Talk:Climate change/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Climate change. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Archive 5

(2019) Housekeeping note - This old archive likely begins in 2001 but this is a best guess because old version histories and talk page comments were not always curated for long term archival and even if they were, signing and timestamp protocols were in their infancy. See WP:OLDEST. This archive was somewhat re-constructed by importing deleted text from old versions to the extent available. Some of these old versions do not appear in version history for the talk page, but in version history for Archive 3. That particular one gets us up to 2003. Early eds didn't really get archiving sorted out in what we think of as a "normal" way until Archive 4. So this is the best we've got. If you can improve it, please do NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Threads from Before Dec 1 2001 which have no dates available

Is there any consensus that the last ice age ended because of greenhouse gases? If not, then saying global warming is caused by greenhouse gases implies that the warming that ended the last ice age was a different phenomenon. It would be strange to say that the warming of the earth that ended the last ice age was not an instance of global warming.

This may be relevent since some people may claim that any global warming we are experiencing today is part of the broad historical trend that began thousands of years ago and is not a new, man-made development. So distinguishing between the naturally occuring climate change and any human-induced climate change may be desirable. - TS

I have a complaint about this article, in that I believe that it makes a very common mistake of mixing basic and uncontroversial scientific information with a decidedly normative view of the consequences of change. The article treats global warming as a bad thing, which it may well be, but it does so without a balanced presentation of the potential benefits. I think there's a natural and common tendency to assume that any change to the climate is bad, but this needs to be demonstrated, not assumed.

It is thought that the reduction in forested area has also played a factor, as forests convert these gasses back into organic materials.

reduction of forested area can cause global warming because large amounts of CO2 are produced by fire or degradation of organic materials. But, ancient forests like Amazonia in Brasil were in steady state before man arrived there. That is, the amount of CO2 produced was equal to the amount consumed. Growing forests like the ones in North America and Russia are consuming large quantities of CO2. And the destrution of equatorial forests is producing CO2. I think there is no mention in the IPCC reports to the destruction of forests as a cause of global warming, but I can be wrong.

some of the consequences in the article are not proven or are not major consequences or probable ones. For example, we do not know if polar caps are melting or will melt in the next one hundred years.

I think it's rather odd that the first paragraph seems to imply that global warming is a permanent, important problem, and then further down there is this: "There is no final consensus about existence of global warming. Temperature is changing all the time and there were hotter times in last thousand years, so it's unsure whether "global warming" is long-term issue or just a short-term fluctuation." If we're going to say the latter, we should say it earlier on. I'd work on this more myself but basically I don't want to get involved in a flame fest. :-) --LMS

I'm not real happy with this (and some related) articles either and they're on my to do list, but they've been slipping a bit lately. --Pinkunicorn

I've moved the bits on the IPCC to later in the article since I think a discussion of what the phenomenon is believed to be should come before a discussion of who is studying it. --Koyaanis Qatsi

I added the bits about the IPCC because think we need to present what the phenomenon is as oposed to what phenomenon is believed to be and the IPCC is the only good source of information. This is a very controversial issue and I think we must present the facts, not the perceptions of the general public. joao

I would recommend restructuring the article so that it lists in order a) what it is, b) what is the evidence, c) what are the suspected causes, d) what are the suspected effects. Right now, these points are all scattered through the article in a confused and disorderly manner. - Tim

That sounds like a good suggestion, Tim. Joao, don't shout, please. :-) I recognize that there is controversy about it; I just moved the info because I thought it made more sense to explain the topic before introducing whoever's studying it--for someone who doesn't know what the topic is, that approach is both distracting and uninformative. Tim's suggested approach seems the most logical. We should not forget to add dissenting opinions at the end, since the subject is controversial. --Koyaanis Qatsi

Sorry, I maybe wrong on my comment above. However, we must take into account that there several points of view. The point of view of:

the general public
a minority that believes there is no global warming
the (IPCC) scientists that collect facts and who believe gobal warming is hapening
other scientists that point to flaws in the IPCC work
economists who believe that does not pay to avoid global warming
people with a political agenda who use global warming to change society and to get into power.
people who believe that we must weigh both the costs and the benefits of climate change
people who believe that such a chaotic and uncertain systems such as long-term global weather patterns cannot be predicted with sufficient accuracy to justify a particular course of action.

I' m going to add more information from the IPCC report. Since english is not my native language I will have some dificulties integrating it in the structure suggested by Tim, so be free to edit everything I write.

Sure, that sounds fine. And actually you've listed some points of view I hadn't considered; we should probably add those also. --KQ

I just added a paragraph about the causes of climate change. Some of them can cause climate warming and some of them can cause climate warming. Its because the ones that cause climate warming are more important that climate change is happening. joao

Some scientists believe that there are benefits to agriculture in the Northern Hemisphere precisely because of longer growing season and higher CO2 concentrations. joao

Article on that here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/news/090501/1.html --KQ

I deleted the following since I think it is now included in the text:

There is no final consensus about existence of global warming. Temperature is changing all the time and there were hotter times in last thousand years, so it's unsure whether "global warming" is long-term issue or just a short-term fluctuation.

I moved some other parts of old text.

I changed the struture proposed by Tim above:

a) what it is
b) what is the evidence
c) what are the suspected causes
d) what are the suspected effects

and I added: e) prediction of future trends

Now I think we need to add: f) possible future effects
g) proposed solutions
h) economic analysis
i) political debate joao

Information to add later to the article if needed

The IPCC analyzed the consequences of observed warming on the snow cover an ice extent, global average sea level , precipitation, cloud cover, El nino and extreme Whether events. IPCC reports that:

satellite data show a decrease of 10% of snow cover since late 1960s
There has been a widespread retreat of mountain glaciers in non-polar regions during the 20th century
Northern Hemisphere spring and summer sea-ice extent has decreased by about 10% to 15% since the 1950s.
it is likely that there has been about 40% decline in Artic sea-ice thickness during late summer to early summer to early autumm in recent decades and a considerably slower decline in winter sea-ice thickness.
tide gauge data show that global average sea level rose between 01. and 0.2 metres during 20th century
precipitation has increased over high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere and tropical land areas and decreased between 10 N and 30 N during the 20th century
heavy precipitation events increased by 2% to 4% in the high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere over the latter half of the 20 th century
cloud cover increased by 2% over mid to high latitude land areas of Northern Hemisphere

Warm episods of El Nino have been more frequent, persistent and intense since the mid 1970s compared with the previous 100 years.

deleted this information because I think it's not true that the oceans are releasing CO2. Oceans are absorbing CO2. However, this information can be added later under the correct context.

Many people believe that increased of concentrations of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2) in the atmosphere, which causes more of the energy radiated from the Sun to be absorbed by the Earth might be one of causes. But it could also be a result, as solubility of CO₂ in water is smaller in high temperatures, so oceans are releasing more CO₂ to the atmosphere as the temperature raises.

Oceans are not just water. It's a fact that in higher temperatures, solubity of almost all gases is smaller, and it becomes smaller quite fast. The only important exception is the hydrogen.

But there is life in oceans that might have opposite reaction to temperature and level of CO2 in atmosphere, therefore reaction of ocean waters != reaction of oceans.

And this version isn't NeutralPointOfView. --Taw

This is really shaping up well, Joao - and it's readable, too! --MichaelTinkler

Regarding the link to the Skeptical Environmentalist. I think that it would be in our best interests, considering NPOV, to have links to more information on both sides of the debate, but that is not what this is. This link does not go to an exposition, a paper, or even a summary of a book, but to a page whose main intent is selling the book. Isn't this really more of an advertisement than actual information? --Josh Grosse

I agree. Find or write a summary instead, or remove the link. --Pinkunicorn

The Kyoto Protocol can also be evaluated by comparing costs and gains. Several economical analyses were made that show that the Kyoto Protocol is more expensive than the global warming that it avoids.

what's the IPCC point of view on this?

I removed the italicized quote above from the main page, to keep the discussion here. --Pinkunicorn

Thread started Dec 1 2001

However, the number of scientists expressing skepticism on the global warming issue continues to grow (see [Heidelberg Appeal]?, [Leipzig Declaration]?).

This is not NPOV. Who says the number of scientists expressing skepticism on the global warming issue continues to grow? They desagree about what? That there is no Global Warming? That Global Warming is not important? It's not antropogenic? Joao

However, data from weather satellites and balloon instuments show no warming whatsoever, which calls into question how well land station data has been corrected for the urban heat island effect.

Is this true? Joao 04:34, December 1, 2001

I agree with your comments, and have removed both texts in question. The first of those statements that you question is simply not true, and for the second one, see this web page http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/03/14/greenhouse.gases.02/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Egern~enwiki (talk • contribs) 06:45, December 1, 2001 (UTC)

Thread started Jan 10, 2002

Concerning this sentence: "Scientists are divided on whether this is actually so, although some political groups insist that "the science is settled.""

My understanding is that the vast majority of scientists accept that global warming is in fact occuring and a problem.

Wouldn't it be more accurate, and NPOV, to change this sentence to, "Most scientists agree that global warming is occuring, although some political groups insist that "the science is unclear"" ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 23:53, January 10, 2002 (UTC)

It would be accurate, if you cited a poll of scientists, especially those studying the atmosphere. The phrase "science is settled" is, I believe, a political statement -- not a scientific one. If you find the source to be otherwise, I will stand corrected.

If you just read what the popular media report on this controversy, you get almost exclusively one side. The http://www.sepp.org site shows that the science is not settled and that substantial groups of scientists publicly disagree with the UN's report. Ed Poor 23:58, January 10, 2002 (

Thread started Jan 11, 2002

I disagree with recent changes to this articles. The article was previously written based on two main scientific sources: the IPCC reports and Lomborg's book. They represent good scientific sources and were used to represent the scientific debate. The view of the IPCC was used to represent the view "of the majority of the scientists" and Lomborg to represent "the critics". Both represented the last stage of the scientific debate. The article now changed: opinions, and not facts, are presented at the top of the article. I believe that controversial political issues should be moved to the end. This article was about Global Warming, now is about Anthropogenic Global Warming. I also disagree with this change. There are no "Global Warming advocates", because "Global Warming" is an observed trend, not a political cause. Global Warming is a fact. Anthropogenic Global Warming is under discussion and the majority of scientists favor the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypotheses. The previous version was NPOV by stating facts, this version is NPOV by attributing opinions, as if facts could be a matter of opinion. You can't say " Global Warming, advocates say, is a world-wide climatic phenomenon--the average global surface temperature increased over the last 150 years." because that is a fact, not just an opinion, in accordance with the evidence presented in the next paragraph. IPCC's Data was corrected for the urban island effect, so I don't see how someone can claim Global Warming doesn't exist. Joao 01:05, January 11, 2002

I as well think that version 81 was better. Version 81 started with Global warming is a world-wide climatic phenomenon--the average global surface temperature increased over the last 150 years. Whether this increase is significant or not is subject to debate. Now it begins with According to the global warming theory,... which sound strange. Temperatures have been measured for a considerable time and elementary statistics to do trends is known for a long time as well. So a global warming in recent times can be considered a fact. The questions is if it is significant or not. I vote for reverting to version 81. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hannes Hirzel (talk • contribs) 01:24, January 11, 2002 (UTC)
I also vote for the reversion -- Global Warming is a measured fact. ONLY the possible ramifications and causes are in debate (although with a majority of scientists believing that the warming is caused by human activity). maveric149 01:30, January 11, 2002
I agree with HJH and maveric149. I also want to point out to Ed Poor that my suggestion did not include the phrase "science is settled" (just look about one inch above what Ed Poor wrote). Science by definition is never "settled," but there are moments of consensus, and there are also statements of fact, theoretical models, or research questions that may have a tremendous amount of support within the scientific community. I do agree with Joao about the importance of distinguishing between facts and opinion -- however, a good article will report facts about opinion, such as Joao's statement of fact, "the majority of scientists favor the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypotheses." I think the last few comments reflect an emerging consensus over what would constitute ain informative NPOV article. SR — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 16:26, January 11, 2002 (UTC)

Between 18:04 to 18:23, January 11, 2002 the article underwent a series of tweaking.This chronology clarification note added by me NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:38, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the new revision is very good -- it makes all the distinctions, and the fact that there is ongoing debate, very clearly and elegantly, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 18:27, January 11, 2002 (UTC)

Housekeeping note, At 18:24, January 11, 2002 Hannes Hirzel (HJH) reverted to oldid 254434 which was dated 16:22, January 8, 2002. and Ed reverted her a couple minutes later clarification note added by me NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:38, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Someone deleted it, moments after I put it in (the one with the to-do notes), so I put it back. Please do not simply revert. Ed Poor 18:29, January 11, 2002

Sorry guys, but I think version 81 is much better. Statements like Global Warming, advocates say, is fact -- a world-wide climatic phenomenon -- the average global surface temperature increased over the last 150 years. are ridiculous. Measuring temperatures and do a trend analysis is not something which needs 'advocates' and 'opposers'. The expression 'Global warming theory has 2000 hits in google, and 'global warming' has 600'000.' -- HJH 18:38, January 11, 2002

A quick search about whether the science is settled found:

While it is true that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth said that "the science is settled," it is clear that there is not a broad scientific consensus that human activities are causing global warming.

Don’t take my own word for it:

The prestigious journal Science, in its issue of May 16th, says that climate experts are a long way from proclaiming that human activities are heating up the earth.

Even Benjamin Santer, lead author of chapter 8 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report admits as much.

Here is what Dr. Santer says:

"We say quite clearly that few scientists would say the attribution issue was a done deal."

Indeed, the search for the "human fingerprint" is far from over with many scientists saying that a clear resolution is at least a decade away.

Even the Chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Bert Bolin, says that the science is not settled. When told that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth had said the science was settled, Dr. Bolin replied: "I’ve spoken to [Tim Wirth], I know he doesn't mean it."

Source: http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/senate.htm

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs) 18:41, January 11, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, but what does "science is settled" mean? No global warming proponent claims that we know have perfect scientific knowledge of global warming -- there are still lots of uncertainties and areas needing investigation. All people who say "the science is settled" mean is that the science is sufficently settled to justify taking action now. So, the science may well be settled in the sense that they mean, and at the same time not be settled in the sense in which Santer & Bolin are saying it is not settled. -- SJK 19:14, January 11, 2002

(@SJK) I don't believe taking action is justified now, and I'm not sure the Wikipedia should take that view either. According to my extensive reading on BOTH SIDES of the issue, neither of the claims that (A) global temperature is rising or (B) that a global temperature rise would be bad for humans has been "sufficiently settled" to justify taking action now. Would you agree that both A and B should be proven (at least to your own satisfaction) before we took action? Ed Poor Revision 19:29, January 11, 2002

Suggestions posted January 11, 2002

I have some suggestions to make here:

present scientific discussion in the beggining of the article, political discussion at the end.
scientific discussion should not have arguments based on autority, but arguments based on data, observations and scientific interpretations. All obvious political motivated arguments should be removed from the top of the page.
political arguments should be presented after a clear analysis of the political motives of all agents involved. The paragraph about "Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth"should not be were it is because he does not present a scientific argument, but a political one. He does not talk about temperatures and trends, he uses an argument of autority. He has no scientific reputation to defend, he is a politician. He is not an expert and he doesn't submit his ideas to his peers.

I also think that the issue "science is settled?" should be solved by presenting what is solved and what is not solved. The articles now says that Global Warming exists and, unless someone presents a good argument against the IPCC data it should continue to say so. The articles says that Antheopogenic Global Warming is under discussion, and say why is under discussion and what are the arguments of both sides.

There are a lot of scientific arguments that were disproved in the past but are still used by politicians. Examples of such arguments must be presented in the political section of the article, not in the scientific one. Joao 19:24, January 11, 2002

Joao, the points at issue are

How much global warming is there?
How bad is this for people?
What are people doing to contribute to global warming?
Who should do something about this problem -- and what should they do?

I would like to see the article address all these issues. I don't think the IPCC should be the single source. It is a UN organization, and the UN is dominated by political bias.

I am not going to "revert" to my preferred version, as that goes against consensus. But I do hope we can work together to make the article neutral. -- Ed Poor 19:37, January 11, 2002

(@ED)

Well, Ed. I reverted to version 81. That was already a consensus. Then you began your work of unbalancing the article which was quite good in my view. You then began againg reverting to your version piece-wise, so that it is difficult to track what's going on really.

Trying to sum up - The article needs more content.

Basic facts - there surely is some publicly available data for the last 150 years and for the last 300 years.
Possibilites of interpretation -
Risk evaluation
Polictical positions - (including not so promiently perceived things)
Discussion on action or non-action

The article needs reals research which is real work. Not just inserting here a advocates say and there a not settled statement and anihilating by principle. It is a matter of perception. Talking about politics: The fears have to be named. There is no problem if the article gets longish. ::HJH 19:59, January 11, 2002

(@Ed)

Ed Poor - My suggestions are not in contradition with your goals. I'm not proposing that IPCC be the single source. Some of the scientific arguments come from Lomborg's book and are critical of the IPCC work. We should present the IPCC data, methods and scientific arguments, not the IPCC opinions and political arguments. We should contradict the IPCC data primarily by presenting competing data, not by presenting political arguments. I'm just saying that Global Warming is, primarily, a scientific issue and should be discussed, primarily, with scientific arguments.

Joao 20:05, January 11, 2002

Thread started January 12, 2002

Someone seems determined to label IPCC as a "scientific" source and SEPP as "political". This is not NPOV. Actually, both are scientific organizatioins, each taking opposite sides in the controversy over whether global warming theory has been proven. I therefore changed the extermal link headings to "Favors" and "Opposes".

Unlike evolution, in which there is scientific consensus, global warming is a theory which has not been proven adequatly. Most reporting about it assmues that it has been, and scientists who say otherwise have been marginalized.

I spent hours going through the article, pointing out questions that should be answered and inserting facts with references, and discussing the article here on the talk page. Yet twice my work has been deleted, apparently on the grounds that my sources aren't credible.

I see nothing wrong with stating that some scientists disagree over how much the urban heat island effect distorts evidence for global warming, or that some researchers feel that satellite and weather ballon data should also be considered.

So, please do not simple revert to a previous version and delete sentences containing ideas you disagree with, when those ideas are properly attributed to scientists.

And please do not label as "political" groups whose scientific views you disagree with.

Ed Poor 12:43, January 12, 2002

IPCC was labeled as "scientific" because lots of scientific data in the article comes from the IPCC. I intended to use SEPP has a political source, not scientific, so I labeled it as "political". It's not important if an organization is political or scientific, what is important is the kind of data you can extract from it. IPCC data is very good, and I doubt you ever found such good data elsewhere.

On the other hand, the satellite and weather ballon data issue is an important one. However, we need a very good and updated source because the issue evolved over the years. You can read about it here

http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/faq/iheard.html

Two main points -

*satellite data is not expected to agree with surface data

*satellite data was recently corrected and now shows a warming trend.

As to the sentence

«««Another source says disagrees, saying that well-controlled surface thermometer data for the United States show no warming

trend since about 1940, once "urban heat-island" effects are removed. «««

This could be important, but we need to understand first why the global data from the IPCC disagrees. Maybe there are very good explanations. We can't just trow atributed paragraphs to the article. We must understand whats going on.

«««Furthermore, proxy temperatures, as deduced from tree

rings, ice cores, etc., show no perceptible warming trend in the past 60 years. (Source: SEPP [1]) «««

This could also be important, but I doubt it. Tree rings and ice cores have a low resolution. That's why they don't show a perceptible waming. They can't.

Let's keep this sentences in the talk page until we understand them better.

«««Another source says disagrees, saying that well-controlled surface thermometer data for the United States show no warming

trend since about 1940, once "urban heat-island" effects are removed. «««

Accordingly to the IPCC reports, this sentence is probably true. But, unfortunatly, it is a falacy. The authors choose the data to fit their goals. The sentence is true only for the United States and only to that period. 1940 was a extraordinarily hot year and the United States warmed less than other parts of the world since 1940.

Joao 15:52, January 12, 2002

Weather stations thread started January 12, 2002

Thanks for the note about the weather baloon data. But what I really would like to see is data of different weather stations included in the article so that people can paste them into an excel sheet to play around with and come up with their own interpretation. Not just second hand talk about figures. It would be nice to have about 12 weather stations around the globe situated in the country side to avoid the heating effect within large cities. I think year and mean value of the temperature would already be something. Does somebody know a source where we could get reliable data? -- HJH 18:43, January 12, 2002

How do you select the 12 weather stations? There are weather stations for all flavors. I believe that the IPCC data comes from all weather stations available, and people still argue about them. You can find some data here -

http://www.co2science.org/temperatures/temps.htm

I don't know if it is reliable.

Joao 19:31, January 12, 2002‎

I moved down the following text Some researchers believe that temperature data from satellites and weather balloons should also be taken into account; these show no warming whatsoever since 1979. (Source: SEPP).

I tried to look up this claim on their web site but I did not find it. If somebody finds it and considers it a valuable source I'd ask to clearly state the source and put the text in question back.

HJH 02:35, January 14, 2002

Significance of warming thread started January 16, 2002

The statement on the global warming entry about "Whether this increase is significant or not is subject to debate." is too vague to be informative. What does "significant" mean? Does the sentence mean "Some people don't care?" Does it mean "We can't say exactly how the climate has changed and will change because of global warming (other than the increase in temperature), and thus can't say exactly what its effects on weather, crops, etc., are, and thus can't say exactly what its effects on the economy, on society, and other species will be, and since different people have different priorities, and because changing the activities which have generated so much greenhouse gas would require massive global political and economic change, people argue about whether the known harm of restricting our behavior now outweighs the potential harm of global warming"?

Because that would be my guess. But as it stands the statement seems to just be stating a truism about politics and the unknowability of the future. --TheCunctator 18:39, January 16, 2002

One of the things that is under debate is precisely the meaning of "significant". "significant" is an intentionaly vague word in the beginning of the article. It's an introdution. If you read th article you will understand a little more what it means. Joao

The "significant" sentence was important to balance the introdution of the article so that people don't get the wrong idea from the start. There are some doubts about the importance of Global Warming and that must be clear from the start. Maybe that sentence should not be removed. Joao

Let's clarify that the term global warming often refers to the theory that anthopogenic global warming contributes a substantial percentage of warming (and say what that percentage is estimated to be). I think this is clearer than just saying the "significance" is being debated. Ed Poor 19:01, January 16, 2002 (ed

Global warming controversy article thread started January 17, 2002

Is Global warming controversy really necessary? If you think it is, a lot of information from sources bias would be relevant there also, currently it is very incomplete (I wouldn't want to move sources bias, I think it's a good precedent to have it below the article). Personally I think the two articles should be integrated, at least for the next few years when the whole subject is so unstable.

Ed, since you're a member of the Unification Church, can you tell us a little more about the church's involvement in SEPP? History, current financing, personal relationships between SEPP / church members, church internal distribution of SEPP materials etc.? Is the relationship so well-disclosed that we can remove the attribution to Stauber&Rampton? -- Eloquence 02:21, January 17, 2002

I know of no involvement between the church and SEPP. There is no history, no financing, none of the hundreds of people I know in the church have even heard of SEPP (and church members tend to be about as much in favor of global warming and other environmental theories as the general public), and I have utterly failed at getting anyone to read SEPP materials. In short, there is no relationship except in the quoted claim by S&R. (If you'd like to type in a passage from their book proving otherwise, I'd be much interested. I'd be happy -- well, prompt anyway! -- to correct any mistatements I've made.)

However, I do recall that Prof. Singer had attended a science conference (see ICUS) put on by the Interational Cultural Foundation (ICF), a church-related project. ICUS is concerned with two themes: unity of the sciences, and the theme of values in science. Rev. Moon gives the keynote address at the conference, but participants are free to present papers from any point of view they wish; there is no orthodoxy to which presenters are required to conform. And ICUS staff are predominantly church members (or were up until the late 1980s when I stopped following ICUS so closely).

I would be surprised if ICF or any other church-related organization were to support SEPP, as advocacy is not something Rev. Moon is really into. (Aside from advocating that people repent of their sins, of course!) As far as I know, the only link between Singer and Moon is that Singer presented a paper at an ICF science conference. Harvard's Arther Jensen also gave a paper (on his race/IQ theories), but the church certainly doesn't agree with Jensen's racial views.

In general, Rev. Moon's leadership method is the opposite of micromanagement. He asks someone to take responsibility for an area of concern, and just sits back and waits for reports (a slight oversimplification, but that's the gist of it). There are no secret organizations and no front groups, for two reasons.

The primary reason is that our church's aims are entirely above board: we are trying to build the kingdom of heaven on earth, a society based on honesty, purity and unselfishness. There is no dishonest way to bring about honesty, and no impure or self-serving way to bring about purity and unselfishness.

A practical (though secondary) reason, which some short-sighted low-level church leaders have chosen to learn the hard way, is that given the PR climate and the label of "cult" which the media has stuck on us any attempt to downplay our connections with prominent people must inevitably backfire. Either the media pounces on the "link" and uses it to discredit the person or his project, or the person bails out to forestall such a media attack.

A bit longwinded, but I hope I have answered your question.

Ed Poor 16:20, January 17, 2002

Thanks for the information, Ed. I'll dig a little and try to track down S&R's primary source, and also see what else I can find about SEPP-church-relationships. Could take a few days, though. -- Eloquence

The article states:

People who favor the global warming view claim SEPP to be politically biased.

Could we get the names of some of these people? Otherwise, the sentence should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs) 22:16, January 17, 2002 (UTC)

I agree that it should be removed if no further attribution is provided. Even then, we may want to keep bias discussion separate. ::: Eloquence 22:31, January 17, 2002

I removed the entire paragraph containing the "claim...to be...biased" sentence, and I agree that the bias discussion should be separate. -- Ed Poor 15:59, February 7, 2002

Let's remove all "political" discussion and objections from the article. Global warming should simply state the case for global warming, tempered only by responisible scientific objections, including objections based on statistical analysis. If public policy organizations (such as my beloved SEPP) or "tainted" organizations such as junkscience.org (linked to a convervative think tank) have objections, let there be a separate article.

Someone pointed out to me that an encyclopedia is not a forum for scientific debate. That should be left to science journals.

Thus I propose eliminating the division of scientific and political links, and the lengthy section on claims and counterclaims of bias. Just have the IPCC plus (if all agree) Lomborg's skeptic site, and remove Greenpeace, SEPP and so on. Political commentary is not relevant to science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs) 17:04, January 25, 2002 (UTC)

Settled science and catastrophe Thread started February 25, 2002

Hello, again, my objective scientific friends! I have been surfing a lot in recent weeks to find out what research has been done.

Basically, the predictions of the IPCC have not been borne out by the facts, and therefore should either (A) be dismissed as mere advocacy or (B) still be included but not made the sole "scientific" source. In particular, any claim they make that "scientists agree" with their views should be labeled with phrases such as, "According to the IPCC . . ." or "Scientists working with the IPCC agree . . ."

Dr. Roy Spencer, Senior Scientist for Climate Studies, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, points out two facts:

According to the IPCC's own theories (climate models), the troposphere should be warming at least as much as the ground; yet,
Weather balloon and satellite data show the troposphere warming only at the rate of 0.03 degrees C per decade (from 1979 to 1998), which is only 1/6th of the IPCC prediction.

I think the facts Dr. Spencer points out should be included in the article.

Another fact to be mentioned is the global warming models predict less Antarctic ice, while a recent study found a large increase.

In fact, I think the article should be re-titled as the global warming hypothesis. There is not enough agreement between theory and observation for an encyclopedia to take sides.

In sum, the article should stop taking the "science is settled" viewpoint put forth by many advocates, and start taking an objective view or at least the NPOV.

I look forward to cooperating with Joao (sp?) and others.

Ed Poor 15:51, February 25, 2002

Ed, your last edit introduced the words "catastrophe" and "catastrophe proponents". These words were not in the article before. Are they NPOV? Who uses these words? In general, your last edit did not improve the article at all. I suggest you change it, or else someone will come around and revert it back to the previous version. AxelBoldt 10:27, March 1, 2002‎

You are right about this, Axel. I did introduce the term catastrophe and I should indicate who uses the term. I am at a loss, because global warming seems to be used both in the sense of a any temporary but significant increase in average global temperature as well as the theory that average global temperature will continue to rise indefinitely, leading to catastrophe. I thought I was making things clearer. Apparently, not. Would you prefer the term global warming hypothesis or global warming theory? Or must we announce in the beginning of the article that global warming means both (A) any of several temporary warming trends and (B) the currently (supposedly permanent) warming trend?

I'm willing to cooperate. Just give me something I can work with, Axel. --Ed Poor 13:19, March 1, 2002

Global cooling thread started March 1, 2002

There are data at [1] showing that the past 23 years have seen global cooling of -0.06 degrees centigrade per decade. Would anyone familiar with the IPCC prediction care to comment? --Ed Poor 13:34, March 1, 2002

Thread started March 8, 2002

Some comments about the article:

The article lost its initial structure. Scientific observations, scientific prediction and political opinions were placed in diferent parts of the article.

Old IPCC prediction (before 2001) do not represent the best data available.

is it true that the "The IPCC ignores temperature measurements from weather balloons and satellites"?

is it true that IPCC have not revealed their correction method[of the urban island efect]?

it's a bad idea to mix:
- data from land stations
- data from satelites
- data from IPCC (old) predictions

They have diferent meanings and they can't be compared without a proper analysis.

global warming science and debate evolved very fast and everything prior to 2000 is probabily too old to be acurate.

user:Joao 12:20, March 8, 2002‎

Thanks for your attention to this article. It's much too big an issue for me to handle by myself.

Some of the information I have contributed may be out of date. It's unusual for me to get scientific articles less than 3 years old: they get sent out for review, etc., first. Then there's the publishing lag.

Probably our essential difference is that I believe predictions should be compared against all the facts (i.e., temperature observations). So I see past predictions of the IPCC (made in 1990 or 1995, say) to be relevant. Also, I think no one source of data should be relied upon, if what we are trying to do is determine whether global warming is really true.

But if there is some scientific, public policy, or ideological source that says that satellite or weather balloon data should be disregarded in favor of land stations, please add this to the article.

Ed Poor 12:44, March 8, 2002

http://www.arxiv.org is the physics preprint server. Excellent resource for the latest papers. Vicki Rosenzweig 08:10, April 5, 2002

Comparations bettwen data and predictions doesn't prove that the dat is wrong, it proves that the models used are wrong. In the first part of the article you are discoussing data, not prediction. Predictions must be discoussed later in the article.

IPCC predictions changed with time. That's interesting and deserves its own section in the article, but doesn't prove that the data is wrong or that the new (2001) predictions are wrong.

You are mixing old predictions, that are irrelevant now, with new predictions and experimental data.

Satellite or weather balloon data shouldn't be disregarded, but this kind of data is representative of 8km of troposfere, and can't be compared with land measurements. Satellite and land data have to be diferent. Thats natural.

user:Joao 13:20, March 8, 2002

Maybe the article needs revision into (1) a section on the historical temperature record, followed by (2) hypotheses which seek to explain the historical record and predict future temperatures.

I support any revision you want to make, provided you include the scientific references which contradict the public-policy organizations' viewpoints.

Ed Poor 07:52, March 13, 2002

Catastrophe proponents thread started March 13, 2002

The article talks about "catastrophe proponents" and claims that the term "global warming" is used to refer to the catastrophic effects of higher temperatures. I don't think this is NPOV. Further down, the article is more neutral. Many people are concerned about Global Warming because of possible harmful effects, not because of a global catastrophe. AxelBoldt 09:04, March 13, 2002

I don't think "possible harmful effects" is a strong enough term, but on the other hand "catastrophe" is too strong. Perhaps a 2-mile-diameter asteroid hitting the earth would cause a catastrophe. What term do you prefer? Ed Poor 09:22, March 13, 2002

Thread start March 13, 2002

I was checking links and found to my dismay that the URL for the following is missing. I'm pretty sure the info is correctly cited, but the URL is definitely wrong

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 1995 estimate of average global warming at the surface until the year 2100 is +0.18 °C/decade. Climate models suggest that the deep layer measured by the satellite and weather balloons should be warming about 30% faster than the surface (+0.23 °C/decade). None of the satellite or weather balloon estimates are near this value. (Source: Science News 14 August 1998)

Ed Poor 09:30, March 13, 2002

(@Ed)

From the text

The main evidence for global warming comes from thermometer measurements from land stations all over the world since 1860. The data shows that the average surface temperature has increased by 0.6±0.2 C during the 20th century. Most of the warming occurred during two periods: 1910 to 1945 and 1976 to 2000. (Source: IPCC).

The trend line for NOAA data from 1979 to 2001 shows only a tiny amount of global warming (0.06 degrees centigrade per decade), which contradicts the IPCC prediction of 0.4 degrees per decade. Moreover, the R-squared coefficient of the trend line is too small to indicate a significant trend. The data from these measurements are not even mentioned in their report, leading opponents to charge the IPCC with political bias.

What the hell! You can't compare surface temperature readings with satalite data that measures the temperature of the troposphere!!! This is like trying to compare a volvo with the Space Shuttle. Besides, data from these satellite readings have to pass through the stratoshpere, the mesophere the exoshpere and probably the I-can't-remember-sphere. Each of these layers of the atmosphere have very different thermal properties, and can introduce variations and errors in any data obtained from photons passing through them (in the same way as Earth-based telescopes find it difficult to obtain crisp images and data from the observations of the night sky). One thing that has always been consistant with all my geology, geography, biology and remote-sensing classes, is that if a ground measurement is in contridiction to a aerial or satalite measurement then you first question the remote measurement (and in this case different things were being measured to begin with - thus making a valid comparison darn near imposible!). The author who placed these satellite data in the article obviously has the remote sensing/ground measurement concept reversed. I don't have time now, but I will strongly quallify all the satellite data soon. BTW, the term "global warming" is outdated and missued -- Most climatologists now speak of "global climate change" - since many areas will actually experience seasonal cooling because of increased cloud cover and some areas might even face prolonged cooling due to the possible slowing or even shutting down of deep-sea currents. :maveric149 17:41, March 13, 2002

A belated reply to Maveric

Dr. Roy Spencer, Senior Scientist for Climate Studies, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, points out two facts: (1) According to the IPCC's own theories (climate models), the troposphere should be warming at least as much as the ground; yet, (2) Weather balloon and satellite data show the troposphere warming only at the rate of 0.03 degrees C per decade (from 1979 to 1998), which is only 1/6th of the IPCC prediction.

Ed Poor, Friday, April 5, 2002

thread started March 16, 2002

(A) Can someone explain what "(a reduction of 0.15 in 2 C warming by 2100)" means? 0.15 in 2?
(B) Also, "proponents of global warming" is misleading--at least if used to mean "people who argue that global warming is real and is a problem." A proponent of global warming would be in favor of a warmer globe, not opposed to it. (This is particularly relevant because there seem to be some people arguing that a warmer planet would be neutral if not good, though this may be more a matter of "we don't care about global temperatures, just let us keep burning fossil fuels" than of actively wanting to warm the earth.) Vicki Rosenzweig 13:40, March 16, 2002

(A) means that global temperature will increase 1.85 degrees with Kyoto and 2 degrees without.user:Joao

Climate Change article created April 3, 2002

Thread started April 5, 2002

The following remark seems to be refer an edit on the article page posted at 15:00, April 5, 2002. See that edit summary for context. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
It's ironic that someone would say I was twisting the facts, when apparently the same person took a 0.01 degree cooling and "tweaked" into a 0.04 degree cooling. The larger cooling figure is plainly marked "unadjusted trend".

The scientific figures I quoted from the NASA web site are pasted below:

Weather balloon trend (Angell/NOAA) -0.07 deg. C/decade
Unadjusted satellite trend: -0.04 deg. C/decade
Weather balloon trend

(Parker, UK Met Office): -0.02 deg. C/decade

Our Adjusted Satellite Trend: -0.01 deg. C/decade
Wentz-estimated adjusted satellite trend: +0.08 deg. C/decade

I don't believe I'm the one with the "ideological bias" -- actually I'm the one who is quoting scientist Dr. Roy Spencer. If you think he has an ideological bias, fine: say so. But the NASA website saw fit to publish his article. I think your dispute is with NASA or the NOAA, not with me. I am just faithfully reporting what the scientists say.

Have a nice weekend. Ed Poor, 16:11 and 16:14, April 5, 2002

The problem is the title of the article. No one should talk about "global warming" since the concept is an oxymoron - it is ALWAYS getting colder in one place and warmer in another... and the specific argument about the trend at different levels of the atmosphere is one of many arguments about w:global climate change.

Here's the issue: the whole world can be cooling, and some areas heating up, and the new balance may, oh for instance, move the w:Gulf Stream just enough to miss Europe - dropping its temperature a few degrees, killing its agriculture, and turning many high-tech countries into bitter enemies of North America (which would survive such a change without breaking a sweat).

I actually don't think it is ethical to have a separate argument on "global warming", although that is *part* of the "climate change" debate, because those who hear that phrase really must understand the WHOLE argument about climate change, the way cultures are dependent on ecologies, the way warmer and cooler spots on Earth can alter those ecologies rather drastically, etc..

So I'd say the solution is to redirect "global warming" to "global climate change" and subordinate the overall atmospheric warming trend to the rest of the argument.

AFter all, you wouldn't trust a doctor who took your overall average temperature, averaging skin/room temperature with internal body, would you?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.61.63 (talk • contribs) 16:53, April 5, 2002 (UTC)

(re the first paragraph) This is just wrong. Earth absorbs sunlight, earth warms up. Earth radiates IR, earch cools down.

Olof 17:21, April 5, 2002

I don't what what "earch" is or how it might relate to "Earth" or "earth", but there are three different entities in your statement. It is three-atom-or-more molecules (CO2, CH4, etc.) whose bonds warm up due to sunlight, in the upper to lower atmosphere, and this increases atmospheric temperature very evenly. So far, your simplistic conception is "right" insofar as you can understand that term (which I doubt very much). So I presume by "Earth" you mean the upper to lower atmosphere and lithosphere as a whole - fair enough. Various bits of it (your "earth") hold that heat, some radiate it or bounce it off. Ultimately, the bounced heat radiates IR off into space, which is going strictly from the upper atmosphere - so now by "Earth" you mean the upper atmosphere only, and by "earch" the lower and/or the ground/lithosphere which is cooling down. There are quite different phenomenon going on in upper, lower, ground level, and oceans, and failing to understand these will render most overall global measures quite irrelevant. And, I repeat, no one cares. Most people who use this term care about this

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.61.63 (talk • contribs) 17:35, April 5, 2002 (UTC)

We are all inpressed by your spelling. I won't explain why I capitalized "Earth" at the beginning of my sentences, but my 4-year-old son could tell you if you wanted to know. But I do mean the whole earth. You are mistaking conservation of energy for conservation of heat. That is just wrong. Want more rope? ::::Olof 17:41, April 5, 2002

(@24) Thanks for weighing in on this issue, 24, but I think we're better off keeping the title global warming for the article.

Readers looking for information on the controversy will find it here.
Extreme average changes in the temperature of the earth's atmosphere are significant. Both sides to the controversy agree that ice ages occurred during periods of global cooling, and that a global warming of 4 degrees Centigrade or more would be disastrous. Yes, the equator is always hotter than the poles, but the concept of average global temperature is still a useful one.

What remains at issue is whether such a disaster is indeed likely to take place. That's where scientists are divided.

If there is yet another viewpoint besides (A) it's gonna burn and (B) it'll be fine; then please introduce it into the article, with sources.

Ed Poor 17:45, April 5, 2002

". . . the reality of global warming is not disputed. Just how much global warming the Earth has experienced is the point of contention among many researchers, says Roy Spencer, senior NASA scientist for climate studies at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center in Huntsville. Estimates range from negligible change to a rise of 0.4 or 0.5 degrees Celsius over the last 20 years." Source: Science Daily website

Ed Poor 11:09, April 9, 2002

Renaming Issue - started April 9, 2002

RE: the renaming issue
On a technical basis 24 is correct that the term "global warming" is misleading.

Let me explain: Even if average global temperatures increase significantly, some areas will experience at least seasonal cooling. Much of this more or less localized cooling will be from increased cloud cover and precipitation -- especially in mid latitudes during winter months (blizzards are usually pretty darn cold, and many areas will have more of them, for an extreme example). Some other areas that are already warmer than they should be for their latitude, such as western Europe, may experience a prolonged cooling trend for every season. This part of Europe is warmer than it should be because the Gulf stream brings warm water from the tropics which travels right off shore. The Gulf stream is part of a larger conveyor belt of water that circulates all around the world -- warm water at the surface follows its thermodynamic gradient and moves to the poles, sinks after it has lost its heat moves along for a couple thousand years until it hits an upwelling zone, (such as the one off Chile and Peru) and starts the cycle over. The fear is that cold water from the melting ice may (probably will) disrupt where the Gulf stream sinks -- it probably will sink farther south than it now does and may cease to function in a predictable manor. Therefore Europe cools even though average world temperatures increase. This theory isn't new, but has gained much wider acceptance in recent years and continues to do so.

Even so, I'm not totally jazzed about a move just yet. Wikipedia standards in article naming lean toward choosing a name that is most recognizable by the largest number of English speakers. I don't think "Global climate change" is there yet is comparison to "Global warming". I know this is in opposition to what I stated in passing previously. I still "feel" that "global climate change" is more correct, although I "know" that most lay English speakers will not recognize what this is really referring to -- therefore, I vote for keeping the current title for at least a year or two (although if many people chim in for changing over I wouldn't object to the change too much). We should change this only after a few years when the lay public begins to absorb a broader understanding of this issue in much larger numbers (several well received Discovery Channel specials from now until then should do it -- they will probably jump on the gloom and doom for Europe aspect). We should still mention that not all areas will experience warming year round and that this issue is more complicated than simple warming in the article though. --maveric149 15:43, April 9, 2002

Perhaps after we get a comprehensive article on climatology, explaining the main factors responsible for sea level rise (or fall), polar ice accumulation and iceberg formation, El Nino (and La Nina), water and air temperature trends, ozone, UV, and so on -- then we'd be in a position to have a general "global climate change" article.

Even if we made the change now, we'd have to address the "global warming" issue if only from the political angle; much as articles on pistols, rifles, mortars, artillery and other weapons might be separate from the gun control issue in the U.S.

I'd like to see a major revision of global warming anyway, for example

the scientific study of recent temperature trends and predictions
history of legislation (proposed, amended, signed, ratified) on the national and international levels to "combat global warming"

The article originally took the point of view of the IPCC, namely that (a) there's a large warming trend, (b) it's likely to continue, and (c) we must stop it. I think that is a fair and NPOV statement of the IPCC position, okay?

I changed the article so that it acknowledged other points of view, chiefly that of SEPP, which is (roughly) that (d) a large warming (say, 4 C) would be bad, but (e) there is no evidence that such a warming is likely to occur.

Would people like to keep the current structure? Or shall we split it into science and legislation?

Ed Poor, Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Thread started April 12, 2002

Nitpick time:

Climate scientists agree that the earth's temperature has fluctuated throughout history by about 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit).

When does "history" start? --Robert Merkel 20:29, April 12, 2002

Perhaps it should read "recorded history" if that is what it means. However, it probably means the period of time within recorded history that we have sufficient accounts of, at least, the approximate temperature. This can be dertermined indirectly by seeing what crops people were able to grow and relatively how successful they where in certain areas. Weather reports also help. Unfortunetely, the systematic use of what we would call thermometers is a rather late phenomenon in recorded history. maveric149, Friday, April 12, 2002

Thread started on April 16, 2002

(This is an) Interesting link on CO2 sequesterization — Preceding unsigned comment added by maveric149 (talk • contribs) 14:50, April 16, 2002 (UTC) parenthetical added by me NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:07, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Thread started April 30, 2002

I would like to preface my comments with the fact that I am not an expert in this area. Nevertheless I am quite troubled by the 2nd paragraph.

The paragraph states that throughout history the earth's temperture has varied by about 3 degrees c. Well - this is NOT the case. Up until the end of the precambrian the earth was rather cool and since that time - for the last 600 million year it was about 10C warmer than today for probably about 3/4 of the time span. In fact we appear to be at the beginning of a warming trend that started about 2 million years ago or so.

I shall refer to this rather excellent website for the following comments: www.scotese.com "The Paleomap Project"

The Precambrian was rather cold - read about the tillites in southern Australia - Australia was at the equator when these were deposited. During this time the earth had high levels of CO2. It would have been about 600 million years before the end of the precambrian when CO2 started to get scrubed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis.

Please refer here for information on atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 4.5 billion years.

http://www.scotese.com/precamb_chart.htm

As you can see at one time CO2 was about 80% which then dropped to about 15% by 2,700 million years when photosynthesis developed. The primative photosythesis which evolved at this time was robust enough to scrub the CO2 levels from 15% to less than 1% by the end of the precambrian. CO2 levels have never gone back up.

http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm shows the change between "ICE HOUSE" and "HOT HOUSE". If drawn to scale it actually shows about a 70 ma cycle. The present warming started at the end of the Tertiary.

To say that _any_ of this is linked to green house gasses is really stretching things IMHO.

I think global warming should take a very long view. History did not start when mankind started to record it. In recent times - there have been warm and cool periods - this over 100's of years. But really CO2 and other greenhouse gases have only been introduced very recently.

Probably earth will warm up. Very probably because usually it has been warm - for 100's of millions of years. Very likely this will have nothing to do with mankind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.116.140 (talk • contribs) 16:40, April 30, 2002 (UTC)

The "history" that is being talked about is recorded history -- Yes it is ambiguous so I will change it. However your statement "But really CO2 and other greenhouse gases have only been introduced very recently." is false. You yourself indicate that CO2 has always been part of the atmosphere and there have been several periods within intense warming that have followed the release of CO2 from methane hydrate deposits -- most notably during the Miocene 55 million years ago that was followed by extensive evidence of an extreme warming event [2]. This warming occurred on a human timescale and has left its chemical signature in sediments and in the shells of animals. You are correct in stating the late precambrian was cooler than today. However, what you obviously don't know is that the sun at that time of Snowball Earth was 30% less luminous than it is now. The reason why the earth froze over was due to the sudden (in geological terms) drop of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that was caused by an explosion of photosynthetic bacteria that consummed CO2 at a faster rate than aerobic bacteria and volcanos could produce it. CO2 has been dropping, on average, over the timespan of hundreds of millions of years because the sun has been increasing its solar output (this is self-regulating on this timescale: lots of CO2 = hot temps = lots more plants that are buried before decaying = less CO2). CO2 alone does not control the climate -- solar input, ocean circulation, orbital motions along with the carbon cycle are all the major factors that control climate. The only debate is the amount of the current global warming has been caused by human activities vs. the amount of background warming that one would expect after coming out of the most recent glacial maximum 15,000 years ago. We do know that CO2 levels have increased by 30% since pre-industrial times and we also know that almost all of that increase is from the burning of fossil fuel. We also know that CO2 is a heat-trapping gas and high concentrations of this gases are strongly correlated with warming events in the geologic past and cooling events equally correlated with low [CO2]. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. BTW, we place our comments at the end of talk pages here and we also don't change what others have said (noting the oddness you added to Tim's statement). --maveric149

1) thanks for the tip on etiquette. I saw nothing in the Faq about this. Also, I did not intentionally edit Tim's statement. There was a weirness going on and for some reason the browser (opera 6.0) was acting rather strangely. Thanks for fixing it up... I checked the diff's and I see what you are refering to.

2) 55ma places us at the end of the paleocene. My geology texts put the miocene between 12ma and 25ma. I see this is in contrast to the 2-24 in the wikipedia artical. My reference: Dunbar&Waage p16 sbn 471 22507

How long and how well documented is the 55ma warming event? I note that the present cooling started about 1/2 way through the Cenozoic - and that the last 5 ma have been abnormally cool. This cooling trend seems to be reverting for the last 2ma.

3) I'm aware of the factors involved in the warming/cooling trends. But this is not well covered in the artical. I think it should be.

4) Earth was 10C warmer than now for about 400ma or more of the last 600ma.

5) I agree that green house gasses definately work in the lab. But co2 levels are very very low at only about 0.035%. A chemical engineer designing a scrubber would have great difficulty trying to scrub flue gasses to such a low level - yet plants derive all of their carbon from this source (ie it is a nutrient).

7) I think the artical should try to place things into context better. The development of photosynthesis in the precambrian for instance spans a period of time about equal to all the geological history from the explosion of life in the cambrian to the present.

I don't think there was a "sudden drop". I think this drop took 100's of millions of years. During this time the earth was slowly warming up so that by the cambrian it was about 10C warmer than today. This is a trend directly opposite the hypothesised effect of CO2.

In any event - the artical seems to be focused on the last few 1000 years. I agree this is the period of most interest to mankind. But even 15,000 years is only 1/40,000th of the time of the phanerozic era.

Somehow this is important. On the one hand we have the age of the dinosaurs spanning about 100,000,000 years and the earth is warm during this whole period then cools off for about 25 million years to a level about 5C greater than today then back up to +10 for another 100,000,000 years.

Then it drops about 5 million years ago and seems to start warming up 2 million years ago.

We contrast this with events that occur on a scale of a couple 100 or at best a few 1000 years.

It seems unlikely that greenhouse gasses could cause the climate shifts of the past. Something else is at work. Even solar output doesn't explain it unless we've had shifts in the solar output that carry on for 50 million years or so.

So all I'm saying is that somehow I think the artical should embrace the problem. We have huge long term warming and cooling trends that span millions of years and are several times larger than the events that might be occuring now.

Its like being in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean being buffeted by waves and winds and storms and somehow trying to extrapolate where we are going. The problem with this analogy is that given a good enough inertial guidance system one could actually determine where we are going!!

So by this same analogy my opinion is that it is not sufficiently demonstrated that we really do know enough about the effects of greenhouse gasses and so forth to be able to suggest that anything we might be doing on planet earth is anything more than a really small blip.

I think I would be happy if somehow we could write a preamble that draws a time line for 4.5 billion years and traces the paleoclimatology just as Scotese did and on this same scale shows what we know about the paleoatmosphere and other significant events. Then we can draw a little arrow to the present and talk about what we presently believe.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.116.140 (talk • contribs) 07:11, May 1, 2002 (UTC)

Terrell, thank you for your long discussion of the global warming article. I like many of your suggestions. Feel free to edit the article in any way you see that would improve it. It is not necessary to gain agreement from other contributors before making an edit. Just make sure that whatever you put in is backed up by a reasonable reliable source, such as a published article by a researcher in the field. The accepted formula is: A said B about C. When there is substantial disagreement, we generally add: D disagrees with B because of E. -- Ed Poor

@Terrell -- much of what you proposed would probably be better in global climate change and not global warming. You are talking about large-scale fluctuations in temperature that have occurred throughout history -- not just global warming. However, most data suggest that the Cenozoic cooling is primarily due to changes in ocean circulation that occurred as a result of A) the formation of the Isthmus of Panama (thus blocking off ocean circulation from the Mid-Atlantic and Pacific, B) the emplacement of Antarctica at the south pole (thus promoting the formation of continental glaciation there and resulting in increased reflection of solar heat back into space), and also probably due to variations in orbital motion and axial tilt. However, on top of this is a very strong correlation of CO2 concentration and the severity of cold/warm snaps -- being low in concentrations during glacial maximums and much higher in glacial minimums (such as we are now living) and very high in non-glacial periods (such as the late Paleocene to early Eocene hothouse -- thanks for catching that, BTW). CO2 does seem to be the top suspect in this warming event. We see direct evidence for more recent CO2-mediated climate change in gas trapped in ice core samples dating back about 200,000 years. So yes, like I said before, there are large-scale changes that tend to affect the climate more than CO2 alone over vast expanses of geologic time. However, it is the smaller scale and shorter-lived changes that concern scientists -- CO2 is far more important in this area (it takes many tens of millions of years to have significant changes in solar output due to stellar evolution and equally long periods of time for plate tectonics to change how ocean currents flow). Changes due to CO2 levels work on the scale of hundreds to thousands of years. --maveric149 (Revision as of 09:40, May 1, 2002)

I feel a bit of a concensus. I just checked - there is no page on paleoclimatology. I have created one and I request people to have a look. It is just a very rough stub at this point.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.116.140 (talk • contribs) 14:34, May 1, 2002 (UTC)

Thread started May 23 2002

I just reorganized the page considerable. I didn't delete anything, except repetions, of which there were many. Many paragraphs appeared in the wrong section, for instance a mention of anthropogenic factors in the section about "Natural factors". The article now also cleanly distinguishes between the models designed using past data to establish the relative importance of the various factors, and the predictive models based on several scenarios. AxelBoldt, Thursday, May 23, 2002

Thanks, Axel! Great job! Now the article flows in one continuous narrative, like something from Time magazine. I couldn't have done it better myself, which obviously is why not I but YOU did!! Ed Poor, Friday, May 24, 2002

Thread started June 12, 2002

After my latest revision of the opening several paragraphs, I couldn't figure out where to put this passage:

Secondary evidence comes from observed variations on the snow cover and ice extent, global average sea level, precipitation, cloud cover, El Nino and extreme weather events during the 20th century.

What are these variations deemed "evidence" of?

Evidence that the atmosphere got warmer in the last century and a half? No one is disputing that.
Evidence that the global warming hypothesis (advocated by Kyoto Protocol proponents) is true?

Much (or most) of the article should be about whether the global warming hypothesis is true. It should clearly describe the global warming hypothesis (i.e., the theories or models which explain and predict warming), as well as present evidence that the hypothesis is true or false.

For example, if a particular IPCC model is true, we should see X degress of warming per decade at the surface, or in the troposphere (hypothesis). Then, present the observations: this group of scientists reports this amount of warming per decade, that group reports that amount. Finally, we report the analysis of the various scientists who have compared the theoretical predicitions to the actual observations.

This is the scientific method, right? Do all agree?

If so, please help me finish this article according to the plan I have outlined.

If not, please explain where I have gone wrong and present a better alternative plan for improving this article.

Ed Poor, 08:42 June 12, 2002‎

The "secondary evidence" that you removed is evidence for the current warming period, as the headline "Evidence for a current warming period" clearly stated. Of course, if you change the headline, the paragraph won't fit anymore. Any article about "Global warming" should start with a paragraph about the fact that currently a global warming period is going on, and the undisputed evidence for that. There is no controversy about the current warming period. I don't know why you like controversies so much.

Carbon dioxide has absolutely nothing to do in this section.

Why did you completely change the beginning of the article again even though you agreed before that the article was better than you could possibly have written it? I get the impression that you just agreed with me for tactical reasons, then decided to come back acouple of weeks later and hoped no one would notice.

In the first paragraph, you say "there's considerable controversy of this issue". About what issue? Current global warming? No. That humans have an impact? No. That the greenhouse effect exists? No. The controversy is solely about how big the human impact is among the many factors that influence global climate. I also don't know what "global warming hypothesis" you are talking about. And I don't agree that this article should be about that hypothesis, whotever it may be.

I don't see how to fix the article except for reverting. Please discuss specific problems you have with the current article here. AxelBoldt, Wednesday, 09:18, June 12, 2002‎

I didn't hope you wouldn't notice; actually, I'm rather glad you did notice although I wish you had discussed before reverting.

The "global warming hypothesis" presented by the IPCC and other advocates of the Kyoto Protocol is

the earth's atmosphere is warming up too much
men are causing a significant amount of this warming

Would you please explain (here, or better yet in the body of the article) how "snow cover and ice extent, global average sea level, precipitation, cloud cover, El Nino and extreme weather events" are evidence for global warming? Note that I am not arguing with you: I just think the article would be better with a clear explanation of what these phenomena are evidence of, and who thinks so, and why.

Ed Poor, Wednesday, 09:43 June 12, 2002

I am not good at writing long, cohesive documents. My strength lies rather in comparing what one person says with what another person says. This enables me to see readily that many people, including the overwhelming majority in the mass media, support the Kyoto Protocol and the other UN initiatives: IPCC, UNEP, and so on, despite many individual scientists who claim that Kyoto and the UN are in error.

I believe my grasp of scientific and statistical principles is sufficient for me to see (at least) that there is considerable disagreement between two opposing camps. Whether this disagreement amounts to a "controversy" or not, it certainly exists.

What compromise can we make? May I say that there is a controversy? If not, may I at least say things like "According to the IPCC, there is a consensus" and "Mr. X in the Clinton Administration said, 'the science is settled'"? May I mention that a lead author of the IPCC's 1995 report said that the policymakers had the final say on what went into it, and that half the scientists disagreed with it?

I don't know what else an article on global warming should be on, if not the hypothesis that people are making the earth's atmosphere warm up too much.

Many advocates believe that hypothesis, so the article should explain

why they believe the hypotheses
what they propose to do about it
the progress they've made to date

Many other advocates dispute that hypothesis, so the article should also explain why they are skeptical:

Some scientists say there is "no discernible human influence" on global atmospheric temperature
Some scientists say the amount of near-surface and tropospheric warming predicted by even the most conservative of IPCC models has utterly inconsistent with balloon and satellite temperature measurements in the last 23 years
Some scientists say that solar activity correlates with global atmospheric temperature very well, but that the carbon dioxide level does not.
Some scientists say that the earth is recovering from a Little Ice Age and that the optimum temperature is what it was when Greenland was green.

Perhaps you agree with the former Clinton Administration that "the science is settled". Perhaps you accept the IPCC's point of view that there is a scientific "consensus". But there are thousands of scientists who disagree. I intend to present their point of view as well.

This article needs a full rewrite, and if I do it, it will take me a dozen hours (maybe much, much more). I would hate to invest this time if anyone would immediately revert the article. I would prefer to be able to make changes boldly, but if it will save my time and energy to submit each change for approval I will do it that way.

I want to cooperate. I do not want to slip in changes "hoping" they won't be noticed. On the contrary, I want people to notice my contributions. I might even be able to point out something which a reader had not known before, which contributes to their understanding. Or at least lets them know that someone else has a reason for disagreeing with them.

Ed Poor, Friday, 08:41, June 14, 2002

Sorry, I?m going to go off on a tangent here (I haven?t yet read what was reverted so I can?t speak to that yet). Who says that the Earth has any sort of temperature optimum? Does this mean that there is an equilibrium point for temperature? All the evidence that I have seen about ?average? surface temperatures is that they have been anything but consistent through recent geologic time - that is until about 10,000 years ago. Before the thawing of the last glacial maximum (we are now in a glacial minimum) the earth periodically experienced very severe climate shifts of +/- 5 degrees Celsius on a more or less 1,500 year cycle (this translates to about a +/- 10 degree C climate change for the poles since they experience the lions-share of warming).

This all appears to have a lot to do with waxing and waning cycles in ocean circulation currents that may be influenced by orbital and/or solar cycles. There is also an increasing amount of evidence that strongly suggests that a prolonged period of warming (most probably caused by increases in [CO2]) may in fact trigger rapid cooling (gulf stream warms Europe, melting fresh water ice shuts down gulf stream and in turn the global circulation of the oceans = tropics get hotter, put more water vapor in the atmosphere and continental glaciation from the poles advance - fed by freezing water vapor). Ice core data have, in fact, found a very strong correlation between CO2 concentration and climate conditions. What is highly unusual, and I mean blatantly weird, however, is the fact that the last 10,000 or so years have been so stable. It is this stability that allowed our Stone Age ancestors to foster civilization and technology (having your population plummet during a climate shift doesn?t do much for establishing civilization). The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are nothing compared to geologically recent climate shifts.

My fear is that we are experimenting on the Earth on a global scale by placing known greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere at very high levels. Of course since we don?t have a non-human populated carbon copy control Earth sharing our same orbit we can?t be ?sure? that what we are doing has resulted in the measured and undisputed increase in surface temperature. But when we know (and strongly suspect) certain things about past climate shifts and when we know the thermal properties of certain gases, know that the concentration of these gases have increased very significantly since the start of the industrial revolution and know that the vast majority of the extra concentration of these gases is due to human activity, it doesn?t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we should be concerned. In the blink of a geologic eye we have escaped the clutches of a highly volatile climate system that kept our ancestors in caves. The United States (among a others) are going past the point of looking the gift horse in the mouth - we (and I am American here) are beginning to kick the horse in the groin. How long will it be before the horse kicks back?

maveric149, 10:20, June 14, 2002

@Ed, the article does not claim that the "science is settled". It simply distinguishes between the things that are generally accepted and the things that are still a matter of debate. I have never seen the phrase "the earth is warming up too much" formulated as any kind of hypothesis; it is thoroughly unscientific.

Accepted is that the Earth is warming up right now. Primary evidence is thermometer readings, secondary evidence is snow cover, ice extent, sea level etc. These are not evidence for your strange "global warming hypothesis"; they are simply evidence for the current ongoing global warming. There is no controversy here.

Now, some people (mostly industry affiliated) say global warming may have minor or even positive effects, others (environmentalists) fear that it may have major negative effects. This controversy is mentioned in the article.

The core scientific debate however is how big an effect the human-introduced green house gases have on global warming. Nobody denies that they have an effect, and nobody denies that solar activity and many other factors play a role as well. Most climate scientists believe that the human effect is significant and run some climate models to show it, others dispute that. This debate is also mentioned in the article.

Finally, there's the Kyoto protocol. There are various objections, from people who don't think that global warming is affected by humans or is a bad thing, from people who object to the fact that the developing countries are still excluded, and from people who think global warming is a bad thing caused by humans, but maintain that Kyoto is too expensive for the expected benefits (Lomborg). I believe this is covered in the article as well.

What other controversy do you want to cover?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by AxelBoldt (talk • contribs) 14:40 June 14, 2002 (UTC)

Oh Ed, one more thing. Reading through the above Talk, it is clear that you previously violated Joao's revision 81 of this article (now lost). We are probably still trying to recover from this. And your pattern of pretending to agree with your adversaries, only to revamp later when they have left (as you did with Joao) continues. AxelBoldt, Friday, 14:54, June 14, 2002

Axel, I added a link to global warming hypothesis, a term in use by both scientists who give the hypothesis credence and those who are skeptical. Ed Poor, Monday, 09:19, June 24, 2002

Thread started Oct 2 2002

The following was copied from Global warming/Todo; the page has been subsequently deleted. Andre Engels 06:59 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

To do List:

improve evidences section
- satellite data
- add critics' point of view (some of the critics base their claims in disproved scientific data)
improve causes section
- sources of anthropogenic gases
- emissions by country
improve consequences section
- add IPCC information
- distinction bettwen observed consequences and potential consequences
add all IPCC documents to references
political discussion
improve economical discussion
history of global warming problem
first scientist to point out the problem?
use of junk science or disproved science in political debate

Has anyone been following this todo list? If it's not helping us improve the article, let's delete this list.

Personally, I think the article is trying to do too much at once. It has not provided a single clearly understandable theory that explains global warming.

The controversies over the hypothesis, therefore, have suffered. Who can follow a debate over a scientific issue, when nothing is clear?

The public policy debates, likewise, make no sense to the reader. How can anyone make up their mind to support or oppose the Kyoto Protocol, without understanding what problem the protocol proposes to remedy?

We could:

try to improve the current lengthy article
break it into smaller articles, each explaining one aspect

I daresay it will be easier to maintain NPOV with smaller articles. They can also link to each other. I've seen this on other wikis, such as the Portland Pattern Repository which explains Extreme Programming in a series of small articles.

A computer screen is not paper, of course. There is no limit on the length of a single page nor on the number of smaller pages that link together to form a coherent whole.

Please, Wikipedians, help come up with a plan to write an article of lasting value. The current version, despite recent smoothings, is still not up to the standard I know we can produce.

Ed Poor, Wednesday, June 12, 2002