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Talk:Effects of climate change/GA1

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Latest comment: 1 year ago by EMsmile in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Latest comment: 1 year ago89 comments4 people in discussion
Passed. Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:24, 16 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 18:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Reading now, more comments soon!

Thanks for picking up such a long article! Let me know if it's annoying that I'm editing while you're reviewing. I won't add anything more than a sentence or so, but may delete a bit more. The article has a history of POV pushing, copyvio and poor text-integrity. I'm pretty sure I've got (almost) all of it out, but may have overlooked something. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:10, 22 April 2023 (UTC)Reply


  • First paragraph of the lead: I can't see the red thread here. It starts with The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies, which is great. But then, details on the environmental impacts are provided (but not on ecosystems and societies). Then, climate mitigation is mentioned. Ecosystems and societies are then detailed in the following paragraphs. Maybe we need a better, logical flow of information here.
    • Thanks for pointing me to dewiki here, translated some text + got inspiration. I hadn't noticed the featured star. Paragraphs are now structures as follows: 1) general 2) physical changes 3) land / nature impacts 4) human impacts. I've also emphasized the severity of the effects better, which I believe is a recurring comments for the body. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:36, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • sea and land ice (glaciers) – I would repeat "ice" to be extra clear: "sea ice". I found this irritating, especially in combination with the gloss (glaciers).
    • Hah, I hadn't realised that was linked to sea ice decline; I thought it was about seas. Rewritten per first comments.
  • They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice (glaciers), sea level, as well as weather and climate extreme events. – They "affect" climate extreme events, or they cause or exacerbate them?
  • In general, I think it could be better communicated how everything is interlinked, and that the separate discussed points are not isolated from each other. For example, I would have expected some information about what the loss of the Amazon would mean for the climate, the cascade this could cause. Also, some info about what the loss of nature and wildlife would mean for humans. In what way do humans depend on biodiversity?
    • I've added a small paragraph on ecosystem services. I think the other interlinkages have come out a bit better due to other edits, but it's a bit difficult to do this in a way that's not too repetitive. As the Amazon is already getting a bit too much attention compared to other forests, I've added a more broad statement about ecosystems acting as a carbon store (so acting as a stabilising feedback if not disrupted. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 13:13, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Global surface temperatures have risen by 1 °C (1.8 °F) – In which year was this point reached?
    • That was around 2013 / 2018. Have updated it to 2020/2021. I prefer not to mention this directly in the text, as it looks a bit ugly, and I have to define a few other things as well, making it wordy (compared to which period, are we doing linear regression or a point estimate). The two sources use two different definitions that both reach the same conclusion. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Second sentence of lead: The environmental effects of climate change – I would mention "human-caused" here, to be clear what the article is about.
  • These show that recent warming has surpassed anything in the last 2,000 years. – Is this talking about the temperatures reached or also about the speed of warming?
  • By the end of the 21st century, temperatures may increase to a level not experienced since the mid-Pliocene, – Under which conditions? Worst case?
  • Global warming increases the average precipitation (such as rain and snow) globally. – "global average precipitation"?
  • In general, maybe we could have some more discussion on how other human actions (in particular land use) reduces reciliency and worsens effects of climate change. For example, wild fires in California wouldn't be that serious if ground water would not be depleted, wetlands still intact, and beavers present. Corals would be much more resilient if there would be no overfishing. Species are more unlikely to survive when their range is fragmented by human development. And so on … The point is that it is not just about climate change, but how it interplays with other human actions. I know, the "perfect storm" is mentioned (linkes to the wrong article btw), but is that enough?
    • I've been trying to add a bit more from existing sources, but I think I've got the major ones. I can always add more, but think we're going towards undueness. I'm using sources that focus on climate change, and only mention other human actions when there are really major interactions. The problem is that additional information (such as California) can become quite regional, and then it's difficult to justify only adding one or two regions. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Future changes in precipitation are expected to follow existing trends, with reduced precipitation over subtropical land areas, and increased precipitation at subpolar latitudes and some equatorial regions. – Source is very old (2007), there are newer (and more worrying ones) available. In particular, the effects of an potential (or likely?) AMOC collapse need to be discussed. Page 29 here [1] could be helpful.
    • I've added the tipping point effect of an AMOC collapse in the tipping point section, and replaced the old source with (unrelated) info from a newer source, as the IPCC doesn't describe the effects in this way anymore. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:01, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • In various sentences throughout the article, the word "globally" could be misunderstood as "this is the case anywhere on earth". Maybe needs slight tweaking in formulations to make this clear.
  • The area in which extremely hot summers are observed has increased 50–100 fold. – I'm not sure how to interpret this. Is "extremely hot" relative to pre-industrial temperatures for the region in question? Or is there a general temperature threshold after which it is "extremely hot"?
  • The mortality from extreme heat is larger than the mortality from hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes together. – This is confusing, as the heat mortality will increase with temperature, while eathquakes are not affected by climate change at all. Also, is this talking about today's mortality only?
  • The section title ("Tropical cyclones and storms") is quite specific, bit the content very general, including much that has already been said, amd does not provide numbers.
  • Another general comment: The structure is a bit confusing. There are sections "Weather", "Weather-related impacts", etc. Maybe the featured article in the German Wikipedia can provide some ideas. Here, we have four top-level headings: "Expected magnitude of climate change"; "Environmental impcats", "Self-enhancing feedbacks", and "Effects on politics, economy, and society".
    • I don't think self-enhanding feedbacks in an effect of climate change, rather a part of climate change, so I'm hesitant to follow the German structure completely. I wouldn't like having only 3 top-level sections. I have made a few smaller changes to the structure (simplified subheadings under human settlement, renaming "weather-related impacts" to impacts on land, and moved economic impact under societal impacts. Is it clearer now? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Some regions will experience an increase in flooding, some a decrease. – But overall, floods will increase. Right?
  • if sea levels rise by a further 0.15 m (5.9 in), 20% more people will be exposed to a 1 in a 100-year coastal flood, assuming no population growth and no further adaptation. With an extra 0.75 m (2 ft 6 in), this rises to a doubling of people exposed. – Difficult to comprehend, I miss a baseline to interpret the percentages. Maybe instead state how much of the world population will be at risk with certain levels of sea level rise above pre-industrial levels?
  • Need to watch out for repetitions. We should be as short as possible and as long as necessary. After my first read, I had the impression that there were a number of repetitions, but I can't point them all out now.
    • I read through the body of the article and although there is a small amount of repetition, perhaps partly due to the excerpts and also between the higher and lower section levels, I don't really see this as a problem. Having said that repetition of "snow" in 2 headings was slightly jarring so I removed one - not sure others feel the same.Chidgk1 (talk) 15:38, 1 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
    • Removed some more repetitions throughout. Given that people read article non-linearly, I don't mind the remaining repetition, but please let me know if you find anything jarring. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 06:45, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Drought that happen are likely to be more intense than in the past. – One example that I am very sure was mentioned before at least once.
  • even regions where overall rainfall is expected to remain relatively stable, such as central and northern Europe – But the predicion assuming AMOC collapse under 2.5ºC of warming in the OECD publication I cited aboute indicates a change between –10 and –30% in precipitation. That does not seem to be "relatively stable".
    • The OECD says "A recent analysis, synthesising paleoclimate, observational and model-based studies, gives a best estimate for a collapse of the AMOC at a threshold of 4°C (with a range of 1.4°C to 8°C).". So no collapse is quite a bit more likely than collapse (we're expecting ~2.7C warming with current mitigation efforts). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:05, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • it is expected that around a third of land areas will experience drought (moderate or more severe) by 2100. – Lacks context; how much is it today (or in 1950)?
  • The prediction is that by 2050 more than 75% of humanity will live in drought conditions. What precisely is meant with "drough conditions"? An actual drough taking place? High risk of drought? When do we start speaking about a drought?
  • Some areas however, such as the Mediterranean and California, already show the impacts of human activities. – Is this still up to date? I am quite sure that impacts can be demonstrated in other regions, too.
  • Their impacts are made worse because of increased water demand, population growth, urban expansion, and environmental protection efforts in many areas. – These impacts? And how do environmental protection efforts make the impacts worse? I don't really follow here.
  • Based on current pledges, global temperature is projected to increase by 2.7 °C, which would cause around 12 cm of sea level rise. – Only due to glaciers or in total?
  • With less solar energy, the sea ice absorbs and holds the surface colder, which can be a positive feedback toward climate change. – Sea ice absorbs what? And this is not positive feedback for warming, right?
  • Research on Antarctica published in 2022, including the first map of iceberg calving, doubles the previous estimates of loss from ice shelves. – What are those estimates?
  • The excerpts are not always well integrated in the article. For example, "Arctic permafrost has been diminishing for decades" has been mentioned before in a similar way, and could be the intro sentence for the entire section. I see the same problem in the entire permafrost section, the two paragraphs do not work together. Maybe rewrite those excerpts a bit to fit better with the article, and have the common main article tags instead?
    • Yes it was changed, now it reads "Permafrost extent has been diminishing for decades".
    Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:19, 25 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • It is believed that carbon storage in permafrost globally is approximately 1600 gigatons, equivalent to twice the atmospheric pool. – Two points here. First, the paragraph jumps from carbon storage to infrastructure damage back to carbon storage. Best discuss these issues one after the other. Second, is it possible/expected that this complete amount will be released? What exactly does it mean for climate change?
  • or complete loss of some unique ecosystems, and of some critically endangered species. – The last seems to be an understatement. If we completely loose "some unique ecosystems" (and that itself sounds like an understatement), we certainly loose much more than "some critically endangered species"? Therefore I see a contradiction here.
  • changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia – These examples seem ramdom. Does that mean that bird migration will not change in, let's say, Africa?
  • One study concluded that this ecosystem could enter a mode of a 50-years-long collapse to a savanna around 2021, – best provide date of study (2019), since we are already past 2021.
  • It is likely that the oceans warmed faster between 1993 and 2017 compared to the period starting in 1969. – Why is this info under marine ecosystems and not paird with similar info under "temperature"?
  • Available evidence on the effect of climate change on the epidemiology of snakebite is limited but it is expected that there will be a geographic shift in risk of snakebite: northwards in North America and southwards in South America and in Mozambique, and increase in incidence of bite in Sri Lanka. – Are snakebites really significant enough to be worthy of mention?
  • Regarding the effects on humans: What about humam life quality decreasing due to biodiversity loss? Is this worth a sentence?
  • The availability, quality and stability of wines are impacted by shifts in temperature affecting the traditional range and practices of viniculture, and by smoke taint from extreme fire events. – Not sure if wine would be my major concern in food security. Maybe replace with more relevant information concerning the third world for which food issues will be much more severe. I argue that wine is getting undue weight here.
    • Deleted wine as the subhead is 'food security' and wine is not a food. I did not add anything because I don't know much about food security - I thought the main cause of food insecurity was war but I may be wrong. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Global catch potential is projected to reduce further in 2050 by less than 4% if emissions are reduced strongly, and by about 8% for very high future emissions, with growth in the Arctic Ocean. – I am confused about this. How is catch potential calculated, do we have an article on this that can be linked? I am also confused that this seems to completely ignore the fact that overfishing itself is driving fish populations to collapse, and I do not see how this catch potential can possibly decrease by only 8% if overfishing continues, even without climate change.
    • The AR6 puts it in terms of biomass, so I've rewritten it as such. No article on Wikipedia on catch potential. The article cited by AR6 is https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1900194116. They investigate loss in biomass for a scenario with and without fishing. The percentage decline for "2100 fished ocean vs 2020 fished ocean" is actually smaller than "2100 unfished ocean vs 2020 unfished ocean". By explicitly saying "Per degree of warming", rather than a time-frame, I hope it's clearer that this is just the climate signal, not overall decline. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • The distribution of warming impacts from emitters has been unequal, with high-income, high-emitting countries benefitting while harming low-income, low-emitting countries –Benefitting in which way?
  • In small islands and megadeltas, inundation as a result of sea level rise is expected to threaten vital infrastructure and human settlements. – Why restricting this claim to small islands and megadeltas? In the next sentence, low-lying countries are mentioned (which are not necessarily small islands and megadeltas), which already contradicts this statement.
  • In Myanmar, which was hit in 2007, a storm killed 146,000 people. – Again, link? And it needs to be explained what a storm has to do with sea level rise.
    • I coulnd't find what event they referred to. I think there was an error in the source, and they wanted to refer to a 2008 event. Given the lack of citations within that source, and the error, I've decided to remove it as I'm not fully convinced of reliability. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Image: Global sea level rise from 1880 to 2015. This is slightly outdated. Is a more recent one available?
  • Heading Low-lying coastal regions – Not sure what this heading is doing, isn't it pointless? The content just repeats and elaborates on the points raised in the previous paragraph.
  • However, factors other than climate change are judged to be substantially more important in affecting conflict. – Does this apply to the present (today?), or is that expected to be the case in the future, too?
  • economy dependent on agriculture – everything in economy depends on agriculture. This is the foundation. Add "directly"?
    • Reworded the beginning of the sentence to make clear we are talking about the economy in certain places rather than the global economy - obviously there may be food import or export Chidgk1 (talk) 14:45, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • These disadvantages include lower education levels and higher rates of poverty and unemployment – But that is not valid for those indigenous people who are still connected to their land (and live outside the global economy), where poverty and unemployment does not apply.
  • What about shifts in seasons? I don't remember reading something substantial about this in the article. Should this be a section of its own?
    • wikilinked Season creep - if you think more is needed let us know Chidgk1 (talk) 15:13, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
      • Yes, I personally think we need more on this. This wikilink is good, but I think it is out-of-place in the "Snow and ice" section? Season creep is an effect on its own and may require its own short section? I could easily translate from the featured German article, which has a section on this. Amongst others, content in the German article includes the effects of season creep on natural rhythms of animals and plants, and the consequences. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:56, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
        Or how about we excerpt the lead of season creep to this article? Chidgk1 (talk) 18:50, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
        Season creep is not mentioned in WG2. The term seasonal shift or seasonal timing is barely mentioned either. I think the sentence "Key interactions between species within ecosystems are often disrupted because species from one location do not move to colder habitats at the same rate, giving rise to rapid changes in the functioning of the ecosystem" is sufficient. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:10, 6 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thank you to both of you (and any others) for working on this! It will be great to get this article to a higher quality level, so thank you! EMsmile (talk) 09:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

That was me finished. I'll be visiting family abroad from tomorrow, and not sure I'll be able to find a good place to work there, given my propensity to get RSI. Will be back on the 23rd. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:52, 8 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Excellent. Thank you (and others) for all those substantial improvements. All comments addressed. I see that there is some continued discussion on the talk page, but a "good article" does not need to be perfect, and this one is no in accordance with the GA criteria. Promoting now. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:23, 16 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This is awesome, thanks for all involved in this GA review process, in particular the reviewer Jens Lallensack and those who addressed all of his comments, i.e. Femke and Chidgk1. This is a great achievement! EMsmile (talk) 06:35, 16 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

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