Talk:Climate variability and change/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

→

Archive 9

Copenhagen Climate Conference

How much significance do you place on the scientists' statement from the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference here and do you think a link to it should be added to the Climate Change article ? There's some editorial discussion on the Talk:Sustainability page about its relevance / importance, so I thought I'd ask the experts.--Travelplanner (talk) 09:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Currently this information has been added in the History section of the Sustainability article concerning this recent development...

Environmental scientists (Copenhagen climate change summit 2009 Climate change report) Copenhagen Climate Council, issue a strongly worded statement:

"The climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/13/stern-attacks-politicians-climate-change -- http://climatecongress.ku.dk/newsroom/congress_key_messages/ End -- skip sievert (talk) 16:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

If it belongs anywhere, it would be nearer global warming than here. But I'm not sure anything new came out - it looks more like PR than science William M. Connolley (talk) 20:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

PR...? I assume you are not kidding? More than 2,500 climate experts from 80 countries at an emergency summit in Copenhagen said there is now "no excuse" for failing to act on global warming. A failure to agree strong carbon reduction targets at political negotiations this year could bring "abrupt or irreversible" shifts in climate that "will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/13/stern-attacks-politicians-climate-change -- skip sievert (talk) 21:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Solar Variations

Why is this condemned to an "other" factor when it is patently the most important? --81.99.118.248 (talk) 04:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent point, since solar heating is the primary, almost exclusively in fact, source of heat input to the earth's climate. Volcanic heat sources are trivial by comparison. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.141.93 (talk)

:Because while the overall input is large, the variations are small. Awickert (talk) 00:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Recent solar variations are small. Faint young Sun paradox. -Atmoz (talk) 00:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I keep putting my foot in my mouth, huh. In any case, it doesn't seem like just an "other" factor in the article, though it probably should go to the top of that section.

Actually, taking a closer look, maybe that section should be split up. It seems to have real forcings (solar, volcanic, tectonics, orbital) combined with things like glaciers, which seem more like effects, and hysteresis, which is more like an observation of how. Awickert (talk) 01:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been bold and made some changes. Revert and discuss as needed. -Atmoz (talk) 01:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the new order. I'm taking the night off, but I'll check it more carefully soon. Awickert (talk) 02:02, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Translation please

Perhaps I'm being dense, but I can't figure out what this sentence means:

Climate change reflects abnormal variations to the expected climate within the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the Earth, such as in the ice caps over durations ranging from decades to millions of years.

The best I can tell it's trying to say that climate change happens on long timescales. Am I missing something? -Atmoz (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Torrent file about climate change

Here is a torrent file about climate change.

• CBC - The Nature of Things - Climate Change - An Uncertain Future ... -- Wavelength (talk) 04:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is another one.

• Apocalypse Cancelled - An Inconvenient Truth - Global Warming.pdf ... -- Wavelength (talk) 04:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes

I reinserted a section about pre-industrial climate change which was killed as collateral damage by Atmoz, who was sensibly hacking some duplicate global warming content. The re-insert is not available elsewhere, so I think it needs to go in. I've also created a very small feedback section to replace what's been hacked out. I think you need to at least mention feedbacks, and I kept it short. I reverted his revert of me, cos I think it was a bit gung ho. Andrewjlockley (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Undid - the order is talk, then decide, then act. Awickert (talk) 21:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

This article is about past climate change and changing climate in general, not the present climate change (aka global warming). Ruddiman and the early anthropocene stuff should be in anthropocene. -Atmoz (talk) 21:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that climate change is a fair place for some stuff on this. it's global warming that needs a sep art. I think we need a section on anthropocene in this article, with a link to a 'main'. Andrewjlockley (talk) 23:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Added anthropocene to the see also section. "Historical impacts of climate change" at the end looks stubby; perhaps that could be tweaked once the dust settles, and turned into a short lead-in to a more full-blown article on climate and civilization, with a see-also to anthropocene. Awickert (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That;s an effect of the Anthropocene (possibly). I really feel that the pre-industrial human climate change needs further consideration in this article. Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

OK - expand the bottom section and perhaps it will spin off someday. I'll start. Awickert (talk) 20:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Imho, the article Historical impacts of climate change, which AJL created should be expanded first, and then turned into a summary here. And the impacts shouldn't only be negative (ie. collapse of civ's) but include also the flourishing and decline of civs. Currently it reads as if climate change => catastrophy, which is a possibility but not a neccessity. Btw. Danish is certainly wrong, since the Vikings who settled Greenland came from Iceland. Norse cwould be correct, but Vikings is more accurate. (i'm correcting) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Adding {{main|Historical impact of climate change}} to the section is not acceptable. That article contains no content that isn't here. I hope that will change (hopefully with a more diverse description of historical impacts (see above)) - but currently the link is more an argument for a redirect from HioCC to this section, than anything else... --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Kim - good to have a real-life Dane. I'll start looking at Historical impacts of climate change. In addition, there are a couple good articles I've seen about benefits. One is about a period of sea-level fall a slowdown in the rate of sea-level rise beginning c. 6 ka, correlated with delta progradation (therefore fertile farmland creation) at the same time as an expansion in old-world agriculture, and the other is about the origin and evolution of humans and the uplift of the East African Rift area.

Anyone else think we should cut the blurb here and paste it in the historical impacts article, and then return it in a more fully fleshed-out and representative way later? Awickert (talk) 01:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm being bold and doing the cut-paste. Awickert (talk) 01:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Human Effects on Global Warming

I have spent a couple of months reading about the technical details surrounding the factors that to contribute to global warming. To date this article addresses most of the ones I have identified. The two areas that do not appear anywhere are:

The amount of heat (BTU s) that humans release into the environment. There are several sources: 1) fossil fuel (petrolium, natural gas, coal, peet, etc)oxidation 2) nuclear power plant (binding energy of the nucleus) release of heat and vapor into the environment 3) Industrial chemical reactions that are exothermic

The amount of methane and water vapor (also greenhouse gases) the activities of humans and agriculture generate.

It would be nice to see these added to the "Human Effects" Section

http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/05/global-warming-is-not-from-waste-heat.html. You meant to ask this at Talk:Global warming William M. Connolley (talk) 22:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Globally, true of course; but the other day I read this article[1] which suggests waste heat could be significant over fairly large areas such as Japan (2.1 W/m2) or western Europe (4.2 W/m2 in the Netherlands). Would be a neat thing to model. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Economic opinion on climate change

It looks like this article was created back in Feb., but has received very little attention since. I did a spot of cleaning, but I thought I might bring it to the attention of editors here, since it seems to be falling short of the usual standard for climate change articles. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Error in Article Heading

The header states "For current global climate change, see Global warming." However, this is utter nonsense, the current trend is global cooling. Every respectable scientific report on temperature shows that the recent peak in global warming reached a maximum in 1998, and we are currently experiencing a cooling trend.

http://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/rss240slope0901.jpg

How is this even tolerated in an "Encyclopedia" ?

--Muhammad Suleiman (talk) 05:50, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

It's tolerated because you're wrong on all counts. Raul654 (talk) 16:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Well... that graph actually shows that the 240 month trend is positive... must be that darned negative temperature. -Atmoz (talk) 16:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Negative slope correlated with temperature... guess you have to be as smart as James "the hack" Hansen to figure that out.

http://righttruth.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c49a69e201053665b6f1970c-800wi

How does it feel knowing that you are helping to destroy the economy?? meanwhile the earth will continue changing its climate just as it has done for 4.5 billion years, with or without less than 1/2 degree celsius changes "caused by humans".... thanks guys --Muhammad Suleiman (talk) 16:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Please comment on the article, not contributors. Raul's link indicates why the graph you linked is suspect: first, starting in any year but 1998 creates a warming trend, and second ten years is not long enough to assess a climate trend. Hope this helps, --TeaDrinker (talk) 18:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

1988 to 1998 was long enough to decree a warming trend, sooo why isn't 1998 to 2008 long enough to decree a cooling trend ?? If you don't have the science to predict global climate on a decadal time line (any decade warming or cooling or both) you don't have the answer to what is really driving climate change !!

76.70.211.184 (talk) 03:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC) Sun Spot

Mu. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 03:59, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

redirection from GLOBAL CHANGE

Searching for "Global Change" I was redirected to "Climate Change", which is not the same. Climate change is (acc. to University of Cologne, Dept. of Geophysics and Meteorology, http://www.uni-koeln.de/globaler-wandel/) only one of the main aspects of global change. The others are (acc. to dito) changes in land use and land coverage, loss of species and changes in the atmospheric composition. Global Change refers to the large-scale environmental changes resulting from human impact during the (ongoing) process of the agricultural and industrial revolution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.76.178.218 (talk) 10:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This often happens when nobody has written the appropriate article yet; would you like to? Awickert (talk) 18:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I changed the redirect to a stub as per my talk, and using a definition from PBS. Awickert (talk) 16:53, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Friendly Notice

Please retain this notice for at least 2 weeks to allow interested parties time to see it. I feel that editors who are interested in Global Warming or Climate Change related articles may also be interested in participating in the following RfC: RfC: How should this page be disambiguated? --GoRight (talk) 05:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

External link

{{editsemiprotected}}Climate Science Research at EcoWorld

That link is really more appropriate for Global warming, why don't you try it over there?. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 00:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Reference to Frank Luntz on term 'climate change' for political reasons needed

There really ought to be a reference to Frank Luntz since he invented the term to soften the Bush administrations public policy on Global Warming [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.205.71 (talk) 19:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Climate Change Vulnerability Index

Is the Climate Change Vulnerability Index at [3] worthy of inclusion? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:52, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Solar stuff

The 11-year sunspot cycle produces only a small change in temperature near Earth's surface (on the order of a tenth of a degree) but has a greater influence in the atmosphere's upper layers.[12] This sounds dodgy to me. Its not in the abstract. Is it in the body? If true, it should be off in SV too William M. Connolley (talk) 21:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's in the body. I quote some stuff here - want a copy of the article? It is probably better if I just send you a copy of the article. The relevant portions of the conclusions are:

Throughout the low latitudes (30°S–30°N) the stratosphere (16–55 km) warms in response to the 11-yr solar cycle in the ERA-40 data (Fig. 2 ). A large region of highly statistically significant positive response is found over the equator between about 35–50 km, peaking at about 43 km with an amplitude of 1.75 K. This warming is present in all seasons and is therefore likely to be a direct radiative response to solar irradiance and UV absorption by ozone in this region during solar maxima.

[2 paragraphs down] A negative temperature response to the solar cycle is found at high latitudes of both hemispheres. ... The anomalous meridional temperature gradient gives rise to a strong solar-induced zonal wind response in the upper stratosphere/lower mesosphere of both hemispheres (Fig. 3 ). These midlatitude features are predominantly a wintertime phenomenon associated with the strength of the polar night jet (Fig. 4 ). They are therefore likely to be due to indirect (dynamical) effects. Analysis of monthly responses suggests that it is the timing of the stratospheric winter warmings that is influenced by increases in solar cycle activity (Gray et al. 2004).

I will change "upper layers" to stratosphere for the moment. Awickert (talk) 17:30, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Climate Change News

I have been reading some useful climate change weekly news on http://www.climatechangebusiness.com/climate_change_news

Is the Climate Change News link worthy of inclusion?

Its a decent link on the subject.

Best

Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zapytania (talk • contribs) 05:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Dead Link

There's a dead link under the 'See also' section. 'Cretaceous Thermal Maximum'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mass09 (talk • contribs) 09:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Removed, thanks. You should soon be able to edit semi-protected pages yourself. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Support for population control

Many climate change experts have recommended population control policies as an answer to the challenges of environmental fluctuations. This is somewhat controversial however, since population control often amounts to agressive anti-fertility programs like China's one-child policy. These matters should perhaps be mentioned somewhere in the article. I also noticed that the topic was very briefly discussed in the article entitled mitigation of global warming. [4][5][6] ADM (talk) 00:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If population control is recommended by "many" scientists it should indeed be mentioned on this page. If it is only a small portion of climate change discourse, and I suspect that that is the case, it is correct to only mention it in the sibling article of Mitigation of global warming. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Allegations of Junk Science

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/24/hiding-evidence-of-global-cooling/ We all know how wikipedia loves the term "Allegations" (most notably, under any topic that is not pro-socialist). If it turns out that climate change is rooted in junk science, what a stain of embarrassment on Wikipedia! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.97.239 (talk) 16:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)