Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change

MainParticipantsPopular articlesRecommended sourcesStyle guideGet started
with easy editsTalk

Using Copernicus Programme images in Wikimedia

A chart recently uploaded from Copernicus Programme

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

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

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

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

21 apr 2023: The 2022 European State of the Climate Report.jpg

27 jul 2023: Record_Temperatures_in_the_Mediterranean_Sea_in_July.jpg

I agree, Copernicus has some excellent graphics. Same questions apply to other charts, uploaded earlier by OptimusPrimeBot:

The Mediterranean file shows more than raw satellite data such as city names and country borders. The temperature anomalies require comparison against a standard value. The 3 small charts at the bottom are charted data. Uwappa (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion moved to the Commons Village pump for copyright. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at the Village Pump fizzled out, being archived without a definite conclusion. The narrow issue is whether Copernicus graphics that require creative originality fall within Copernicus' generally broad permission. The language of their permission is ambiguous. (Satellite photos, which are most of what are uploaded to Wikimedia, aren't at issue.) —RCraig09 (talk) 16:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I didn't see that discussion since I'm mainly active on German Wikipedia. A few points:

• There is currently a very short survey on the Copernicus Climate Change Service. I put in that I want a clear indication of the image licence when clicking on dowload like on the Image of the Day site with the satellite observations. Feel free to do the same.
• Here it says: "Is Copernicus data and information free of charge? Yes. Considered as a public good, Earth observation data delivered by the Sentinel satellites, and the data and information delivered by the 6 Copernicus services are available to users on a free, full, and open basis. [...]" - the Climate Change Service is one of the 6 services.
• there is also Copyright and licences where I don't see commercial use prohibited. The required acknowledgements can be made. Any issues?
• one could also just use the data like The Guardian
• yes, the {{Attribution-Copernicus}} template on commons only talks about images derived from Sentinel satellite data, which doesn't fit these images - should be modified?

Lupe (talk) 10:53, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Lupe. I was not worried about data, or simple charting of data (both are clearly licensed). Copernicus' attitude seems lenient. However, I was concerned with downloading Copernicus charts that required "originality". Apparently, no one has found a clear licensing for free use of Copernicus charts that required "originality". —RCraig09 (talk) 22:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I uploaded another image from here (Image of the Day). It says "The imagery, data and information produced by the Copernicus programme of the European Union is made available on a full, free and open basis to businesses, scientists and citizens." Lupe (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Global Tipping Points Report 2023

https://global-tipping-points.org/

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

Article on Climate change in Asia is needed urgently

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

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

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

However, Asia is the continent which accounts for the majority of human population, so its article is clearly needed before all the others. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:40, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. (but I couldn't motivate myself to set it up at the moment). Those "climate change in country X or in region X or in continent X articles" are good and useful but strangely, they tend to linger at low pageviews. They are good articles for students to sink their teeth in, I think. This has been done e.g. as part of this work by Swedish professor Olle Terenius: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/users/Olle%20Terenius%20(UU) . See e.g. here: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Ecology_and_genetics_Uppsala_University/Ecological_effects_and_Climate_change_(Spring_2023)/articles/edited? . The work of his students has often been rather good, I find. Usually much better than what has come out of many U.S. university course assignments. Some of that content at Climate change in Antarctica came from his students.

About two years ago, I pushed for a standard structure for these articles to make it easier for everyone to set them up and to read them. This standard structure is available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Style_guide#Outline_for_articles_about_specific_countries_or_geographies . EMsmile (talk) 10:43, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

It's a good structure, and at first glance, I do not really see anything I would disagree with or add to. I also agree that the improvements to regional articles appear to be fairly good. I wish there were a lot more images there, and I doubt it would be that difficult to find them. However, with their (currently) limited views, that doesn't seem to be a particularly reasonable undertaking for most of us, for now. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Article on habitat destruction has a section on climate change

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

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

It might be worth highlighting climate soultions and maladaptation: i.e. humans change the environment to adapt to climate change, but leads to extensive habitat destruction, because they misunderstand the effects they are having. Examples, include things like bad coastal management or the recent consideration of daming another river in order to deal with drought effects on the panama canal. Sadads (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

That's a good point, thanks. By the way a better wikilink for maladaptation is this one: Climate change adaptation#Maladaptation. I could maybe repeat some content from there at the habitat destruction article or find other examples plus sources, avoiding writing about WP:OR. EMsmile (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Recent paper relying on WikiProject Climate Change data

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

Good article reassessment for Invasive species

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

Problem with very strange peer-reviewed article about Greenhouse gases saturation

In the past few days a very strange article [[1]] was published in the peer-reviewed journal "Applications in Engineering Science" (Elsevier), which was immediately used by some deniers in the czwiki. What to do with it?? Have we to wait until some scientific critiques will appear?

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

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

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

There are different kinds of peer-reviewed journals. While this one is part of the generally respected (for academic rigour, if not for their business model) Elsevier family, it has a CiteScore of 2.1, which means that it is extremely minor and obscure. Genuinely compelling findings would have been published in a much more prominent journal. That's not even to mention that instrumental observations are only one line of evidence, and paleoclimate reconstructions which can only be explained by greenhouse effect are another, which this article does nothing to address.

Considering the strength and extent of the scientific consensus on climate change (does Czech wiki have a version of that article yet?), there is no need to pay attention to it. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:13, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Pageviews for AMOC spiking and generally going up

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

Requested move at Talk:Rewilding (conservation biology)#Requested move 4 March 2024

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

Adding Topical table to Scholarly Journals and News Report:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Recommended_sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers, all!

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

Hi Annette, and welcome back. Could you please put the content you'd like us to see on a site that doesn't require registration? Needing to register for a new website is a barrier to participation for me and probably others. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:45, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure. Will do that. It's a big table though. AnnetteCSteps (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Loupgrru for providing a link to the table in a more open website: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uvSHdygLfC6X-c6KeRy02suRtfoyUSH5LkrHCD5FLEI/edit . I did some spot-checks. Many of these sources are great, however some do not meet even the minimum wp:RS requirements. E.g. this is a self-published source from someone who is not a recognized expert. Other relevant considerations for some of the entries are at WP:MDPI and WP:FORBESCON. Pressure groups such as the Rainforest Action Network are sometimes OK but usually not considered top-quality. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about that, @Clayoquot. I thought I’d weeded all of those out in what I shared on that Google sheet. We include references on AirTable that don’t necessarily meet Wikipedia’s standards, and I thought I had set up what I shared to avoid those. Loupgrru (talk) 15:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I was pretty sure we had also designated the Rainforest Action Network as not suitable. We will take that one out and review again for that issue. For the new standards, I must say, there are a lot of standards/guidance out there about the basic primary v. secondary guidance, but I hadn't heard of this one - this looks so very helpful Wikipedia:FORBESCON. Your materials are great but obviously there arise questions. Good to know about the other resources.

One of the things we had hoped for, as newcomers when we first joined, was to work with WP editors to build this database. But with the loss of one of contractors, we lost the time to really maximize relationships with experienced editors and build and learn. We hope to in the future. In the meantime, we've gotten that contractor back, so now we have two eyes on the resources, which is always a good thing.

Thank you @Clayoquot! AnnetteCSteps (talk) 01:18, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, fyi, Mark and I just met, and the broader information had been sent, versus the Recommended articles. We're still going to have the returned contractor look over the materials. AnnetteCSteps (talk) 17:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, I apologize. I misunderstood one of the columns in AirTable, thinking it indicated a reference that met Wikipedia standards. It was not. I also chose some of those references when I was still fairly new to Wikipedia reference standards, and included some references that were not high quality. I’ve removed them, but we’re still double-checking it. I’ve temporarily removed access to that Google sheet while Shoshana (I don’t know her Wikipedia username) and I work on it. I’m sorry for the delay. Loupgrru (talk) 08:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

A section on "threats" for each plant and animal article?

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

Added new section on "climate hazard" to hazard

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

Land use change articles

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

Please correct permafrost "melt" in 2 schematics

Please remember the correct terminology is "permafrost thawing", not "permafrost melting". This was pointed out by User:InformationToKnowledge on a few of the talk pages (see e.g. here). I now noticed the wrong terminology in two schematics that we use in several articles. Can someone please change it. This schematic and this one. Can someone please correct that; I don't know how to edit those schematics. EMsmile (talk) 23:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done and  Done. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you! EMsmile (talk) 08:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Help needed with direction of climate change scenario article

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

Dealing with the tropical regions article?

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

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

Hmm, I am not sure. The article can be improved. I like the simplicity of the title, not much knowledge required to understand what that is about, so a good entry point. An even simpler title could be: "Climate change in the tropics". Other articles at the same level could be:

• Climate change in temperate regions
• Climate change in polar regions, linking to Climate_change_in_the_Arctic and Climate_change_in_Antarctica

I think such articles can be short and sweet, pointing to main articles for details per region.

An other idea: convert it to just a category. Uwappa (talk) 10:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

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

Merge cloud forcing into cloud feedback?

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

Thanks for the pointer. Please avoid linking the word here, as it's bad for accessibility. You can easily link the words "the discussion". —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:54, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

in which sense bad for accessibility? Because "here" is shorter than "the discussion"? Just trying to understand what you mean. EMsmile (talk) 22:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Because 'here' does not explain the target of the link. See Nielsen's tip 35 at https://www.nngroup.com/articles/113-design-guidelines-homepage-usability/#toc-links-4

Alternative: I am proposing to merge cloud forcing into cloud feedback, please contribute to the discussion.

Uwappa (talk) 07:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I wasn't aware of that. Much appreciated. EMsmile (talk) 08:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I've carried out the merger now. EMsmile (talk) 07:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Do we really need the article Deforestation and climate change?

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

2024 GHG reports now out

I see from the chart in https://unfccc.int/biennial-transparency-reports they are still called national inventory reports. There is not yet any link to 2024 from https://unfccc.int/ghg-inventories-annex-i-parties/2023 but I would have thought some countries would have submitted them by now as the deadline is the 15th.

Of course I tried googling and simply overtyping 2023 with 2024 in the url but presumably UNFCCC have changed “ghg-inventories-annex-i-parties” to something else now “annex 1” is becoming irrelevant. Any idea where they are? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm maybe nobody has handed in their homework yet as I can only see old ones at https://unfccc.int/reports?f%5B0%5D=document_type%3A2040 Chidgk1 (talk) 10:14, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Or perhaps they will be put at https://unfccc.int/reports?f%5B0%5D=document_type%3A3517 but I cannot see how to filter or sort on GHG year. Have messaged UNFCCC but don’t expect any response as they never replied to a question I asked years ago Chidgk1 (talk) 10:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Some of them are at

https://unfccc.int/reports?f%5B0%5D=document_type%3A3517 and others at

https://unfccc.int/reports?f%5B0%5D=document_type%3A4590 Chidgk1 (talk) 17:22, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

There is now a page at https://unfccc.int/ghg-inventories-annex-i-parties/2024

I see four countries have handed in their homework on time - well done Australia, Japan, Switzerland and USA Chidgk1 (talk) 18:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Do we need an article on global greening?

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

Global greening is interesting because part of it is due to CC (counter-intuitive perhaps, as we often talk about droughts from CC). And it also does help a bit with mitigation. But it's not necessarily good for biodiversity. EMsmile (talk) 10:24, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

See here where User:InformationToKnowledge has already put some sources together which explain the varied effects of climate change on greening vs. desertification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Effects_of_climate_change_on_agriculture#Effects_of_desertification Could be used to enrich either a new or an existing article that explains global greening and the role of CC. EMsmile (talk) 12:49, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

It should be covered, but I don't know yet if it should necessarily be covered in a separate article. In general, we should try to have fewer, stronger, higher-view articles rather having a low-view stubs for every single term/phenomenon. In that regard, a sub-section in an article like carbon sink might work better - since global greening is, fundamentally, the main process responsible for the growth of land carbon sink in absolute terms (if not in relative terms), and to my knowledge, there aren't that many references which discuss greening outside of the carbon sink aspect. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 05:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I fully agree fewer, stronger, higher-view articles are better. We could start with having "global greening" in an existing article and create a spin-off article later, if needed. However, the causes for global greening go beyond global warming. Some of it is simply more irrigation projects in agriculture (like irrigation in Saudi Arabia), or afforestation projects (see this article: The Earth is getting greener. Hurray?). So a proportion of the global greening is due to climate change, another proportion isn't. That's why I don't think it would fit within carbon sink. Wondering if it could become part of desert greening but then change the title of desert greening to global greening and expand its scope. EMsmile (talk) 08:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

We'll see. As far as the things this WikiProject should be doing, though, I don't think this ranks anywhere near as high, as, say, creating a proper Climate change in Asia article (you remember this discussion right here, right? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:43, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge discussion on Talk:Environmental impact of cattle

The question is about whether or not it should be merged into Environmental impacts of animal agriculture. The discussion began a little over a month ago, but hasn't had much activity and is currently deadlocked. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I support the merger proposal and have written on the talk page there. EMsmile (talk) 07:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

RFC on Food and Health in Climate change

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

How to clean up the mess around trees and mitigation?

I was doing some work today on reforestation and got a bit stuck on one question: I noticed that several articles have content on tree planting + their role for mitigation. That content in the different articles is messy and often outdated. I wonder if we could centralise that content in just one place mainly (which one?) and then link or use excerpts from other articles to there. Here are the articles that all touch on this (the one with the best CC content first):

1. Carbon sequestration#Forestry - this has probably the most up to date content as it was recently worked on (500 page views per day)
2. Afforestation#Climate change mitigation (400 page views per day)
3. Reforestation#Climate change mitigation (200 page views per day)
4. Tree planting#Role in climate change mitigation (300 page views per day)
5. Tree plantation#Role in climate change mitigation (200 page views per day)
6. Biomass (energy)#Climate impacts - detailed but messy; we once tried to clean up this mess but the process got stuck...

In terms of pageviews they are all fairly similar with around 200-400 pageviews per day. (300 page views per day)

As a related issue, these three forestry articles should probably each also have a section on climate change but don't have one yet (this could perhaps be addressed with an excerpt):

• Forestry
• Forest management
• Sustainable forest management - mentions climate change in several places but has no dedicated section for it.

EMsmile (talk) 16:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

As usual I think excerpts should be used. I don’t mind which article but if you can reach a decision on that ping me as I hope to be able to do a bit on this next month. Not an expert but the subject is quite interesting for me. Having said that I might end up writing something like ‘mitigation varies so much by location that you should read the national forestry articles’. I looked into this slightly for Forest in Turkey and it seems that one problem here is that, although we have lots of land, with climate change some of the places trees used to grow before the ancients cut them down will be too dry to reforest. But your country may have a completely different obstacle. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. That would be great to collaborate on this topic. I am a bit stumped on which article should become the main article for this content, so that we can then excerpt/transcribe from there. What would be your preference, and does anyone else have an opinion? Maybe if we can't decide, we take the one from that group that has the highest pages views? That would be carbon sequestration (500 views per day) followed by afforestation (400). Maybe tree planting and tree plantation are less suitable as trees get planted for various reasons, not just for climate change mitigation. EMsmile (talk) 09:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Carbon sequestration is fine by me. Am busy this week but may have time to ponder and compare next week. Unless anyone else has other ideas we can continue the discussion on the talk page of the carbon sequestration article. Chidgk1 (talk) 12:09, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I would want to begin by merging the articles which appear to be the most duplicative. So, Sustainable forest management + Afforestation + Proforestation (another relatively small, overlapping article you have not mentioned) would all be merged into Forest management, which should be a top-level article (or at least second-highest level, after Forest), but is currently smaller than all of the above, at a mere 745 words.

Tree planting can probably merged somewhere as well - most of country-level content definitely seems to be more about forest management, for one thing. The parts of that article which are explicitly about planting new trees for carbon/aesthetic/soil management reasons could be merged into a subsection elsewhere? Alternatives include Carbon sequestration, Forestry, or even silviculture (an extremely technical article that seems to have notable overlap with tree plantation?)

In all, it seems like there is a lot which can end up merged or condensed if we really think about it. Once we are sure that we no longer have any forestry-related articles we don't need, it would be obvious which of the remaining pages would be the best place for this material. For now, merging those other articles into forest management seems like the most obvious path, and the rest can be figured out later. The only thing which might be even easier to do is merging Silvology to Forestry, since it appears they are either exactly the same, or at most one is a subsection of the other? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, those are good points! For now, I have left posts on the talk pages of forest management and WikiProject Forestry in an attempt to pull the forestry people into this discussion (that project is semi-active though). I have thought about it in the past whether afforestation and reforestation should be merged (even though they are not the same thing). In both articles, the country examples sections overlap a lot because it's often not a clear cut thing whether the planting of new trees is classified as afforestation or reforestation. (but if they were merged, then under which new article title? Or merge afforestation into reforestation as just a sub-heading).

This could blow out into quite a big sub-project. So it would be great if we could get forestry people interested in this... As forests (new and old ones) are so important for climate change mitigation, this should also be of interest to members of WikiProject Climate Change. EMsmile (talk) 09:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I have made a start by merging Silvology to Forestry Chidgk1 (talk) 06:21, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Please comment at Talk:Forest management#Merge proposal Chidgk1 (talk) 06:43, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Even more forestry articles are coming out of the woodwork. For example Outline of forestry includes Analog forestry and Ecoforestry - should more articles in that outline be merged and if so where? Chidgk1 (talk) 08:32, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Reverted edits: Cloud seeding UAE

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

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

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

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

Climate change in country X redirects

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

Added climate change content to water cycle

I had noticed a while ago that the climate change content for the high level article on water cycle was very weak or non existent. So then I added a section to the main text, waited a while for reactions and then just the other day also added it to the lead as a new paragraph at the end. Anyone interested in CC and the water cycle please take a look and help me improve it further. Interestingly, the pagewviews for the water cycle article are not as high as I would have thought. They have been dropping over the years and are now at around 1000 pageviews per day. The article is not great (that's probably one of the reasons for the low-ish pageviews), and a google search gives loads of other websites explaining what the water cycle is.

In any case, I think it's important and strategic for us if the water cycle article makes it very clear how climate change is changing the water cycle and making it more intense. Of course we also have effects of climate change on the water cycle which will hopefully grow and mature over time as well. EMsmile (talk) 10:25, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't know where (or when) I might do anything with that article and for now, this is a good start! I guess I should also note that ~1000 daily pageviews isn't really "low" as far as our topic goes, unfortunately: that makes it #84 in March stats for the WikiProject, for one thing. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 21:04, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Black carbon needs all the clean-up it can get

This is a reasonably important contributor to climate change (and to general air pollution) and its article receives ~100 daily pageviews. Yet, whole paragraphs are unreferenced, there is a large table cited to 2000s research which is bound to be obsolete by now, and there are a lot of other, fairly basic structural issues which I would hope many of us can fix. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2024 (UTC)