Talk:Effects of climate change

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DYK?[edit]

Well done on the GA. So as @Femke is hopefully enjoying time with her family maybe @EMsmile or I should put it in for DYK as if I remember right there is a seven day time limit Chidgk1 (talk) 09:39, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At least as a placeholder until Femke returns - don’t know if she wants to put DYK in ASAP or wait as long as COP28 in November Chidgk1 (talk) 09:43, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, please go ahead to not miss the 7 day deadline (?). And do you have the energy to tackle climate change mitigation or climate change adaptation for the GA process next? :-) EMsmile (talk) 09:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry can’t commit to another GA as hoping Agriculture in Turkey will be reviewed shortly and expecting reviewer to be very thorough Chidgk1 (talk) 10:51, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:43, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Improved to Good Article status by Femke (talk). Nominated by Chidgk1 (talk) at 11:11, 16 May 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Effects of climate change; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes
  • Interesting: No - better hook needed.

QPQ: No - Not done
Overall: @Chidgk1: Good article. Though, I think a better hook would be needed since people have told constantly for like, the past decade, that we can stop some effects of climate change. Maybe you could make a hook on a relatively unknown but dangerous effect. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC) @Onegreatjoke:[reply]

I am not sure which of the facts that are provided in the article this relates to? Maybe with respect to marine heatwaves killing off corals and thus reducing fish stocks and biodiversity? If we made this more precise it could work? EMsmile (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • ALT1: ... that the entire ocean's pH value is now dropping and all marine life affected because of climate change? (I agree with Onegreatjoke that we should pick a lesser known and surprising and serious fact about the effects of climate change). EMsmile (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

** ALT2: ... that people over the age of 65 are at higher risk of dying during summer heatwaves in cities due to climate change? (this option and the two below are related to the sub-article effects of climate change on human health which is summarised in effects of climate change. EMsmile (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

removing this one that I had proposed as it's too specific, would be a good hook for effects of climate change on human healthEMsmile (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • ALT3: ... that people who work outdoors, for example in agriculture, are increasingly at risk of heat exposure and heat illnesses in summer due to climate change? EMsmile (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
removing this one that I had proposed as it's too specific, would be a good hook for effects of climate change on human healthEMsmile (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

** ALT4: ... that people who work outdoors, for example in agriculture, have lower work productivity due to climate change? EMsmile (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

removing this one that I had proposed as it's too specific, would be a good hook for effects of climate change on human healthEMsmile (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • ALT5: ... that all oceans are getting warmer and their pH value is dropping (which has consequences for all marine life and global ocean currents) because of climate change? EMsmile (talk) 07:38, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Support ALT5.
I think there should be far more DYKs with brief facts from Effects of climate change. Could you please submit and add more?
That would make the DYKs actually somewhat educational, informative, interesting. I nearly never read them because whenever I do they are typically absolutely irrelevant, insignificant, overly detailed facts about arbitrary things where I just don't understand why anybody would decide on putting that there instead of something meaningful that either matters or that at least some two-digit percentage of readers may be interested in.
For other DYKs I suggest info on food system impacts (not specific but very broadly) and info similar to "regions inhabited by a large share of the human population could become as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years without a change in patterns of population growth and without migration".--Prototyperspective (talk) 23:31, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Prototyperspective: @Onegreatjoke: Which one of you is the reviewer please? If Prototyperspective I understand you need to put the green tick on the hook and also the green tick to approve to go to the next stage. If Onegreatjoke do you approve any of the hooks? Chidgk1 (talk) 12:31, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't checked them all, but the ones of EMsmile's I did check are unsupported or only partially supported by the article. They also do not mention the full article title.. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:56, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alt 2 and 4 are about effects of climate change on human health (which is part of the article; the hooks could be modified accordingly if you think they are not "exactly" included in the article; the article does say "reduced labour capacity for outdoor workers"). Alt 1 and 5 are about ocean acidification as well as effects of climate change on oceans which is in the article and fully supported. For example it says in the article "Ocean acidification has a range of potentially harmful effects for marine organisms" and "Among the effects of climate change on oceans are an increase of ocean temperatures, more frequent marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, etc.", and " The ocean absorbs some of the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and this causes the pH value of the ocean to drop.". So in which sense is it "unsupported or only partially supported by the article"? - But either way, I am not emotionally connected to any of my suggestions; I just wanted to try and be helpful and move the discussion along. I am happy for others to take the lead on this and find better hooks. EMsmile (talk) 09:10, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strike secondary criticism, as piping is often discouraged, but exceptions are allowed. ALT1 is partially supported because the article does not say "entire" and "all", ALT2 is completely unsupported, ALT3 is completely unsupported, ALT4 is an example of misuse of jargon (labour productivity has a specific meaning, whereas capacity is a more broad term), ALT5 same as the first one, using the word all twice is unsupported by the article..
User:EMsmile: can you strike those you agree do not comply with the rules to make life easier for the promoter? Femke (alt) (talk) 05:42, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Working on some alternatives. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ALT 7 maybe but what is the definition of "more", do you mean the frequency of them? The source that you gave says "It is virtually certain that hot extremes (including heatwaves) have become more frequent and more intense across most land regions". I would say "more frequent and more intense". But overall I don't mind which one is being picked in the end. (do those DYK really achieve much in terms of spikes in pageviews?) EMsmile (talk) 20:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
More has the plain English meaning of more, so yes the frequency. I don't think making the DYK more wordy serves a purpose. In terms of pageviews, see Wikipedia:Did you know/Statistics/Monthly DYK pageview leaders. Femke (alt) (talk) 05:42, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link to the pageviews. I am not sure if I looked at the tables and graphs correctly but if the DYK works well then it should result in a spike of pageviews on the day when it's on the main page, right? Have you observed a marked spike in pageviews with any of the DYK that we have done in the past for climate change topics? Just wondering. EMsmile (talk) 07:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • ALT1 modified: if you don't like "entire" and "all" then we can just drop them and say: ... that the ocean's pH value is now dropping and marine life is affected because of climate change?
Some of the hooks look decent enough at this point. Onegreatjoke (talk) 22:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:Onegreatjoke, could you specify which hooks? Thanks :). Femke (alt) (talk) 05:56, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is this still happening? Just wondering. EMsmile (talk) 16:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Onegreatjoke: @Prototyperspective: Which one of you is reviewer please? I will be available tomorrow but after that hope to be travelling for at least a month so will only log in very occassionally. Any chance we could get it finished tomorrow? Chidgk1 (talk) 18:39, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Chidgk1, yes the "all" is a problem that I noticed as well, it's probably not wrong due to highly indirect effects but it's better to leave that out.
Please submit dozens of additional DYKs for info in "Effects of climate change" or any of its subarticles afterwards including one roughly like the one I proposed above. There's so much important info that can be communicated in very brief DYK blurbs and currently the DYKs largely consist of completely irrelevant noninteresting content. I think the ALTs per nomination should only be about the same topic, such as marine effects or any specific section of an Effects article.--Prototyperspective (talk) 14:48, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Prototyperspective: Thanks for suggesting a good hook. Are you the reviewer? If not you need to formally propose your hook by putting it in the same format as the others. That would be rather fiddly for me to to do as I am writing this on a small phone and only have internet occassionally. Then @Onegreatjoke: can approve it. Chidgk1 (talk) 12:56, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Prototyperspective: @Onegreatjoke: Please could you let me know who is the reviewer because this is getting too confusing. If neither of you tells me in the next couple of days I will ask for a new reviewer. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:18, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I approve hooks alt6b, alt7 and alt1 modified as i am supposed to be the original reviewer. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have my doubts about statement about ENSO[edit]

I've removed this recently added sentence with the following justification: "I find this source too weak for such a strong statement. Moving to talk page for discussion. Might be better off at the ENSO article". Also, would our readers understand the relevance of this? If not, can we explain how this is important with respect to the effects of climate change on people's lives or ecosystems? What do others think about it?: Climate change affects not only specific events but also the multi-year El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Strong El Niño events become 2 times more common and strong La Niña events 9 times more common due to climate change. If the climate will continue to change the impacts will also continue to increase.[1] EMsmile (talk) 19:42, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Logan, Tyne (18 May 2023). "El Niño and La Niña have become more extreme and frequent because of climate change, study finds". ABC. Retrieved 19 May 2023.

EMsmile (talk) 19:42, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreement to convert to long ref style?[edit]

Do we have agreement to make this article consistently into using the long ref style? I had done some of that work in the past but stopped short of some remaining refs (see under "sources") because I thought those older IPCC reports will probably be replaced with the newer AR 6 report anyhow? Thus it would save us time for doing the ref conversions. I noticed it again today because I transcribed part of the lead to effects of climate change on human health and this gave me problems as there were some "short ref style" refs in the lead. (I don't have time at the moment to change them all into long refs myself) EMsmile (talk) 12:29, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t know what you mean by ‘long ref style’. I always prefer using ‘automatic’ on the Visual Editor cite. It works reasonably for most stuff except pdfs where I generally cite the webpage above the pdf or use ‘manual’ on the Visual Editor.
The advantage of this is that it should be easier for new editors in future I think Chidgk1 (talk) 13:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As long as we're not putting all authors and editors of big papers/reports in, I'm happy. Super long refs make the wikitext difficult to handle. In general, it's not necessary to ask to make refs conform to majority style. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Chidgk1: The short ref style is the one used by climate change, and the long ref style is used by most of the other smaller sub-articles in our climate change topic group of articles. You can tell if an article uses short ref style when there is a section called "sources" that is below the section called "references". An article with a long ref style doesn't require that section called "sources". See also further explanation here: WP:SFN. And also here for a previous discussion that I had with Femke.
@Femke: Thanks. Would you say that for a GA article, the ref style should be consistent, or is having this current mixture still OK? For me personally, at least the lead should consistently use the long ref style so that there are no issues with transcribing the lead. Some editors prefer to have a mixture of styles (due to the page number issue) which is was I learnt at carbon accounting, see here. I would have preferred consistency but can also live with a mixture, provide the lead is consistent. Noted about the long author listing, and agree with you. Will shorten it now for this publication at effects of climate change on human health... EMsmile (talk) 11:00, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The GA criteria do not require consistent formatting fortunately, the main reason the GA process is superior to FA :). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining. As far as I know the Visual Editor cannot automatically generate short ref style, therefore I don’t prefer that style. But not worth the bother of changing over - the “sources” will probably get outdated and naturally deleted over time. Also it is slightly annoying that the Visual Editor cannot reuse a cite with a different page number. Chidgk1 (talk) 16:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I get around to it, I'll convert the remaining ones to long ref style as I would prefer consistency (but good to know it's not mandatory for GA). But I agree with Chidgk1 that several of those refs that are currently in "sources" will probably get dropped as they refer to older IPCC reports. @Chidgk1 for page numbers I recommend using {{rp|6}} for page 6 if you want to cite the same report several times but with different page numbers. EMsmile (talk) 07:44, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've converted a few more of the refs to long ref style, namely those that were to the IPCC SROCC report and the IPCC SR15 report. I did those now today because it's more elegant for the excerpts that I have just added from this article to the cryosphere article. I'd like to also convert the remaining short refs to long refs but I am finding it quite time consuming. I do each one manually one by one, perhaps there is a more automated way of doing this (?). EMsmile (talk) 20:26, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First sentence of the lead[edit]

I find the first sentence of the lead rather weak (it also has a low reading ease score). It currently is: Climate change affects the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies.. I am proposing to change it to The effects of climate change are becoming more and more obvious for the natural environment, ecosystems and human societies. We could also omit "ecosystems" here as this is part of the natural environment, right? I find natural environment clearer than physical environment. Pinging User:Efbrazil as they also like working on leads. The rest of the lead looks alright from a readability point of view. I notice quite a few sentence starting with "they include". I am going to see if I can vary that a bit. EMsmile (talk) 11:11, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think I prefer the existing text. The text you are proposing adds "becoming more and more obvious", which I think breaks neutrality and isn't helpful. The article is already well over the top in terms of being alarming, we don't need to layer more on. Also, I don't like changing "physical environment" to "natural environment", as ecosystems and natural environment have too much overlap. We already wikilink physical environment to natural environment, maybe that should be removed. The point of saying physical environment is that means everything aside from nature (temperatures, ocean acidification, ice, precipitation, etc) and that's how the IPCC breaks it down. Efbrazil (talk) 16:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a suggested rewrite of the first paragraph. Overall word count is essentially unchanged:

Proposal to change the first paragraph of the lead
Current version in live article Proposed version (V3)
Climate change affects the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. Changes in the climate system include an overall warming trend, more extreme weather and rising sea levels. These in turn impact nature and wildlife, as well as human settlements and societies. The effects of human-caused climate change are broad and far-reaching. This is especially so if there is no significant climate action. Experts sometimes describe the projected and observed negative impacts of climate change as a climate crisis.

The effects of climate change happen in Earth's natural environments and human societies. Changes to the climate system include an overall warming trend, changes to precipitation patterns, and more extreme weather. As the climate changes it impacts the natural environment with effects such as more intense forest fires, thawing permafrost, and rising sea levels. These changes can profoundly impact ecosystems and societies, and can become irreversible once tipping points are crossed. While temperatures will stabilize when greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control, changes such as the melting of ice sheets, ocean deoxygenation, and ocean acidification will continue long past that point.

The changes:

  1. First sentence begins "The effects of climate change" as EMsmile suggested, since that's the article topic. Also, first sentence now puts the physical environment first, separate from ecosystems and humans (which are downstream). I think it reads a bit less jargony.
  2. Added "changes to precipitation patterns" as a key physical effect in the second sentence, as that is driving issues like rainforest collapse, desertification, and so on.
  3. Third sentence replaced "human settlements and societies" with "agriculture and settlements", as that's more specific, and agriculture should really be called out as a primary impact point.
  4. Removed sentence saying impacts are broad and far reaching. The sentence is too vague to be useful- I would rather we use the room to state what impacts are rather than engaging in vague alarmism.
  5. Replaced climate action sentence with one that is more specific about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation.
  6. Replaced the sentence on "climate crises", which is just branding, with a sentence on tipping points and effects overwhelming the ability to adapt.

Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 17:51, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great work! Comments for the firs para below:
  1. First sentence: For me the term "physical environment" is still confusing / ill defined (since you mentioned IPCC: I also checked the glossaries of the AR 6 WG I and II reports but they don't include this term in their glossary). Maybe it's because I am not native English speaking. I asked Chat-GPT to explain it to me and it offered this "The "physical environment" refers to the natural surroundings or conditions in a particular area, including elements such as landforms, water bodies, air quality, climate, and other physical factors that make up the natural world." In Wikipedia, "physical environment" redirects to "natural environment" which is explained as "The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. ".
  2. So I would prefer if we could move away from the term "physical environment" as it's not totally clear what this is? Can we say instead "natural environment" and Wikilink to natural environment?
  3. Also regarding the first sentence: "extend from... to" is a bit vague. Perhaps "are visible in " or "are observed for ..."?
  4. Second sentence I would add a "for example" as there will be more.
  5. Third sentence: great.
  6. Fourth sentence digresses a little into climate change mitigation but OK, I can live with this (similar discussion at greenhouse gas...). It does put things into context nicely.
  7. Last sentence: Great idea about mentioning tipping points as this is also in the main text. The wording "can have their ability to adapt overwhelmed" is perhaps elegant but difficult to understand for non-native speakers. I suggest: "If certain tipping points are reached, humans may no longer be able to adapt their societies to climate change." I think ecosystems and biomes don't really "care" and will continue to exist in one way or another. But for humans it could become very uncomfortable compared to now.
  8. By the way, I don't think I agree with your sentiment of "The article is already well over the top in terms of being alarming". Where do you find this article to be too alarming? I think it's rather well balanced and neutral?
  9. For inspiration purposes, I looked at the German Wikipedia article on this topic, and had Google Translate give me the English translation (I speak German but Google Translate is so good). It says there (probably with a low reading ease score): "The consequences of global warming describe numerous changes affecting humanity and the earth due to a worldwide increase in temperature. Global warming is the observed and predicted trend towards a higher global average temperature compared to pre-industrial values, with consequences such as rising sea levels , melting of glaciers , shifting climate zones , vegetation zones and habitats, stronger or more frequent forest fires , changing occurrence of precipitation , stronger or more frequent weather extremes such as floods , storms and droughts , spread of parasites and tropical diseases and more environmental refugees . The predicted and observed negative impacts of climate change are sometimes referred to as a “ climate catastrophe ”."
  10. Wondering if the last sentence was copied from the English version or vice versa. I agree with you that the mention about climate crisis is superfluous. Climate crisis could be mentioned under "See also". EMsmile (talk) 20:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment I prefer the current version. Regarding the proposed version:

  • I agree that "physical environment" is ambiguous. Yes, some scholars use the term to mean "non-living things", but I know of others who disagree. We have to follow the definitions of the respective Wikipedia articles, otherwise our readers won't be able to make sense of it.
  • We really have to mention, in the first or second sentence, that the article is about the current, human-caused climate change, not climate changes in general/in the past.
  • The effects of climate change extend – bit awkward and convoluted wording; the current version is clearer.
  • These changes in turn impact nature and wildlife, as well as agriculture and settlements – I think "societies" should stay in there. "Agriculture" is too specific (many other crucial things, such as water availability, is affected as well).
  • The severity of changes will increase until greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control. – This is not accurate. The severity of at least some of these changes will increase for decades or even much longer after emissions are brought under control – think about sea level rise, which comes with great delay.
  • At certain tipping points ecosystems and human societies can have their ability to adapt overwhelmed. – I don't think this is the point of the tipping points. They refer to tipping points of the climate system – e.g. the desiccation of the Amazon rainforest, which will cause many further, irreversible climate consequences. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, great feedback EMsmile and Jens Lallensack. I rewrote the section above in response (See proposed version V2 at top). In detail, going sentence by sentence:

  1. I think "physical environment" was meant to refer to the AR6 physical science basis report, in other words talking about all the impacts that aren't on living systems (ice sheets, ocean currents, etc). I'm fine cutting that wording though. As for the issue of scoping to human-caused climate change, we decided on the climate change talk page that "climate change" said without context refers to modern, human caused climate change. To help with making the timing issue clear I made sure the phrasing is contemporaneous (eg "are the changes happening"). Hopefully sufficient?
  2. In terms of enumerated effects and the german version, it is fair that we need to go further. Also, sea level rise is not the climate system, which is how things are currently worded. To resolve things I split the sentence in two. First it talks about climate changes, then environmental changes (adding in forest fires and melting ice sheets), and finally impacts on living systems. This helps to define the cascade of issues as the IPCC defines them without bringing in the word "physical environment". Hopefully a good compromise?
  3. I am OK just saying societies and leaving out settlements and agriculture. We have enough going on in this paragraph that I don't think it is necessary to break down parts of society that are impacted. Almost all societies are settled, and whether they are settled or not really doesn't impact their vulnerability to climate change, so "settlements" was really besides the point.
  4. I combined the tipping points issue into the sentence on living systems and slimmed it down, but I would like it mentioned and do think it is relevant here. Certainly the example raised, the collapse of the Amazon, is an ecosystem collapse. Tipping points are strongly linked with ecosystems and human societies, as they refer to the end of viability for life to continue as it has in a place- an ice sheet melting, a low lying area flooding, an area transitioning from agricultural land to desert, etc. I don't want to limit adaptation to people- Nature is resilient and will adapt as well, but it has limits just as people do.
  5. Good point on severity not stopping as emissions are stopped, particularly as it relates to sea level rise. I added that in as a for instance. Temperatures will, on the whole, stop rising however, so I think it is important to call that out so as to not be all gloom and doom here.

Efbrazil (talk) 00:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I generally like proposal V2 a lot, but I still have a couple of important comments to make.
  1. As the climate changes it impacts the natural environment with effects such as more intense forest fires, melting ice sheets, and rising sea levels. - Melting ice sheets and rising sea levels are two sides of the same coin. I would rather phrase this sentence as more intense forest fires, thawing permafrost and rising sea levels.
  1. While temperatures will stabilize when greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control, certain impacts such as sea level rise will continue growing well past that point. - "certain impacts such as" is too vague. Arguably misleading as well, since in general, it is only the cryosphere and the oceans which really have such an enormous inertia, and nearly all the other impacts have a much shorter response time. I would instead suggest While temperatures will stabilize when greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers and the acidification and deoxygenation of the oceans will continue long past that point.
Ideally, I would add something about the rate of those processes still slowing down substantially in that circumstance (outside of scenarios like West Antarctica reaching the instability threshold before the temperatures stabilize, in which case the rate of SLR will remain well above the present), but then the sentence would definitely have to be split in two somehow. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 05:43, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great improvements and suggestions! Just one small thing to add: when running the readability tool over the proposed paragraph, all sentences look good except for this one which is being flagged in red: "These changes impact natural ecosystems and human societies, particularly when tipping points are passed". I doesn't seem overly complicated but still, can we think of ways to make it easier? Maybe: These changes have impacts on ecosystems and societies already but the impacts could be much stronger if certain climate tipping points are reached. (passes as a "yellow sentence" in the readability tool and is also clearer, I think)
If we have "natural environments" in the first sentence (wouldn't singular be better than plural), then we'd wikilink to natural environment, right? I think it's better than "physical environment". I guess "natural environment" sets it apart from the "built environment". We should also wikilink to climate change in the first para somewhere, particularly if you're saying that "climate change" is implicit for the current human-made climate change (referring to Jen's concern and Efbrazil's response). EMsmile (talk) 09:03, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the tipping point sentence in particular: my preferred wording would be These changes profoundly impact ecosystems and societies, and certain impacts become effectively irreversible once climate tipping points are crossed. Generally speaking, the definition is not really about "strength" as much as it is about irreversibility - about passing from one self-reinforcing hysteresis state to another. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great suggestions, thank you! V3 up above incorporates what I thought made sense with some wordsmithing to contain overall word count. In specific:

  1. re: more intense forest fires, thawing permafrost and rising sea levels: I personally like the existing pairing of melting ice sheets with rising sea levels as it paints an obvious connection for people. Having said that, we do mention ice sheets later, so I can live with the swap to permafrost here
  2. re: While temperatures will stabilize when greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers and the acidification and deoxygenation of the oceans will continue long past that point.: This is good but I don't think we need to mention glaciers, they are pretty obvious once we mention ice sheets I think.
  3. re: These changes profoundly impact ecosystems and societies, and certain impacts become effectively irreversible once climate tipping points are crossed.: Thanks, this is much better, I went with it after a bit of word smithing.

I feel like we are close enough that I'm going live with V3. Also, I'll be offline for the next couple days. Efbrazil (talk) 17:43, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am still unhappy with the first six words of the first sentence; the original wording of the article was better imo. And we definitely have to link to "climate change" there. Why not: Climate change affects the Earth's natural environments and human societies. Rest looks good to me. Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:06, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am experimenting with wording, and have just changed the first sentence to this: Effects of climate change are already noticeable in Earth's natural environment and human societies.. Reasoning:
  • Took out "the" at the start of the sentence.
  • changed "happen" to "are already noticeable".
  • made natural environment singular and added wikilink.
  • I don't like to use the word "affect" when the title of the article is "effect". Another option would be to use "impacts" I guess. But they are all a bit difficult to grasp for lay persons, and the distinction between effect, affect, impact is confusing. Hence I chose the verb "to be".
  • For comparison: yesterday's first sentence was: The effects of climate change happen in Earth's natural environments and human societies.. And last week's first sentence was: Climate change affects the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. EMsmile (talk) 07:54, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I am fine with Efbrazil's last changes to the first paragraph, except for this sentence that shows up in red in the readability tool: While temperatures will stabilize when greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control, changes such as the melting of ice sheets, ocean deoxygenation, and ocean acidification will continue long past that point. In addition, I am not sure if ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification do have the same inertia as the rising sea level. I think we would need a ref for this statement - are we sure about it? I can't remember seeing this explained in the main text in that way. I think we can only be certain about the sea level rise inertia. Could use wording and refs from the lead of sea level rise. - We would be trying to pack too much into one sentence. EMsmile (talk) 07:59, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've made some changes to the live version to address this concern. Note also that the second para does pick up info about oceans, so we don't need too much on oceans in the first para. However sea level rise is such an obvious one that it's OK to be in the first AND second para, I think.
Note also I changed this wording: "While temperatures will stabilize when greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control, ... " to "Temperatures can stabilize if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control." That means I broke a long sentence in two and made it less definitive. It sounded too easy like "hey, we just bring emissions under control and then temperatures will stabilise". It's so much harder in reality... EMsmile (talk) 08:08, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure if ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification do have the same inertia as the rising sea level. I think we would need a ref for this statement - are we sure about it?
Well, AR6 WG2 describes all three - sea level rise, acidification and deoxygenation - as irreversible for centuries to millennia (see Table 4.10) With deoxygenation in particular, there is a paper which very explicitly describes its inertia. I am less sure about acidification. Looking closely at a graphic from this paper shows that while surface pH (f) would recover slightly between 2100 and 2400 under RCP 2.6, before staying the same (better than now, worse than in the preindustrial) for the remaining millennium, ocean pH (g) would still curve downwards even under RCP 2.6, albeit very subtly. The difference is small enough that it might be reasonable to exclude acidification from the lead, but certainly not deoxygenation.
I would also change "can stabilize" to "would stabilize". I think changing "when" to "if" already does enough to convey the difficulty/uncertainty in that sentence. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I love learning new things when editing these climate change articles collaboratively. For the first para of the lead, it might be enough to mention that sea level rise will continue for a long time (like we currently have it), rather than trying to expand that statement to also include deoxygenation and acidification, right? We could either include them later in the lead or just ensure that it's well explained in the main text in the "tipping points" section (?).
Regarding can and would, I've pulled out my highschool English grammar rules and for if/then statements it would have to be either: "Temperatures would stabilize if greenhouse gas emissions were brought under control." or "Temperatures will stabilize if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control." I prefer the would & were combination as it's highly uncertain that this would actually happen in our lifetime... But I can also live other options. I previously had this which would also be grammatically correct: "Temperatures can stabilize if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control." EMsmile (talk) 07:27, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I made a couple edits to the lead. First sentence change is obvious as per my edit comment. The second change was to collapse the last 3 sentences to one. Going into more detail here on that change:
  • Never start a sentence with "but". I went with "despite this".
  • The paragraph was overlong and, as mentioned above, we already cover oceans later in the lead so we shouldn't go on about them too much in the first paragraph.
  • The last sentence was confusing. It could be read as framing a reality where sea level rise accelerates because of warming that has already happened, and that's not true. It's the combination of future warming in that time plus warming that has already happened. I think it is better to save this for the second paragraph, which we should tackle next.
  • Sea level rise is also a result of thermal expansion so we shouldn't just say that it is a result of ice sheets melting. Ocean temperatures will continue to rise long after surface temperatures stabilize. Again, better for the second paragraph.
Efbrazil (talk) 19:38, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also just went through the second paragraph, I think the edit comment explains things. Mostly I wanted to be clear that it's not just location where effects differ, its also time. Artic amplification is happening now, but sea level rise / ocean heating is something that is more about the future than it is right now. I really wanted to use integrals and differential equations to explain things, but figured that wasn't the most accessible way. Efbrazil (talk) 21:19, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all this! I do like the first sentence of the lead a lot now. I says: Effects of climate change are well documented and growing for Earth's natural environment and human societies. EMsmile (talk) 09:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in Effects of climate change[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Effects of climate change's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ArmstrongMcKay2022":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 07:34, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed this now. Thanks to this bot or whoever programmed it for highlighting this problem. EMsmile (talk) 08:52, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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