This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Climate change, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofClimate change on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.Climate changeWikipedia:WikiProject Climate changeTemplate:WikiProject Climate changeClimate change
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Antarctica, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofAntarctica on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.AntarcticaWikipedia:WikiProject AntarcticaTemplate:WikiProject AntarcticaAntarctica
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Arctic, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofArctic on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArcticWikipedia:WikiProject ArcticTemplate:WikiProject ArcticArctic
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Geography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofgeography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.GeographyWikipedia:WikiProject GeographyTemplate:WikiProject Geographygeography
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Geology, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-usegeology resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit theproject page for more information.GeologyWikipedia:WikiProject GeologyTemplate:WikiProject GeologyGeology
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Globalization, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofGlobalization on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit theproject page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.GlobalizationWikipedia:WikiProject GlobalizationTemplate:WikiProject GlobalizationGlobalization
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Weather, which collaborates onweather and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit theproject page for details.
OK well I've found all the missing sources and added them. I seem to have added more material than is strictly necessary for the IPCC reports, but I think someone else can trim that down now I've done all the heavy lifting. When you copy material from other articles you need to copy over all the sources called by references in that material.DuncanHill (talk)02:23, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot for this effort,DuncanHill! You can see above that I had started to sort out those refs (converting from the short ref styel to the long ref style) but it was very time consuming so I ran out of time (and what hoping that someone else would help, too). I had also commented above that some sentences have way too many refs. The material had been copied fromclimate change (not by me). Anyhow, thanks a lot for your help here!EMsmile (talk)14:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've now taken out those IPCC reports that weren't actually used. When I have time, I'll continue with the effort to convert the short refs into long refs style (if someone else also has time, feel free to step in).EMsmile (talk)14:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know the subject well enough to correct it. Have not checked the footnotes, though. Here is the sentence: Thus, both effects are considered to each other out, and the warming from each unit of CO2 emitted by humans increases temperature in linear proportion to the total amount of emissions.Anitissamalicious (talk)15:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS The problem is the verb missing after "considered to." It might be "cancel," and then again, it might be "balance," and then again it might be something else completely.Anitissamalicious (talk)15:12, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Beyond the longstanding issue with a confusing sentence: the second and third paragraphs are too detailed-sciency-techy for the lead in a layman's encyclopedia article. That content belongs somewhere inGreenhouse effect. The basics of the GHE should be briefly explained in the lead rather than obliquely referred to as if Everyman is already familiar it. —RCraig09 (talk)19:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The questionable language was introduced inthis massive edit byUser:InformationToKnowledge. By this post, I request clarification. The existing cite "[8]:746" fails verification as there is no page 746. Please clear up the issues re the appropriateness of techiness level of the last two paragraphs of the lead. —RCraig09 (talk)21:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is page 746 when AR6 WG1 is viewed as a single, full PDF, but not in the single chapter-specific PDF. The specific wording being cited isAs cumulative emissions increase, weakening land and ocean carbon sinks increase the airborne fraction of CO2 emissions (see Figure 5.25), but each unit increase in atmospheric CO2 has a smaller effect on global temperature owing to the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and its radiative forcing. Then the paragraph discusses a few high-profile studies, and concludes withOverall, there is high agreement between multiple lines of evidence (robust evidence) resulting in high confidence that TCRE remains constant for the domain of increasing cumulative CO2 emissions until at least 1500 PgC, with medium confidence of it remaining constant up to 3000 PgC because of less agreement across available lines of evidence. There are also multiple times throughout the chapter where it says that the "TCRE" is effectively linear, i.e.the near-linear relationship between cumulative CO2 emissions and global warming (TCRE).
Thus, to answer the question by @Anitissamalicious, "balance" is probably the best verb.
@RCraig09: Right,somewhere in thegreenhouse effect. I think that says it all: I doubt even you can tell which parts of that article are actually useful for laymen and which ones are basically textbook inserts no-one actually reads beyond glancing at the formulas. You are absolutely correct that articleshould explain that the greenhouse effect is actually logarithmic, but the way in which it'll be experienced by humans is linear: the problem is that its structure is such a mess with no clear path to improvement that I am not sure where to even add that.
Lastly, a lead to a decent-sized article should consist of several paragraphs.What would be your alternative to the current 2nd and 3rd paragraph of the lead?
Here, I should probably remind to everyone taking part in this conversation thatone of the key motivations behind creating this articlein the first place was to lighten theClimate change article by offloading some of the details from its Causes section to here. That was the reason why sections such as "Land surface changes" and "Aerosols" are virtually identical between here and Climate change. However, as it so often happens with that article,WP:STATUSQUO prevailed and so we are stuck with duplicated paragraphs, no other editor apparently noticing or caring. If we are giving this article a second look to the point of rewriting the lead, it's probably a good idea to figure this whole aspect out as well.InformationToKnowledge (talk)13:04, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our first duty is to our mostly-layperson readers, not to a perceived guideline tying lead size to article size.@InformationToKnowledge: To answer your question re alternatives to the present 2nd and 3rd paragraphs: I would replace the logarithmicish- and linearproportionalish jargony paragraphs that explain the inner sciency workings of the GHE with what actuallycauses climate change—per the article title: a judicious bit of expansion of the existing first paragraph, focusing qualitatively on basic concepts (GHE, GHGs, aerosols) based loosely on the dominant categories in the current graphic:. Above all, the lead should be immediately understandable to the average person returning from a political rally. —RCraig09 (talk)20:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Revision of lead to include short description of GHE
Per my post of 19:45, 20 Jan 2025, I've added a one-sentence description of the greenhouse effect, which underlies thecauses of climate change that are the very subject of this article. I've re-worked surrounding sentences accordingly. —RCraig09 (talk)20:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You want to revert back to for examplethis version (19 January 2024)? Why exactly? Undo all the work that has been done the in the last 18 months on this article, just because a section on fingerprinting was moved/deleted? Like you noted above, the fingerprinting content was mainly deleted inthe edit by InformationToKnowledge on 13 March 2024; in the edit history it says: "Reworking the article, including some material taken from climate change (see page history for attribution.) This work had been previously done on my user sandbox and is moved here as per talk page agreement.".EMsmile (talk)21:43, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it possible that the content you are looking for is in this section: "Human-caused influences" but just not called "fingerprinting" anymore? Also if I remember correctly we had decided at the time to trim down the content about "attribution science" (which then went into here instead:Extreme event attribution). But I can't remember exactly. I just remember we discussed for a long time how thecauses of climate change article should be structured. Probably User:InformationToKnowledge will remember the details and can remind us (or see on the talk pages).EMsmile (talk)22:05, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chidgk1 as a climate scientist, though not an expert of attribution/fingerprinting, the text reads as probably correct. i think it is mixing what i would think of as "attribution' (i.e. using a model to remove anthropogenic effects and seeing which simulation is closest to observations) vs "fingerprinting" (i.e. things observed that would be expected to happen from anthropogenic forcing but not other kinds of forcing). its possibly my interpretation of these terms is not the most widely assumed, but there certainly are two kinds of analysis being spoken about in the section. i havent read the article as whole so im not commenting on the value of the text within the article.DecFinney (talk)21:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
EMsmile what overview sources did you use while restructuring this article?
It's a while ago that I worked on this article so I can't remember the exact details for each edit in e.g. November 2023. I would have to look at the talk page archive. If you want to know exactly the train of thought of the various editors involved at the time, please take a look at the talk page archive, e.g. here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Causes_of_climate_change/Archive_3#What_does_this_article_currently_achieve? . I also try to put useful information in the edit summaries of each of my edits.
That sandbox discussion led to the sweeping change here on 13 March 2024 by User:InformationToKnowledge:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Causes_of_climate_change&diff=1213485572&oldid=1213481783 with the edit history saying "Reworking the article, including some material taken from climate change (see page history for attribution.) This work had been previously done on my user sandbox and is moved here as per talk page agreement." . I would like to point out that the work by InformationToKnowledge has always been (in my opinion) very impressive and well thought through. So personally I think they did a great job in reworking the article and to arrive at a stable and useful article. Whether the information on "fingerprinting" was removed rightly or wrongly, I have no opinion about.EMsmile (talk)21:43, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To respond to why moving this to extreme event attribution doesn't quite work: the science of attributing overall climate science is much older and uses different arguments than the newer event attribution research. I'm happy with the restoration, thanks chidgk1.—Femke 🐦 (talk)18:26, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
HelloChidgk1! In[3], you added a footnote for the named reference<ref name=":03" /> but there is no definition for this footnote and the result is a referencing error. There's also the undefined citation "Karl others 2012", which seems ill-formed in addition to being nudefined. Are you able to provide the missing citations for these references so the errors can be fixed and the material made verifiable? --mikeblas (talk)17:33, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
. Above all, the lead should be immediately understandable to the average person returning from a political rally. —RCraig09 (talk)20:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
