%22threats%22_in_the_standard_outline. (I think it's important to add climate change content not just in pure climate change articles but also in all the other articles where climate change has impacts.) EMsmile (talk) 12:29, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Added new section on "climate hazard" to hazard
I've just added a new section on "climate hazard" to the main hazard article, using content from the IPCC AR6 report. Its glossary didn't have an entry for "climate hazard" but the term is used a lot in the WG2 report. Climate hazards are pretty much those things that we call also effects of climate change. Please help me improve what I have written so far. Perhaps you also propose other publications that should be cited there, not just the IPCC AR6 report. In parallel, I have also proposed to merge anthropogenic hazard into hazard. (by the way, our main climate change article does not mention "hazard" once). EMsmile (talk) 12:33, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Land use change articles
Land use change is a big topic for us. When I see the term mentioned, or variations of it like "land use modification", I am undecided where to wikilink the term to. I used to wikilink to Land use, land-use change and forestry but now I see we also have land change science (I wasn't aware of that article before). Is it better to generally link there? Or should those two articles maybe be merged? I also noticed that the article on land use is rather bare. As a small quick fix, I have added an excerpt from land change science to land use. Just wondering if anyone is interested in this topic and could help to improve the situation? EMsmile (talk) 11:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Please correct permafrost "melt" in 2 schematics
Please remember the correct terminology is "permafrost thawing", not "permafrost melting". This was pointed out by User:InformationToKnowledge on a few of the talk pages (see e.g. here). I now noticed the wrong terminology in two schematics that we use in several articles. Can someone please change it. and. Can someone please correct that; I don't know how to edit those schematics. EMsmile (talk) 23:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ and ✅. — RCraig09 (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thank you! EMsmile (talk) 08:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Help needed with direction of climate change scenario article
I am currently discussing with User:Uwappa the way forward with the climate change scenario article. Would appreciate an extra pair of eyes and brain power if anyone has time. The question is: do we keep the article on just the theory/fundamentals of scenario setting (my preference) or do we expand it to give actual practical information about the different likely scenarios that are ahead of us (Uwappa's preference). EMsmile (talk) 08:43, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Adding Topical table to Scholarly Journals and News Report:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Recommended_sources
Hi @Clayoquot, @EMsmile, @Femke and others! we are back after major changes this past six months – my family medical needs, one of my contractors having major family medical needs for three different nuclear relatives, and the Washington DC Tool Library that I jump-started being robbed three times one week - with subsequent incredible support by the media and community swamping us with love! (Our team raises a toast, almost, to the burglars.)

So, one of the projects we want to move along was in two phases: 1) Now Completed: merging many of your climate action refs with ours and collaborator Earth Hero’s to create a table with at least 4-5 key, overview references per type of climate action (e.g., transportation, buildings, energy, communication). 2) Now we want to make it available for use, commenting, and hopefully editing within the PCC, for those editors interested in having articles summarizing some of the latest climate actions for individuals (not government- or industry-level.).

First, the goal of the reference compilation was to assist CSteps, WP, and Earth Hero EDITORS in the beginning stages of researching individual action pros and cons, based on some secondary/consensus documents with a science underlayment. We were not seeking to create a table of resources for the articles themselves, though they could be used as such. More a table version of resources for editors, that also includes secondary articles.

@Loupgrru did the bulk of the research, with the understanding that this is an initial framework to build upon - with lots of discussion back and forth  and additions by any interested PCC editors – to help WP editors find the latest “consensus” information in addition to the IPCC and some generalized solution reports.

Since we created this table, further work has been done on the Individual Action on Climate Change article [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_action_on_climate_change that is wonderful, so that it provides better coverage than before across a range of topics, and perhaps provides a good tagging structure for the references already. We seek to add some of these references now to a table structure.

A table within PCC (or outside) can provide the benefit of searchable tags and quick discovery of key, basically recommended references for multiple uses by multiple editors. Right now, you can see our reference table, with tags (and whether it is a secondary or primary source, and considered suitable for Wikipedia) here: https://airtable.com/invite/l?inviteId=invm4SukrrNzNI8LG&inviteToken=0c48e41a14c273460a30b2570172ef461a4014c176b6667516ccf9a64e5747f7&utm_medium=email&utm_source=product_team&utm_content=transactional-alerts.

We still see the references being put as a table in a subpage under the Recommended Sources page, as some of you supported before. Comments are welcome here and in the table before we put it into a temporary or permanent subpage, so we can make it a community tool.

Cheers, all!

Annette AnnetteCSteps (talk) 00:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Annette, and welcome back. Could you please put the content you'd like us to see on a site that doesn't require registration? Needing to register for a new website is a barrier to participation for me and probably others.  Cheers, Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 05:45, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure. Will do that. It's a big table though.  AnnetteCSteps (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for providing a link to the table in a more open website: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uvSHdygLfC6X-c6KeRy02suRtfoyUSH5LkrHCD5FLEI/edit . I did some spot-checks. Many of these sources are great, however some do not meet even the minimum wp:RS requirements. E.g. this is a self-published source from someone who is not a recognized expert. Other relevant considerations for some of the entries are at WP:MDPI and WP:FORBESCON. Pressure groups such as the Rainforest Action Network are sometimes OK but usually not considered top-quality. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 21:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, @Clayoquot. I thought I’d weeded all of those out in what I shared on that Google sheet. We include references on AirTable that don’t necessarily meet Wikipedia’s standards, and I thought I had set up what I shared to avoid those. Loupgrru (talk) 15:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I was pretty sure we had also designated the Rainforest Action Network as not suitable. We will take that one out and review again for that issue.  For the new standards, I must say, there are a lot of standards/guidance out there about the basic primary v. secondary guidance, but I hadn't heard of this one - this looks so very helpful FORBESCON. Your materials are great but obviously there arise questions.  Good to know about the other resources.
 * One of the things we had hoped for, as newcomers when we first joined, was to work with WP editors to build this database. But with the loss of one of contractors, we lost the time to really maximize relationships with experienced editors and build and learn.  We hope to in the future.  In the meantime, we've gotten that contractor back, so now we have two eyes on the resources, which is always a good thing.
 * Thank you @Clayoquot! AnnetteCSteps (talk) 01:18, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, fyi, Mark and I just met, and the broader information had been sent, versus the Recommended articles. We're still going to have the returned contractor look over the materials.  AnnetteCSteps (talk) 17:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Again, I apologize. I misunderstood one of the columns in AirTable, thinking it indicated a reference that met Wikipedia standards. It was not. I also chose some of those references when I was still fairly new to Wikipedia reference standards, and included some references that were not high quality. I’ve removed them, but we’re still double-checking it. I’ve temporarily removed access to that Google sheet while Shoshana (I don’t know her Wikipedia username) and I work on it. I’m sorry for the delay. Loupgrru (talk) 08:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Dealing with the tropical regions article?
Climate change effects on tropical regions was created the other month. It's a very encouraging effort by a new editor, but I don't see how this article can be kept. Logically, its presence would necessarily entail articles on midlatitudes and high latitudes, and I don't think this subdivision would be practical. You could argue we already have Climate change in the Arctic and Climate change in Antarctica, but the former is clearly a special case, and the latter is more akin to the continent-scale articles like Climate change in Europe.

I would propose moving the material on tropical forests to the subsection of effects of climate change on biomes, and the ocean/reef material to any of the related articles. (The section on adaptation seems very general, and probably does not have anything we don't include elsewhere already.) Does anyone have other ideas? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 05:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I am not sure. The article can be improved. I like the simplicity of the title, not much knowledge required to understand what that is about, so a good entry point. An even simpler title could be: "Climate change in the tropics". Other articles at the same level could be:
 * Climate change in temperate regions
 * Climate change in polar regions, linking to Climate_change_in_the_Arctic and Climate_change_in_Antarctica
 * I think such articles can be short and sweet, pointing to main articles for details per region.
 * An other idea: convert it to just a category. Uwappa (talk) 10:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I hadn't seen this article before, thanks for pointing this out. I support the suggestion by User:InformationToKnowledge, and don't think that a stand-alone article is suitable. The other "climate change in xx" articles are for countries or political regions, like the EU. Artic and Antarctica are exceptions to this rule. Pinging the person who crated this article, User:OliveTree39. And I guess further discussions should take place on the talk page of that article. Thanks for the alert, I2K! EMsmile (talk) 14:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Do we really need the article Deforestation and climate change?
Please take part in the discussion about this: do we really need the article Deforestation and climate change? I think its content is probably better off moved to deforestation, reforestation etc. Currently it contains a lot of excerpts (to avoid overlap with other articles). EMsmile (talk) 09:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Do we need an article on global greening?
I noticed that we don't have an article on global greening yet. We do touch on this topic in several of our articles, as climate change can lead to both: an increase in desertification and a reduction. For example in Tipping points in the climate system we mention Sahel greening. But in effects of climate change we don't mention greening at all. I got onto this topic through these two articles: [https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2024/2/7/24057308/earth-global-greening-climate-change-carbon The Earth is getting greener. Hurray?] and Anthropogenic climate change has driven over 5 million km2 of drylands towards desertification. I've just added content from the latter paper to desertification.

Global greening is interesting because part of it is due to CC (counter-intuitive perhaps, as we often talk about droughts from CC). And it also does help a bit with mitigation. But it's not necessarily good for biodiversity. EMsmile (talk) 10:24, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * See here where User:InformationToKnowledge has already put some sources together which explain the varied effects of climate change on greening vs. desertification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Effects_of_climate_change_on_agriculture#Effects_of_desertification Could be used to enrich either a new or an existing article that explains global greening and the role of CC. EMsmile (talk) 12:49, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It should be covered, but I don't know yet if it should necessarily be covered in a separate article. In general, we should try to have fewer, stronger, higher-view articles rather having a low-view stubs for every single term/phenomenon. In that regard, a sub-section in an article like carbon sink might work better - since global greening is, fundamentally, the main process responsible for the growth of land carbon sink in absolute terms (if not in relative terms), and to my knowledge, there aren't that many references which discuss greening outside of the carbon sink aspect. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 05:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. I fully agree fewer, stronger, higher-view articles are better. We could start with having "global greening" in an existing article and create a spin-off article later, if needed. However, the causes for global greening go beyond global warming. Some of it is simply more irrigation projects in agriculture (like irrigation in Saudi Arabia), or afforestation projects (see this article: The Earth is getting greener. Hurray?). So a proportion of the global greening is due to climate change, another proportion isn't. That's why I don't think it would fit within carbon sink. Wondering if it could become part of desert greening but then change the title of desert greening to global greening and expand its scope. EMsmile (talk) 08:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We'll see. As far as the things this WikiProject should be doing, though, I don't think this ranks anywhere near as high, as, say, creating a proper Climate change in Asia article (you remember this discussion right here, right? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:43, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge cloud forcing into cloud feedback?
I am proposing to merge cloud forcing into cloud feedback, please contribute to the discussion here. EMsmile (talk) 12:47, 3 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the pointer. Please avoid linking the word here, as it's bad for accessibility. You can easily link the words "the discussion". —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:54, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * in which sense bad for accessibility? Because "here" is shorter than "the discussion"? Just trying to understand what you mean. EMsmile (talk) 22:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Because 'here' does not explain the target of the link. See Nielsen's tip 35 at https://www.nngroup.com/articles/113-design-guidelines-homepage-usability/#toc-links-4
 * Alternative: I am proposing to merge cloud forcing into cloud feedback, please contribute to the discussion.
 * Uwappa (talk) 07:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I wasn't aware of that. Much appreciated. EMsmile (talk) 08:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I've carried out the merger now. EMsmile (talk) 07:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge discussion on Talk:Environmental impact of cattle
The question is about whether or not it should be merged into Environmental impacts of animal agriculture. The discussion began a little over a month ago, but hasn't had much activity and is currently deadlocked. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I support the merger proposal and have written on the talk page there. EMsmile (talk) 07:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

RFC on Food and Health in Climate change
There is an RFC requesting that editors choose between one of two draft sections on Food and Health in the article on Climate change. Please take part in the RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Reverted edits: Cloud seeding UAE
Lots of attention on the Cloud seeding in the United Arab Emirates article at the moment due to the floods. From what I've read, current consensus is that the floods are more likely due to climate change than cloud seeding activities but tonnes are blaming cloud seeding on social media. But when I tried to add this, I was reverted a couple times by an IP user for what I feel are unfounded reasons (view history). They did not engage with my comments on the Talk page.

Given the tendancy for cloud seeding to be popular with conspiracy theorists I'm concerned, that at worst, this could be climate denialist coopting another narrative to avoid a possible climate change link to the April 2024 floods.

(On another note, I hope to conduct some reviews of cloud seeding content with experts shortly). TatjanaClimate (talk) 06:41, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Could someone please take a look at the dispute on the Cloud seeding in the United Arab Emirates article?TatjanaClimate (talk) 06:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Climate change in country X redirects
I've started nominating a bunch of "Climate change in country x" redirects for deletion. The discussion is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2024_April_22#Climate_change_in_Bahrain Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 18:22, 22 April 2024 (UTC)