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Frequently asked questions

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Q1: Is there really a scientific consensus on climate change?

A1: Yes. The IPCC findings of recent warming as a result of human influence are explicitly recognized as the "consensus" scientific view by the science academies of all the major industrialized countries. No scientific body of national or international standing presently rejects the basic findings of human influence on recent climate. This scientific consensus is supported by over 99% of publishing climate scientists.^[1]

Q2: How can we say climate change is real when it's been so cold in such-and-such a place?

A2: This is why it is termed "global warming", not "(such-and-such a place) warming". Even then, what rises is the average temperature over time – that is, the temperature will fluctuate up and down within the overall rising trend. To give an idea of the relevant time scales, the standard averaging period specified by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is 30 years. Accordingly, the WMO defines climate change as "a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer)."^[2]

Q3: Can't the increase of CO₂ be from natural sources, like volcanoes or the oceans?

A3: While these claims are popular among global warming skeptics,^[3]^[4] including academically trained ones,^[5]^[6] they are incorrect. This is known from any of several perspectives:

Current human emissions of CO₂ are at least 100 times larger than volcanic emissions. Measurements of CO₂ levels over the past 50 years do not show any significant rises after eruptions.^[7] This is easily seen in a graph of CO₂ concentrations over the past 50 years: the strongest eruption during the period, that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, produced no increase in the trend.
Isotopic analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide shows the observed change in the ratio of carbon isotopes reflects the isotopic ratios in fossil fuels.^[8]
Atmospheric oxygen content is decreasing at a rate that agrees with the amount of oxygen being used to burn fossil fuels.^[9]
If the oceans were giving up some of their carbon dioxide, their carbon dioxide concentration would have to decrease. But instead we are measuring an increase in the oceans' carbon dioxide concentration, resulting in the oceans becoming more acidic (or in other words, less basic).^[10]

Q4: I think the article is missing some things, or has some things wrong. Can I change it?

A4: Yes. Keep in mind that your points need to be based on documented evidence from the peer-reviewed literature, or other information that meets standards of verifiability, reliability, and no original research. If you do not have such evidence, more experienced editors may be able to help you find it (or confirm that such evidence does not exist). You are welcome to make such queries on the article's talk page but please keep in mind that the talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not discussing the topic. There are many forums that welcome general discussions of global warming, but the article talk page is not such a forum.

Q5: Why haven't the graphs been updated?

A5: Two reasons:

There are many images used in the articles related to global warming, and there are many reasons why they may not be updated with the latest data. Some of the figures, like the Global Warming Map, are static, meaning that they are intended to show a particular phenomenon and are not meant to be updated frequently or at all. Others, like the Instrumental Temperature Record and Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomalies, use yearly data and thus are updated once per year—usually in mid- to late-January, depending upon when the data is publicly released, and when a volunteer creates the image. Still others, like Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide, use monthly data. These are updated semi-regularly.
However, just because an image is 6 months or a year old does not mean it is useless. Robert A. Heinlein is credited with saying, "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get", meaning that climate is defined as a long-term average of weather, usually about 30 years. This length was chosen to eliminate the year-to-year variations.^[11] Thus, in terms of climate change, any given year's data is of little import.

Q6: Isn't climate change "just a theory"?

A6: People who say this are abusing the word "theory" by conflating its common meaning with its scientific meaning. In common usage, "theory" can mean a hunch or guess, but a scientific theory, roughly speaking, means a coherent set of explanations that is compatible with observations and that allows predictions to be made. That the temperature is rising is an observation. An explanation for this (also known as a hypothesis) is that the warming is primarily driven by greenhouse gases (such as CO₂ and methane) released into the atmosphere by human activity. Scientific models have been built that predict the rise in temperature and these predictions have matched observations. When scientists gain confidence in a hypothesis because it matches observation and has survived intense scrutiny, the hypothesis may be called a "theory". Strictly speaking, scientific theories are never proven, but the degree of confidence in a theory can be discussed. The scientific models now suggest that it is "extremely likely" (>95%) to "virtually certain" (>99%) that the increases in temperature have been caused by human activity as discussed in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Global warming via greenhouse gases by human activity is a theory (in the scientific sense), but it is most definitely not just a hunch or guess.

Q7: Does methane cause more warming than CO₂?

A7: It's true that methane is more potent molecule for molecule. But there's far less of it in the atmosphere, so the total effect is smaller. The atmospheric lifetime of methane (about 10 years) is a lot shorter than that of CO₂ (hundreds to thousands of years), so when methane emissions are reduced the concentration in the atmosphere soon falls, whereas CO₂ accumulates in the atmosphere over long periods. For details see the greenhouse gas and global warming potential articles.

Q8: How can you say there's a consensus when lists of "skeptical scientists" have been compiled?

A8: Consensus is not the same as unanimity, the latter of which is impractical for large groups. Over 99% of publishing climate scientists agree on anthropogenic climate change.^[1] This is an extremely high percentage well past any reasonable threshold for consensus. Any list of "skeptical scientists" would be dwarfed by a comparably compiled list of scientists accepting anthropogenic climate change.

Q9: Did climate change end in 1998?

A9: One of the strongest El Niño events in the instrumental record occurred during late 1997 through 1998, causing a spike in global temperature for 1998. Through the mid-late 2000s this abnormally warm year could be chosen as the starting point for comparisons with later years in order to produce a cooling trend; choosing any other year in the 20th century produced a warming trend. This no longer holds since the mean global temperatures in 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have all been warmer than 1998.^[12] More importantly, scientists do not define a "trend" by looking at the difference between two given years. Instead they use methods such as linear regression that take into account all the values in a series of data. The World Meteorological Organisation specifies 30 years as the standard averaging period for climate statistics so that year-to-year fluctuations are averaged out;^[2] thus, 10 years isn't long enough to detect a climate trend.

Q10: Wasn't Greenland much warmer during the period of Norse settlement?

A10: Some people assume this because of the island's name. In fact the Saga of Erik the Red tells us Erik named the new colony Greenland because "men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name."^[13] Advertising hype was alive and well in 985 AD.

While much of Greenland was and remains under a large ice sheet, the areas of Greenland that were settled by the Norse were coastal areas with fjords that, to this day, remain quite green. You can see the following images for reference:

A map of the Eastern Settlement
A satellite image of that area today
A map of the Western Settlement
A satellite image of that area today
A zoom in on the general area where the Brattahlíð (Erik the Red's farm) and Garðar farms were located

Q11: Are the IPCC reports prepared by biased UN scientists?

A11: The IPCC reports are not produced by "UN scientists". The IPCC does not employ the scientists who generate the reports, and it has no control over them. The scientists are internationally recognized experts, most with a long history of successful research in the field. They are employed by various organizations including scientific research institutes, agencies like NASA and NOAA, and universities. They receive no extra pay for their participation in the IPCC process, which is considered a normal part of their academic duties.

Q12: Hasn't global sea ice increased over the last 30 years?

A12: Measurements show that it has not.^[14] Claims that global sea ice amounts have stayed the same or increased are a result of cherry picking two data points to compare, while ignoring the real (strongly statistically significant) downward trend in measurements of global sea ice amounts.

Arctic sea ice cover is declining strongly; Antarctic sea ice cover has had some much smaller increases, though it may or may not be thinning, and the Southern Ocean is warming. The net global ice-cover trend is clearly downwards.

Q13: Weren't scientists telling us in the 1970s that the Earth was cooling instead of warming?

A13: They weren't – see the article on global cooling. An article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has reviewed the scientific literature at that time and found that even during the 1970s the prevailing scientific concern was over warming.^[15] The common misperception that cooling was the main concern during the 1970s arose from a few studies that were sensationalized in the popular press, such as a short nine-paragraph article that appeared in Newsweek in 1975.^[16] (Newsweek eventually apologized for having misrepresented the state of the science in the 1970s.)^[17] The author of that article has repudiated the idea that it should be used to deny global warming.^[18]

Q14: Doesn't water vapour cause 98% of the greenhouse effect?

A14: Water vapour is indeed a major greenhouse gas, contributing about 36% to 70% (not 98%) of the total greenhouse effect. But water vapour has a very short atmospheric lifetime (about 10 days), compared with decades to centuries for greenhouse gases like CO₂ or nitrous oxide. As a result it is very nearly in a dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere, which globally maintains a nearly constant relative humidity. In simpler terms, any excess water vapour is removed by rainfall, and any deficit of water vapour is replenished by evaporation from the Earth's surface, which literally has oceans of water. Thus water vapour cannot act as a driver of climate change.

Rising temperatures caused by the long-lived greenhouse gases will however allow the atmosphere to hold more vapour. This will lead to an increase in the absolute amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. Since water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, this is an example of a positive feedback. Thus, whereas water vapour is not a driver of climate change, it amplifies existing trends.

Q15: Is the fact that other solar system bodies are warming evidence for a common cause (i.e. the sun)?

A15: While some solar system bodies show evidence of local or global climate change, there is no evidence for a common cause of warming.

A 2007 National Geographic article described the views of Khabibullo Abdusamatov, who claims that the sun is responsible for global warming on both Earth and Mars.^[19] Abdussamatov's views have no support in the scientific community, as the second page of the National Geographic article makes clear: "'His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion,' said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. [...] Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that 'the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations.'"^[20]
There is no reliable source claiming that Jupiter is warming. However, observations of the Red Spot Jr. storm suggest Jupiter could be in a period of global climate change.^[21]^[22] This is hypothesized to be part of an approximately 70 year global climate cycle, characterized by the relatively rapid forming and subsequent slow erosion and merging of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices that help transfer heat between Jupiter's poles and equator. The cycle works like this: As the vortices erode, heat exchange is reduced; this makes the poles cool down and the equatorial region heat up; the resulting temperature difference destabilizes the atmosphere, leading to the creation of new vortices.^[23]^[24]
Pluto has an extremely elliptical orbit with a period of about 248 years. Data are sparse, but two data points from 1988 and 2002 indirectly suggest that Pluto warmed between those two dates.^[25] Pluto's temperature is heavily influenced by its elliptical orbit – it was closest to the sun in 1989 and has slowly receded since. Because of thermal inertia, it is expected to warm for a while after it passes perihelion (similar to how a sunny day's warmest temperatures happen during the afternoon instead of right at noon). No other mechanism has so far been seriously suggested. Here is a reasonable summary, and this paper discusses how the thermal inertia is provided by sublimation and evaporation of parts of Pluto's atmosphere. A more popular account is here and in Wikipedia's own article.

Q16: Do scientists support climate change just to get more money?

A16: No,

Scientists participate in international organizations like the IPCC as part of their normal academic duties. They do not receive any extra compensation beyond possibly for direct expenses.
Scientific grants do not usually award any money to a scientist personally, only towards the cost of his or her scientific work.
There is not a shortage of useful things that scientists could study if they were not studying global warming.
- Understanding our climate system better brings benefits independent of global warming. For instance, more accurate weather predictions save a lot of money (on the order of billions of dollars a year), and everyone from insurance agents to farmers wants climate data.^[26]^[27] Scientists could get paid to study climate even if global warming did not exist.

Q17: Doesn't the climate vary even without human activity?

A17: It does, but the fact that natural variation occurs does not mean that human-induced change cannot also occur. Climate scientists have extensively studied natural causes of climate change (such as orbital changes, volcanism, and solar variation) and have ruled them out as an explanation for the current temperature increase. Human activity is the cause at the 95 to 99 percent confidence level (see the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report for details). The high level of certainty in this is important to keep in mind to spot mention of natural variation functioning as a distraction.

Q18: Should we include the view that climate change will lead to planetary doom or catastrophe?

A18: This page is about the science of climate change. It doesn't talk about planetary doom or catastrophe. For a technical explanation, see catastrophic climate change, and for paleoclimatic examples see PETM and great dying.

Q19: Is an increase in global temperature of, say, 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) important?

A19: Though it may not sound like much, a global temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) is huge in climate terms. For example, the sea level rise it would produce would flood coastal cities around the world, which include most large cities.

Earth's climate has varied significantly over geological ages. The question of an "optimal temperature" makes no sense without a clear optimality criterion. Over geological time spans, ecosystems adapt to climate variations. But global climate variations during the development of human civilization (i.e. the past 12,000 years) have been remarkably small. Human civilization is highly adapted to the current stable climate. Agricultural production depends on the proper combination of soil, climate, methods, and seeds. Most large cities are located on the coast, and any significant change in sea level would strongly affect them. Migration of humans and ecosystems is limited by political borders and existing land use. In short, the main problem is not the higher absolute temperature but the massive and unprecedentedly fast change in climate and the related effects on human societies. The IPCC AR6 WG2 report has a detailed discussion of the effects of rapid climate change.

Q20: Why are certain proposals to change the article discarded, deleted, or ignored? Who is/was Scibaby?

A20: Scibaby is/was a long term abusive sock-master (or coordinated group of sock masters) who has created 1,027 confirmed sock puppets, another 167 suspected socks, and probably many untagged or unrecognized ones. This page lists some recent creations. His modus operandi has changed over time, but includes proposing reasonably worded additions on the talk page that only on close examination turn out to be irrelevant, misinterpreted, or give undue weight to certain aspects. Scibaby is banned, and Scibaby socks are blocked as soon as they are identified. Some editors silently revert his additions, per WP:DENY, while others still assume good faith even for likely socks and engage them.

Q21: What about this really interesting recent peer-reviewed paper I read or read about, that says...?

A21: There are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published every month in respected scientific journals such as Geophysical Research Letters, the Journal of Climate, and others. We can't include all of them, but the article does include references to individual papers where there is consensus that they best represent the state of the relevant science. This is in accordance with the "due weight" principle (WP:WEIGHT) of the Neutral point of view policy and the "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" principle (WP:IINFO) of the What Wikipedia is not policy.

Q22: Why does the article define "climate change" as a recent phenomenon? Hasn't the planet warmed and cooled before?

A22: Yes, the planet has warmed and cooled before. However, the term "climate change" without further qualification is widely understood to refer to the recent episode and often explicitly connected with the greenhouse effect. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we use the term in this most common meaning. The article Climate variability and change deals with the more general concept.

Q23: Did the CERN CLOUD experiment prove that climate change is caused not by human activity but by cosmic rays?

A23: No. For cosmic rays to be causing global warming, all of the following would have to be true, whereas only the italicized one was tested in the 2011 experiment:^[28]

Solar magnetic field must be getting stronger
The number of cosmic rays reaching Earth must be dropping
Cosmic rays must successfully seed clouds, which requires:

Cosmic rays must trigger aerosol (liquid droplet) formation,
These newly-formed aerosols must grow sufficiently through condensation to form cloud-condensation nuclei (CCN),
The CCN must lead to increased cloud formation, and
Cloud cover on Earth must be declining.

Perhaps the study's lead author, Jasper Kirkby, put it best: "...it [the experiment] actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step."^[29]

Q24: I read that something can't fix climate change. Is this true?

A24: Yes, this is true for all plausible single things including: "electric cars", "planting trees", "low-carbon technology", "renewable energy", "Australia", "capitalism", "the doom & gloom approach", "a Ph.D. in thermodynamics". Note that it is problematic to use the word "fix" regarding climate change, as returning the climate to its pre-industrial state currently appears to be feasible only over a timeframe of thousands of years. Current efforts are instead aimed at mitigating (meaning limiting) climate change. Mitigation is strived for through the combination of many different things. See Climate change mitigation for details.

References

^ ^a ^b Powell, James (20 November 2019). "Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 37 (4): 183–184. doi:10.1177/0270467619886266. S2CID 213454806. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
^ ^a ^b "Commission for Climatology Frequently Asked Questions". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
^ Harris, Tom. "Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change". National Post. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2009 – via Solid Waste & Recycling. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 4 February 2012 suggested (help)
^ Arriola, Benj. "5 Good Arguments Why GlobalWarming is NOT due to Man-made Carbon Dioxide". Global Warming Awareness Blog. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ Ahlbeck, Jarl. "Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming". Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ Kirby, Simon (11 April 2007). "Top scientist debunks global warming". Herald Sun. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ Brahic, Catherine (16 May 2007). "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
^ "More Notes on Global Warming". Physics Today. May 2005. Retrieved 10 September 2007.
^ Battle, M.; et al. (2000). "Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and d13C". Science. 287 (5462): 2467–2470. doi:10.1126/science.287.5462.2467.
^ The Royal Society (2005). "Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide". Retrieved 9 May 2012.
^ "Met Office: Climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
^ Climate Central (18 January 2017). "2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record". Climate Central. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
^ The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880, English translation by J. Sephton, from the original Eiríks saga rauða.
^ "Cold Hard Facts". Tamino. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.^{[dead link]}
^ Peterson, T. C.; et al. (2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1325. Bibcode:2008BAMS...89.1325P. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1.
^ Gwynne, Peter (28 April 1975). "The Cooling World". Newsweek. p. 64.
^ Verger, Rob (23 May 2014). "Newsweek Rewind: Debunking Global Cooling". Newsweek.
^ Gwynne, Peter (21 May 2014). "My 1975 'Cooling World' Story Doesn't Make Today's Climate Scientists Wrong". insidescience.org.
^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (page 2)". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
^ Marcus, Philip; Shetty, Sushil; Asay-Davis, Xylar (November 2006). Velocities and Temperatures of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the New Red Oval and Implications for Global Climate Change. American Physical Society. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Goudarzi, Sara (4 May 2006). "New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change". Space.com. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Philip, Marcus S. (22 April 2004). "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter" (PDF). Nature. 428 (6985): 828–831. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Yang, Sarah (21 April 2004). "Researcher predicts global climate change on Jupiter as giant planet's spots disappear". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 9 May 2007.
^ Elliot, J. L.; et al. (10 July 2003). "The recent expansion of Pluto's atmosphere". Nature (424): 165–168. doi:10.1038/nature01762.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Foerster, Jim. "What's The Difference Between Private Weather Companies And The National Weather Service?". Forbes.
^ Eilts, Mike (27 November 2018). "The Role of Weather—and Weather Forecasting—in Agriculture". DTN.
^ "What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?". Skeptical Science. 2 September 2011.
^ Brumfiel, Geoff (23 August 2011). "Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays". Scientific American.

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Sarah McBroom (March 27, 2007). "Conservapedia.com -- an encyclopedic message from the right". Scripps Howard News Service.
Michael Booth (April 30, 2007). "Grading Wikipedia". The Denver Post.
"Topics that spark Wikipedia 'edit wars' revealed". BBC News. July 18, 2013.
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (August 15, 2015). "On Wikipedia, politically controversial science topics vulnerable to information sabotage". Science Daily.
"The guardians of Wikipedia's climate page: An intensely devoted core keeps a bastion of climate science honest". Mashable. November 11, 2020.
"Climate change: Conspiracy theories found on foreign-language Wikipedia". BBC. November 18, 2021.
Marco Silva (December 24, 2021). "Climate change: Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia". BBC.
Olivia Steiert (September 9, 2024). "Declaring crisis? Temporal constructions of climate change on Wikipedia". Public Understanding of Science. {{cite news}}: Wikipedia Library link in |url= (help)
Margaret Talbot (March 4, 2025). "Elon Musk Also Has a Problem with Wikipedia". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 4, 2025.

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Section sizes

Section size for Climate change (48 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	15,466	15,466
Terminology	3,691	3,691
Global temperature rise	70	26,520
Temperatures prior to present-day global warming	2,663	2,663
Warming since the Industrial Revolution	11,019	17,568
Differences by region	6,549	6,549
Future global temperatures	6,219	6,219
Causes of recent global temperature rise	2,597	30,435
Greenhouse gases	8,352	8,352
Land surface changes	3,715	3,715
Other factors	22	15,771
Aerosols and clouds	4,566	4,566
Solar and volcanic activity	5,061	5,061
Climate change feedbacks	6,122	6,122
Modelling	4,009	4,009
Impacts	1,247	29,899
Environmental effects	4,586	4,586
Tipping points and long-term impacts	6,086	6,086
Nature and wildlife	7,160	7,160
Humans	1,903	10,820
Health and food	2,900	2,900
Livelihoods and inequality	3,051	3,051
Climate migration	2,966	2,966
Reducing and recapturing emissions	4,931	21,212
Clean energy	8,135	8,135
Energy conservation	1,719	1,719
Agriculture and industry	3,483	3,483
Carbon dioxide removal	2,944	2,944
Adaptation	7,837	7,837
Policies and politics	2,422	16,232
Policy options	1,612	3,655
Climate justice	2,043	2,043
International climate agreements	6,795	6,795
National responses	3,360	3,360
Society	14	11,010
Denial and misinformation	2,537	2,537
Public awareness and opinion	5,573	8,459
Climate movement	2,886	2,886
History	61	12,885
Early discoveries	6,198	6,198
Development of a scientific consensus	6,626	6,626
References	35	109,730
Sources	366	109,695
IPCC reports	5,383	5,383
Other peer-reviewed sources	49,444	49,444
Books, reports and legal documents	30,524	30,524
Non-technical sources	23,978	23,978
External links	1,142	1,142
Total	290,068	290,068

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90
91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97

/Terminology section /General discussion

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Proposed replacement of graphic in "Impacts" section

A. Existing graphic: Soil moisture.

B. Proposed replacement: Extreme event attribution (intensified peak wind speeds of hurricanes).

C. Second proposed replacement: Times series of Category 4 and 5 Atlantic hurricanes (no attribution)

D. Attribution of events on global scale (uploaded 3 June 2025)

I've long questioned the value of the "soil moisture" graphic in the short, crowded, under-emphasized "Impacts" section.

The existing graphic's content is not discussed in article text. Also, soil moisture's broader implication on the impacts affecting humans is speculative and indirect, perhaps even suggesting that things'll get better and better for sub-Saharan Africa. (Aside: I speak out against captions that merely repeat what's in the graphic's own legends/text.)

Meanwhile, the impacts on humans of progressively more intense hurricanes is immediately and intuitively evident (see also ). I realize Graphic B is not global and is only one year's hurricanes, but I think the graphic speaks to a more striking and immediate impact of climate change.

Please comment below, on your preference. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm open to replacing that graph, I'm not a fan of adding another US-focused one in its place. Is it possible to do something similar for tropical cyclones in general? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:21, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's Atlantic focused, not "US" focused per se. I've searched for CC-intensified (Pacific) typhoons but references applying extreme event attribution to specific hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons are nearly non-existent. This chart was a rare discovery in how it makes CC's effects be concretely evident. If anyone finds similar references for the Pacific, let me know.. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The soil moisture graph was added by User:Efbrazil three years ago. I think we could probably remove it (or move it?) but I am a bit concerned that we don't mention "soil moisture" content anywhere in the text (or is it mentioned under a different term?). I was going to suggest to move it to effects of climate change but I see it's already there. - I think my suggestion would be to remove it but to not replace it with another fairly complicated, wordy schematic (such as graph B.). Either remove it without replacement or replace it with something very visual (a photo?). In general, we do have a lot of graphs, schematics and images already in this article. Perhaps one less is actually a good thing. EMsmile (talk) 13:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Droughts are mentioned. Bogazicili (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather have this image chosen for the replacement than the other file. I do not believe using an image for one season restricted in one basin would reflect climate change's general impact on tropical cyclones. I'm a bit cautious on replacing the existing image, but I want to see more people discussing before I issue my final verdict. _ZZ^Z 'S 18:21, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Temperature, soil, precipitation are the 3 graphs in B. Future Climate Change, Risks, and Long-Term Responses in AR6 SYR SPM (page 14). We already have temperature in the article. Bogazicili (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
RCraig09, I'd recommend here for image B: Effects_of_climate_change#Extreme_storms Bogazicili (talk) 21:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Requesting input from more editors on this topic (superseding "soil moisture" graphic). —RCraig09 (talk) 17:52, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I plan to replace the soil moisture graphic with Graphic B which introduces attribution in an intuitive example. In graphic B I have reduced the font size for hurricane names (EMSmile's objection), and I have not been able to find a statistical analysis of attribution for all tropical cyclones (Femke's preference). Graphic C (Zzzs's suggestion) is just "one more example" of worsening CC effects and doesn't introduce the increasingly important concept of attribution. Graphic , discussed below re attribution, is more abstract and difficult for our readers to understand than B.. Bottomline: I plan to replace the soil moisture graphic with graphic B. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:52, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Graphic B now replaces the soil moisture diagram. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned above, I am against this change. See the source and reasoning above. The sources you have picked for your Atlantic hurricanes[1] do not come from overview sources about climate change.

See WP:DUE, WP:PROPORTION, and MOS:IMGREL.

Also, why would you change an image showing entire world with something that only shows impacts in Atlantic? I am already concerned about the Euro-centric or Western-centric bias in English-language Wikipedia. Bogazicili (talk) 14:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your concerns, User:Bogazicili. But the "image of the entire world" is about a topic—soil moisture—that is not even specifically discussed in article text. Soil moisture per se is seldom mentioned in sources compared to storms, droughts, etc, and is thus less preferable under WP:DUE, WP:PROPORTION, and MOS:IMGREL. Highlighting the growing field of extreme event attribution, graphic B concretely demonstrates how climate change affects cyclones. It is irrelevant that the example is "only" one (1) of the two (2) basins in the world to have cyclones; that's just wikipolitics. (If you have a source for generic cyclones in both Atlantic and Pacific, please link it and I will consider creating a graphic.) See discussion below "Underemphasis on extreme event attribution", a topic that deserves mention in this article. Other editors, please weigh in here. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:30, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Drought is mentioned.

Do you want us to specifically say "soil moisture" in the text and how soil moisture is connected to droughts? A projected reduction in mean soil moisture by one standard deviation corresponds to soil moisture conditions typical of droughts that occurred about once every six years during 1850-1900. from the source I added. Also see graph in IPCC AR6 SYR p.100

And again, unless you can source your image to an overview source, such as IPCC AR6 SYR, it is WP:UNDUE. Bogazicili (talk) 15:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Draughts are obviously what concern humans (including our readers), but dry soil is merely one draught characteristic that has not warranted mention in the almost 24-year existence of this article—so no, adding text wouldn't impart importance to the dry soil chart. Most references are not IPCC level overviews; that's too high a bar for every addition. In any event, WP:UNDUE concerns subject matter and not sourcing. Extreme event attribution clearly outweighs the draught sub-topic of dry soil. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:29, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@RCraig09 i would imagine that the main impact of soil moisture change would be through agriculture, and that is obviously important. however, I agree that such an impact is not going to be top of most peoples' minds. DecFinney (talk) 21:10, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@RCraig09: WP:DUE, WP:Proportion etc are all based on what reliable source say. Bogazicili (talk) 16:27, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

— WP:DUE and WP:Proportion are (indirectly) "based on" what reliable sources say, but they are determined by content and not by source. And WP:RSCONTEXT clarifies that a source must be "reliable for the statement being made", and the IPCC is not the only reliable source.

— To clarify the value of the chart to this article, I changed the chart title to emphasize extreme event attribution while retaining references to climate change. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what you are talking about at this point. Do you mean content in the source or content in this article?

WP:Proportion for this article would be based on content in reliable overview secondary and tertiary sources about climate change. Bogazicili (talk) 18:35, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am talking about content per se, both in this article and in "the body of reliable, published material on the subject". Clearly, the growing prominence of extreme event attribution (EEA)^{(see decFinney's links, below at 21:03 of 14 May)} shows it deserves more coverage here under WP:Proportion than a not-even-mentioned-after-20+-years sub-issue under droughts. Overview articles are often preferred (not required, or even followed in this article); as discussed at 17:35 below, EEA necessarily attributes specific events to causes, so that overview sources aren't even appropriate. EEA clearly has much greater WP:WEIGHT than soil moisture. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree.

Soil moisture is in an overview source, IPCC AR6 SYR SPM 2023, p. 14. Your graph does not come from an overview source. WP:Weight is clear here.

If extreme event attribution is in an overview source, feel free to add it to the text.

We already have an image that shows climate change increases frequency of extreme events: [2]

Maybe this could be changed to something that shows climate change increases frequency and severity of extreme events? Or is that too complicated for a single image?

Or you can make another image, showing suggested climate change intensified the ten deadliest extreme weather events below and add it in Climate_change#Humans, under the frequency increase image. I think there is space there. (I also think usage of gallery is justified in that section.) Bogazicili (talk) 12:26, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

— Yes, soil moisture is "in" an overview source. But, yet again, the question re WP:WEIGHT is what fraction of that overview source? In fact: IPCC AR6's Fig. SPM-2 shows soil moisture only as an intermediate chart, one of three charts in a single figure, with the text string "soil moisture" not even being mentioned elsewhere in the entire report except in a long list of adaptation options on p. 8! Soil moisture does simply does not deserve the weight that the growing field of extreme event attribution (EEA) does. Watching for climate change stories for the "2025 in climate change series of articles, I encounter an EEA story, linking to a peer-reviewed article or NOAA-level source, at least ~once a week; however in 4.5 years I don't remember a single article about soil moisture—which is consistent with why there has been zero prior mention of soil moisture in this >23-year-old wiki article. Friday's example: "Houston set to have 4th day in a row of record heat. What role is climate change playing?" with description of Climate Central's Climate Shift Index. Or this article from Thursday: "arguably the most important development in climate science in many years: attribution science."

— You don't seem to realize that the thrust of this graphic is EEA, not hurricanes or winds or projections or worldwide generalizations. EEA is inherently directed to specific events, but the events themselves aren't the focus of the graphic.

— Requiring graphics to be based on overview sources would remove most of the graphics in this article!!! The "overview sources" argument is simply a false argument here—especially here, where extreme event attribution (EEA) is based on individual events that should not even make it into overview sources.

—

shows projections of future trends; it does not even show EEA of prior events. And your suggestions essentially amount to summarizing the cumulative statistical results of EEA rather than illustrating to our lay readers what EEA does. And educating lay readers is what this website is about.

— Other editors: please post here, to resolve this discussion once and for all. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

— Newly uploaded Graphic D shows on a global scale, an example of the increasingly important field of extreme event attribution (EEA). Its content is clearly more notable, WP:WEIGHTy and informative than a soil moisture graphic that occupies a microscopic fraction of an IPCC publication. And to repeat: the graphic's notability is about EEA and not about particular hurricane seasons or heat waves. Other editors: please post here, to resolve this discussion once and for all. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:31, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@RCraig09: I really like this image. Maybe Femke can comment on accuracy and sourcing? Bogazicili (talk) 19:41, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bogazicili ...q @RCraig09 very nice figure. thanks! i hope it can be added 👌 i consider this a very good source (world weather attribution). a look at the report cited for the figure suggests the numbers shown in the figure here are clearly of similar order of magnitude to those presented in the report, so i assume it has been accurately produced. DecFinney (talk) 19:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've replaced the soil moisture chart with Chart D. I think it's the most appropriate among the new graphics in the Extreme event attribution category on Commons. Meanwhile, I've tried to bring the Extreme event attribution article up do speed here on en.wp, so that article is worth the wikilink in the image caption. —RCraig09 (talk) 01:18, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(separate thread started earlier:)

@RCraig09 i believe that figure is based on data for north atlantic hurricanes? in such a case, i feel just about justified to pedantically point out that it is 1 of 7 (not 1 of 2) tropical cyclone basins. "just about justifed" because it is relevant to the western-centric nature of the figure. DecFinney (talk) 19:05, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DecFinney: The distinctions seem to be administrative and formal, and not substantive. Again, if you are aware of an illustration-worth example of extreme event attribution that is global in scale, esp. re cyclones, please link it and I'll consider creating a chart. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@RCraig09 the basins are quite distinct from a scientific/meteorological perspective but we neednt get into it.

how about the chart at the beginning of this article. this article also makes the point that attribution studies are not geographically representative.

https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/attribution-studies/index.html

fig1 of this is very effective i think...

https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/10-years-of-rapidly-disentangling-drivers-of-extreme-weather-disasters/

it just needs the conclusion added as a statement on the figure: "climate change intensified the ten deadliest extreme weather events" DecFinney (talk) 21:03, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DecFinney:

— Extreme event attribution is inherently tied to individual events (it works backward from effect to cause). I'm a bit worried about copyright issues with the Carbon Brief map: it would require re-thinking after analyzing the large amount data behind the bubbles as you click on them... multiple pie charts would be more appropriate than their bubble chart. But even then, Graphic B is much more intuitive to lay readers in concretely showing them how CC worsens disasters, rather than abstractly showing some scientists' conclusions. —RCraig09 (talk) 01:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+ I should have emphasized: extreme event attribution inherently considers causes of individual events, such as individual hurricanes. Summaries of scientists' conclusions are less demonstrative to laymen than concrete examples that inspire "Aha moments". —RCraig09 (talk) 17:35, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

— WWA Fig. 1 is much less pertinent since it shows deadly events without specifically tying them to climate change. The sentence you quote would be more appropriate in narrative text, rather than as a chart. —RCraig09 (talk) 01:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Climate Change Affects Snow: An In-Depth Look

Climate change has a significant impact on snow patterns, especially in regions that rely on consistent snowfall for ecosystems, water supply, and recreation. As global temperatures rise, many areas experience warmer winters, which leads to less snow and more rain. Even small shifts in temperature can have a big effect, turning what would have been snowstorms into rain events. This not only reduces the total amount of snow that falls but also shortens the length of the snow season. In mountainous regions, snow is arriving later in the year and melting earlier, which affects both the natural environment and human activities like skiing and snowboarding.

The early melting of snow due to higher temperatures also disrupts the natural water cycle. Snowpack in many regions acts like a natural reservoir, slowly releasing water into rivers and streams during the spring and summer. When snow melts too early, it can lead to water shortages later in the year, especially in places that rely on snowmelt for agriculture, drinking water, and hydroelectric power. Additionally, the shift from snow to rain can increase the risk of winter flooding, as rain runs off frozen or saturated ground more quickly than snow would.

Climate change also affects the quality and type of snow. Warmer temperatures can lead to heavier, wetter snow instead of the light, powdery kind that many ecosystems and ski resorts depend on. This changes the structure of the snowpack, making it less stable and more prone to avalanches. Wildlife that relies on deep, consistent snow cover—like lynx or snowshoe hares—also struggle to adapt, which can impact entire food chains. In the long term, these shifts in snowfall patterns are signs of a changing climate that touches both natural systems and human ways of life. Babreweruci (talk) 00:34, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To me, all that you're saying there makes sense, but please be aware that article Talk pages are for discussions on how to improve the article. Do you have a specific proposal for doing so? Also be aware that any new content must be supported by reliable sources. HiLo48 (talk) 01:22, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=56af58707372583917ad804557162751c5ade0f2

The article linked is another scholarly text discussing the climate change affects on snow in Australia. 2600:1012:B13A:A50F:9006:DCD6:EA6D:935 (talk) 02:21, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your removal of Geophysics sidebar template from Climate change

Discussion copied from my User Talk Page. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you justified removing Geophysics sidebar template from Climate change with "not even the best summary of what this high-level article pertains to . . . . see extensive navigation footers" (diff) I did check out the footers and everything else - thanks. I was correct indeed: climate change is a subfield of geophysics, which is why the American Geophysical Union has eight sections dedicated to studying climate. Besides, the article is already in (the Climate Change category as a subcategory of the Climate variability and change subcategory of) the Geophysics category. The template obviously helps provide more complete information and education to the visitor. Tinterest (talk) 19:28, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tinterest: There has been a strong consensus developed over years regarding what should be included in this high-level article, especially the lead. Physical space in the article—especially in the lead—is at a premium. Any template pushes ensuing graphics out of place (away from their intended sections) while adding only speculative relevance: almost all the links in the Geophysics template are to subjects at a different level than climate change, and the template doesn't even include a link to Climate change. It is irrelevant that Climate variability and change—which after long discussions was made purposely distinct from the Climate change article which deals with present-day climate change—is in the Geophysics category. Re the AGU: be aware that climate and climate change are distinct concepts at entirely different levels. I agree with User:Bogazicili's exclusion of the template. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:04, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for additional info. However, it seems you missed my reply to him: Wikipedia is not paper because it aims to educate online visitors (whose interfaces come in countless shapes and versions), not impersonate paper encyclopedias. Your "premium physical space" sounds like relic typography journalism. Seriously, who in their right mind would/should care if a Wikipedia article's layout "looks impressive" on a specific device/browser/version... like yours, given that it won't/can't look that way on the next person's device/browser/version...? Tinterest (talk)

@Tinterest: It's not about looking impressive. It's about editorss' consensus over years, which underlies all the reasons listed above. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:28, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tinterest: Now I see you are posting the same template across multiple article pages. You are new, and should wait until you understand how Wikipedia works before proceeding. You can continue discussion here if you like. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please refrain from incivil behavior by patronizing and instead read my argument offered in good faith: Wikipedia is not paper, so spoiling the looks of an article on a device is not a criterion for content removal. Tinterest (talk) 22:06, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have not responded squarely to a single fact or policy or guideline or explanation of consensus that I have made. In true Straw man form, you pretend my argument is about "looking impressive" or "not spoiling the looks". Instead you again point to an essay vaguely describing what Wikipedia is not, an essay that is not a even a policy or guideline. Two editors experienced in this article's history have removed your post here. Further, you have experienced at least another editor removing the template from still another article, as being tangential, which is central to the template's problem here and other places. It is not patronizing to state that you are new; it is an objective fact that is corroborated by the number of reversions that have been performed against your posts. If you were proceeding in good faith, you stop to understand what the rest of us are talking about and stop repeating the same behavior in other articles. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:53, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the removal, as it pushes images down, disrupting flow. With the current skin (Vector 22), there is less variation in how people on Desktop see this article. Everybody with a slightly smaller and bigger screen than me will encounter the same problem. There are quite a few of these templates that could be added, but I see little value in any of them. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:13, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tinterest, Wikipedia is not paper is just an essay. It's not part of the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. If you are looking for an actual policy regarding your edit, see WP:ONUS.

If others are not objecting, maybe we can add Template:Geophysics navbox at the end of the article, with other navbox's. The navbox wouldn't disrupt the article layout. Bogazicili (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like an idea, although I don't see why we should be shy about the fact that climate change is primarily a natural process and not sociological (or else only sociologists would be studying it and geophysicists would never even touch it). Tinterest (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bogazicili: I'm not seeing the relevance of the Geophysics navbox—any more than countless other science-related navboxes out there (Template:Weather, Template:Renewable energy sources...) that are much more directly relevant to this article's content than geophysics. There has been no showing of why any further sidebars or navboxes should be included. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This sidebar template is not just any navbox - the fact that so many geophysicists (including at least eight sections of the American Geophysical Union) study climate (and its change, as studing properties and processes/changes is what science is all about) implies that climate change is primarily a natural process rather than manmade. So your stubborness seems politically motivated. A matter of fact of such fundamental importance to the society should not be hidden in an encyclopedia. Tinterest (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That climate change is of interest to many geophysicists, does not mean that readers will benefit from a geophysics sidebar or navbox that points to barely-related articles. The myriad links in the text of the article show that nothing relevant is being "hidden". You do not understand that the present article is about current climate change, which is no longer "primarily a natural process". "Political" motivation? Just stop. —RCraig09 (talk) 00:03, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You Tinterest will note that no one here agrees with you re a sidebar. No one. —RCraig09 (talk) 00:04, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it means exactly that: the box has links to basic stuff, not myriad, as encyclopedias are for general public, not experts (so this milelong article with a ton of links should really be a stub at the most). I have no idea what "current climate change" is (as I said, science studies processes, meaning the changes that occured at any time, not just recently and not just in the distant past - that's what the word process means, so processes are always observed at all times, without bias). You should also read WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and ease off on people with your consensus mantra. Tinterest (talk) 00:38, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here, "current climate change" means the anthropogenic climate the planet has been experiencing as a result of humans' greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution. You were, and possibly still are, unaware that prior consensus has determined that—as already explained—that is what this article is about. You continue to weasel out of accepting what has been explained to you by your using vague references, including the latest: you will note that WP:NOTDEMOCRACY describes "decision making and conflict resolution is editing and discussion leading to consensus" that you discount. Above, you have spewed straw man arguments, and accuse someone else of stubbornness, imply political motivations—anything but squarely responding to, or possibly even understanding, what has been repeatedly explained to you by editors experienced in this article's content and its established editorial consensus. Just stop. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:32, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. What fraction of the following articles are directly relevant to anthropogenic climate change as explained here?

2. Which articles would readers be interested in after coming here to learn of anthropogenic climate change?

3. If these Geophysics links are included, how many dozen other templates should be included??? Template:Physical chemistry? Template:Renewable energy? Template:Psychology? Template:Weather? Template:Motor fuels? Template:Oxides? Template:Glaciers? Template:Industrial Revolution?

Mineral physics Petrophysics History Computational Electricity Ionosphere Polar wind Thunderstorms Fluid dynamics Atmospheric science Magnetohydrodynamics OceanographyTurbulence Geodynamics Climate Earth's mantle Exoplanetology Geochemistry Glaciology Planetary science Plate tectonics Tectonics Volcanism Gravity Gravity of Earth Geodesy Geoid Physical geodesy Magnetism Earth's magnetic field Geomagnetic reversal Magnetosphere Paleomagnetism Solar wind Waves Seismology Spectroscopy Vibration Scientists Aki Alfven Anderson Benioff BowieDziewonski Forbes Eotvos Gilbert Gutenberg Heiskanen Hotinevon Humboldt Jeffreys Kanamori Love Matthews McKenzie Mercalli Molodenskii Munk Press Richter Turcotte Van Allen Vanicek Vening Meinesz Wegener Wilson

—RCraig09 (talk) 03:53, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of those eight AGU sections that study climate (change), only one studies paleoclimate (change), so geophysicists obviously (by a large majority, in fact) do study your "current" climate change. Sociologists do not, practically not at all. So answer this if you would: what does that tell you? Come on, it is not that hard! Or just stop. (Though I am amused by the tactics you cultists use in justifying owning your little privatized corners of Wikipedia like this article - all that ranting over an attempt to include one little and highly relevant sidebar infobox, wow.) Tinterest (talk) 02:04, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't answered my three questions posted 03:53 8 May.

It doesn't surprise me you now ask a question I have already answered: "That climate change is of interest to many geophysicists, does not mean that readers will benefit from a geophysics sidebar or navbox that points to barely-related articles." You've got it backwards. And you've admitted that the sidebar itself is not "highly relevant". And it's not "small" especially in the lead.

I didn't say it was not highly relevant (I wouldn't be advocating its inclusion obviously). It was just a remark on the fact that you fight so much the inclusion of a highly relevant yet tiny infobox only because it directly opposes the very existence of this article. Implications from hard science studying the main subject of this article so vastly and deeply (as the AGU does, which means by extension that we are talking roughly 1/3 of all geophysicists, not "some" as you would downplay it), are that the article in reality has a totally opposite meaning from the one purpotrated by you and your mass following. Speaking of which, your mass following is really irrelevant and you can have 1 million followers if you like but that still would not change the fact that this article has missed the point entirely. Personally, I think this article should be speedy deleted. Tinterest (talk) 23:48, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not a "privatized corner of Wikipedia": it has 3,126 editors who watch this page and 5,333 who have edited this article... arriving by consensus at its current state. It's not surprising that the one with the least knowledge does the most name calling. Just stop. —RCraig09 (talk) 02:30, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may underappreciate how many disciplines study climate change. Sociologist definitely do. They may for instance study the large disconnect in public opinion supporting climate action, and the lack of sufficient climate action. How does social change come about? What have been successful movements to demand climate action? How does climate disinformation spread? These questions are as key as the questions that geophysicists study. Please, WP:focus on content, and do not attack other volunteers. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:44, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The crux of this relevance issue is:
Tinterest's premise that some geophysicists study climate change, does not imply that readers here are interested in all the other things that geophysicists study (or in list of geophysicists).
I realize that dozens of disciplines study climate change (see my question 3 above); this fact does not imply we should have dozens of sidebars here, especially in the lead. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:46, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously? So to you, that some (or all) sociologists or dozens of non-physical disciplines study climate change implies sociological or non-physical nature of a physical process? You don't realize that when something gives physical character to a process, no one else's opinion matters anymore except the physicists'? Then don't forget that housewives too study it over morning coffee, so let's include a section dissussing what housewives think about climate change. While at it, how about midschool seniors (it's their future after all)... and then bus drivers... and... Your playing the "mass following" card reminds me of the Luddites ("what do all those physical scientists know"). Tinterest (talk) 23:48, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More Straw man arguments and name calling. The issue, again, is relevance. Like the growing list of things you have ignored above, you haven't answered the three questions I posed above, and now you ignore the crux presented 14:46 9 May: Your premise that some geophysicists study climate change, does not imply that readers here are interested in all the other things that geophysicists study (or a list of geophysicists). Obviously dozens of templates involve one idea that relates to climate change, but all or almost all of the links in the templates have nothing directly to do with climate change. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:35, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The only elephant in the room is the one you refuse to see (summarized in the subsequent section below; on mistaking the studying of effects of a physical process for hardcore physical science on that physical process). Again, I move that we delete ridiculous (Luddite) contentious articles like this one, instead of leaving them linger forever unresolved. What good are they, given that they forever deepen divisions in a society (and this one "succeeds" in doing so in most societies of the world)? Tinterest (talk) 00:35, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Climate change

The annual review of sociology’s article “climate change and society”, which was published in July 2020 in volume 46, examines how sociological viewpoints help us comprehend climate change as an ecological and social issue. The human drivers of climate change are examined by the authors, Thomas Dietz, Rachael L. Showman, and Cameron T. Whitley. These factors include how social structures and political economies affect greenhouse gas emissions, how political and power interact in corporate and policy systems, and what influences the individual behavior of consumers and citizens. The significance of tackling climate justice across multiple strata, including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and indigenous identity, is also emphasized in the review. Sociology needs to integrate theoretically in order to successfully contribute to the conversation about climate change. I didn’t make any chances on the information above, but I did add some extra important information that I think would be helpful. https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054614 Andreaperez12 (talk) 17:29, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Andreaperez12. Is there any change you would like to see based on that paper? Either in this article or another? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:12, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Feedbacks are expected to trend in a positive direction as greenhouse gas emissions continue, raising climate sensitivity."^[1]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Backendchild (talk • contribs) 04:55 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Mistaking the studying of effects of a physical process for hardcore physical science on that physical process is a redflag revealing a Ludite movement at work. And you not only equate the cause and consequence, but you go a step further and take the consequence out of the context and make it the character of the process itself ("blame the humans!"). Wow. I mean just - wow. As I said above, this article should be speedy deleted as it fails even the common sense check. Now I understand why the article is milelong and why you hate it even mentioning geophysics: you've been trying to make up the lack of quality with increase in quantity. Never works in the end. Tinterest (talk) 00:00, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

Ocean and Climate Change

According to an article written by Maria McNutt, she states that, "The loss in ocean productivity will be detrimental for the 20% of the population that depends on the seas for nutrition." This means that the global food supply will decrease quite intensely. That means people will have to find ways to adjust and survive. This also means that many animal species in the oceans will also suffer because as the oxygen levels are decreasing, the carbon dioxide levels are increasing which depletes the amount of safe water in which the species can survive in. Both human and animals species will heavily feel the impacts of climate change as it will only get worse if people don't take an initiative to slow the effects of climate change. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1243256 2600:1012:B13A:A50F:9006:DCD6:EA6D:935 (talk) 02:11, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From rising seas to homeless polar bears - no scary prediction on climate change has ever come true. Neither did that 20% tale she told us back in 2013. Tinterest (talk) 00:37, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aerosol and Clouds

According to the scholarly article titled, “Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing," the authors state that there is robust evidence that aerosols actually don't actually play that big of a role in the climate change crisis. There is a significant shift in the way that we think aerosol's role is in the changes of climate. https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/12221/2022/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:a601:a7ab:ef00:921:5a85:3bf:e9aa (talk • contribs) ^[1]

Hello! This is a primary study. Usually we try to use WP:secondary articles that collate information, to avoid given undue emphasis to a single study. In some of the subarticles this paper may be relevant. Did you have any specific text in mind? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:29, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Quaas, J., Jia, H., Smith, C., Albright, A. L., Aas, W., Bellouin, N., Boucher, O., Doutriaux-Boucher, M., Forster, P. M., Grosvenor, D., Jenkins, S., Klimont, Z., Loeb, N. G., Ma, X., Naik, V., Paulot, F., Stier, P., Wild, M., Myhre, G., and Schulz, M.: Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12221–12239, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022, 2022.

Impacts

Recent advances in climate science have enabled researchers to assess the extent to which human-induced climate change has increased the likelihood or severity of specific extreme weather events, a field known as extreme event attribution. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (2023), there is high confidence that climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, heavy precipitation, and some types of droughts and tropical cyclones in many regions. Attribution studies use statistical and modeling techniques to compare observed events with simulations of a world without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, helping to quantify the influence of climate change on individual events." 2600:1700:71F4:410:5138:758:9E4D:3597 (talk) 00:24, 14 May 2025 (UTC) Wikipedia uses "ref" tags for citations, as shown above. You can also use the citation tool in the editor to enter the following details:[reply]

Title: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report

Publisher: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Year: 2023

DOI: 10.59327/IPCC/AR6-9789291691647

Not sure if you're the same person as above, but please suggest a change to the article, rather than simply putting information here. Is something wrong or out of date? Do we miss something? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lead images

I think we can consider an update here.

I think for wildfires we should find a better image. There are newer images such as this [3]
Change coral image with economic impacts or flooding. I find the image of a single coral very underwhelming.

Bogazicili (talk) 14:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of some effects of climate change: Wildfire intensified by heat and drought, bleaching of corals occurring more often due to marine heatwaves, and worsening droughts compromising water supplies.

I'm happy to discuss new images there. One of the difficult bits is to find images that look good while being that small. I think the fire is okay, but I do get you with the coral.

Just a collection of newer images to test out, not yet selected for good geographic diversity (these all come from a collection User:TatjanaClimate managed to secure for Wikipedia. Took those because I'm lazy and just wanted a single search term on Commons). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the top two images could do with a multiple image template. Draco phyllum 06:24, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Femke: we are still proceeding with 3 images for the lead right?

I think one developed country, one developing country, and one nature image would be balanced?

How about one fire (a California fire?), one flooding [4], and one ice melting [5]? Bogazicili (talk) 16:22, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we can go back to four. One was removed because people didn't like it, iirc, and four would be the optimum from my perspective. One rich country, one emerging, one developing and one nature? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all for fewer images - I don't like multiple images & think they should be kept to a minimum. Johnbod (talk) 16:33, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm ok with 3 or 4. For the 4th one, it could be heatwave related, such as a heatwave map. If 3 images, something heatwave could also be better than forest fire. Bogazicili (talk) 16:50, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Caption will be updated

@John: Why do you dislike multiple images? Do you feel it becomes too busy in the article with them? I've always wondered about accessibility, given that they have an absolute size rather than an relative one.

@Bogazicili: I don't think a heatwave map works in miniature? I'd also like to avoid adding even more maps and figures to the article, as the balance between photos and graphs is already off, making the article feel very theoretical, rather than about daily life. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:10, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

General comment: the major impacts of climate change are intensified heat waves, sea level rise, glacial melting & freshwater loss, intensified storms/cyclones & resultant flooding, intensified droughts, intensified wildfires, desertification, habitat loss & increased extinction, spread of "tropical" pests & diseases. So hard to choose! Maybe there's a creative solution to prominently illustrate, maybe a gallery near the top, though that will likely not gain consensus. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:29, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are currently 3 images so we can conservatively change those 3 for now at least. Bogazicili (talk) 21:38, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Femke, fair enough. How about this for wildfire: [6]? It doesn't show the actual fire but the impact of 2023 Canadian wildfires in New York City is very notable I think. Bogazicili (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added my preliminary suggestion above. What do you guys think? Bogazicili (talk) 21:45, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we can make this one 4 images, we can use the heatwave image: [7] Bogazicili (talk) 21:49, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scrap the montage of small images completely. It doesn't work on small devices. Place good pics among the text in sensible places and a better message will be delivered! HiLo48 (talk) 23:56, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree 100%..... the article should be focused on accessibility. All clusters of many images should be removed. Moxy🍁 00:01, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which small devices? Please provide technical information, so this can be discussed at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)

MOS:IMGSIZE (bolding mine): As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed width than 250px (the initial base width), and if an exception to this general rule is warranted, the resulting image should usually be no more than 400px wide (300px for lead images) and 500px tall, for comfortable display on the smallest devices "in common use" (though this may still cause viewing difficulties on some unusual displays).

I adjusted the lead images, they are now no more than 300px.

The other relevant guideline is WP:GALLERY: Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article while avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made.

I don't think various images used in this article cause an unbalance, and it improves reader understanding. This is a science heavy article, and images are useful. Other websites such as NASA climate change also make use of images. Images also include "point of contrast or comparison" as they show different impacts etc.

This is also a Featured Article. It passed the most recent community review with several multiple images. Bogazicili (talk) 14:38, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've got a tiny little phone, and it seems to work there (pictures are under each other). User:Moxy, always appreciate your input on accessibility, so keen to hear why this should not be used. I feel like we've done a downgrade in terms of accessibility by downscaling the images, as you now need very keen eyes to read these two initial graphs without enlarging them. I might start a discussion on the max sizes for lead images, given how small 300 px is. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The community has just up the size for default images to 250px ..... Thus having images at 120px or so jam together with a fixed size obviously doesn't meet our basic requirements. An article of this nature should be an example of what to do not an example of what not to do MOS:ACCIM. Moxy🍁 21:48, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My thinking here is that some images are inaccessible at 250px (text too small for people with limited vision), or even at 400 px, whereas other are fine at 120 px. It matters whether they are clear, including from when you try to mimic various visual disabilities by increasing distance from screen for instance. From WP:ICCAM, it does seem that there is a bug with galleries (which we use later in the article).

The change to 250px was mostly an aesthetic change as far I remember that discussion, rather than setting the new standard for accessibility.

For the fixed-width objection, would it make sense to request a change to the multiplpe image template to also take an upright parameter? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 06:37, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Femke: if there are any accessibility issues, my understanding is that these are due to fixed-width parameter. total_width seems to be required for automatic resizing of images in {{Multiple image}}.

I think upright parameter or a new parameter called auto_resize should automatically handle auto resizing. Maybe we can request this in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) or Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) Bogazicili (talk) 18:50, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fossil fuel subsidies important enough for lead?

I think Fossil fuel subsidies are important enough to be very briefly mentioned and linked to from the last paragraph of the lead.

With explicit subsidies at around 1% global GDP https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-subsidies-fossil-fuels they are very significant.

For example the current sentence:

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce significant carbon pollution.

could be changed to:

”Fossil fuels can be phased out by stopping subsidising them, conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce significant carbon pollution.” Chidgk1 (talk) 07:37, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please correct calendar error

This edit request to Climate Change has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In the fourth figure caption, please replace

Global temperature in the Common Era

with

Global temperature in the past 2000 years

Reason: The x-axis starts at "0" (zero), but there is no year zero in the Christian calendar, which starts with year "1". Year "1" AD/CE is immediately preceded by year 1 BC/BCE in the calendar. Zero was invented only several centuries later by ancient Indian scholars. The easiest way to fix this schoolboy error is to change the caption as suggested above, and declare that the numerals from 0 to 2000 do not refer to calendar years at all, but to timespan. Such a correction would be in line with the detailed figure description, which uses the phrase "in the last 2000 years" - although this phrase sounds to me overly pessimistic and I prefer the "past 2000 years".

Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. meamemg (talk) 13:57, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article is protected and moreover the error is embedded in the graph. 86.164.81.31 (talk) 15:02, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think the wording the title as "Global temperature over the past two millennia" would be a better wording, as seen in the original graph from which this image was derived? — 🪫Volatile ^{📲T | ⌨️C} 17:20, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I approve of your suggestion (I am the original IP above). Please go ahead. 86.164.81.31 (talk) 20:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just submitted the overwrite request at WP:COMMONS, hopefully it will go through soon. — 🪫Volatile ^{📲T | ⌨️C} 21:11, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done updated the image on commons, ping me if it's not updating. Also changed the caption from "last" to "past" — 🪫Volatile ^{📲T | ⌨️C} 23:42, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please add the appropriate inter-language link for the Spanish language article

There is a Spanish language article for this subject, but it's not linked. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calentamiento_global . Linguaphonia (talk) 23:03, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

es:Calentamiento global is linked to Global warming. See global warming (Q7942). There is no corresponding Spanish language Wikipedia article for climate change. See climate change (Q125928). Peaceray (talk) 05:22, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello both. Somebody recently broke all these interlanguage links on wikidata and is refusing to fix it, see wikidata:User_talk:Wikimi-dhiann#Reworking_of_climate_change_categorization. Calentamiento global is about the same topic, and should link to the same article. Our English Wikipedia article Climate variability and change is about climate change in general, and should link back to Q125928. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:31, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Peaceray So should I ask a Wikidata admin to rollback https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Talk:Q125928#Confusing_definition_and_inconsistent_Wikipedia_articles ? Chidgk1 (talk) 19:01, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this would be best handled there. Peaceray (talk) 19:35, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Someone else has done a different fix there (changed description rather than rolled back) as you can see on above link. Chidgk1 (talk) 09:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which of course doesn't work, given that the language links are mixed.. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed I should have put “fix” in quotes. I think this is a broken thing I won’t touch because if I do someone will criticise me and it will be too much hassle and not enjoyable. As the description now matches English Wikipedia and the modern meaning in English I think we English writers should leave it as is. If affected language writers want to try and fix it that is up to them. I don’t know about Dutch but it is now OK for my other language of Turkish. Maybe in a few years time I will look again at the mess of Simple English but maybe by then there won’t be any point to Simple English Wikipedia as AI will just generate and read out a simplified version of the enwiki article for schoolkids. @Linguaphonia Presumably you gave up like me? If not feel free to request a rollback on wikidata but be prepared for hassle sorryChidgk1 (talk) 10:02, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Link to Wikiquote

q:en:climate change has now been created. May someone link it in the section dedicated to the "External links"? Thanks in advance. 82.54.123.100 (talk) 16:30, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I added all the sister projects with “Sister project links” in curly brackets but if that is too much then someone can specify which ones Chidgk1 (talk) 10:09, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

duh was already there lower down Chidgk1 (talk) 10:15, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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[31] Quaas, J., Jia, H., Smith, C., Albright, A. L., Aas, W., Bellouin, N., Boucher, O., Doutriaux-Boucher, M., Forster, P. M., Grosvenor, D., Jenkins, S., Klimont, Z., Loeb, N. G., Ma, X., Naik, V., Paulot, F., Stier, P., Wild, M., Myhre, G., and Schulz, M.: Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12221–12239, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022, 2022.

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