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Featured articleClimate change is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
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In the news Article milestones
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February 28, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
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In the news News items involving this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on March 5, 2004, and October 11, 2018.
Current status: Featured article

Carbon capture rates for CCS

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Hi everyone. I have a few proposals regarding statements on carbon capture and storage in this article. Here's my first proposal. We have an unsourced sentence that says:

Where energy production or CO2-intensive heavy industries continue to produce waste CO2, the gas can be captured and stored instead of released to the atmosphere.

I propose changing it to:

Where energy production or CO2-intensive heavy industries continue to produce waste CO2, technology can sometimes be used to capture and store most of the gas instead of releasing it to the atmosphere.[1]

As explained in the World Resources Institute source, "today’s carbon capture systems do not capture 100% of emissions. Most are designed to capture 90%, but reported capture rates are lower in some cases." Additionally, it is not economically or geologically feasible to deploy CCS at all or even most facilities. There are 2,400 coal power plants in the world and thus far we have managed to add CCS to four of them. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Lebling, Katie; Gangotra, Ankita; Hausker, Karl; Byrum, Zachary (2023-11-13). "7 Things to Know About Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration". World Resources Institute.

Carbon sequestration section

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The Carbon sequestration section has contents that describe carbon dioxide removal and carbon capture and storage. These three concepts are often confused. The vast majority of carbon sequestration happens through spontaneous, non-anthropogenic processes that have been going on for hundreds of millions of years and will continue if we just leave the forests alone. Most of the content in this section is about human activity that aims to increase the amount of carbon that is sequestered, i.e. carbon dioxide removal. There is also some content on carbon capture and storage, which technically involves sequestration but is usually deployed in processes that desequester more carbon than they sequester.

I propose 1) Retitling this section as "Carbon dioxide removal" and 2) Moving the two sentences on CCS to the end of the first paragraph in the "Clean energy" section. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Paper about our work & suggestions

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A paper by Olivia Steiert came out on the work we do here, analysing how our group dynamics and our interpretation of policies and guidelines resulted in the current article.

The paper analyses whether we consider climate change as an event (vs process), and if we call it a crisis. It's somewhat critical of us doing neither sufficiently clearly. The paper doesn't give that many pointers how we could achieve this however. We've made progress over the last 6 years in changing the article to be more about climate change now, rather than climate change in the future, but I wonder if there is more to do here. (changing the crisis framing is a discussion I won't reopen). If there are no objections, I might send Steiert an email asking her to join us. In the meantime, I'm suggesting two changes in the lead

The current rise in global average temperature is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution -->

Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline --> something in the present tense. I'd suggest leaving out polar amplification too. The quote doesn't fully capture this sentence anyway, and the source doesn't make the connection between polar amplification and these specific impacts. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sharing this, interesting article. The study uses the May 2022 version of this article, I wonder what she'd think of the current version.
As for the sentence, The current rise in..., I believe we had added "since the Industrial Revolution" to clarify what is meant by current. Bogazicili (talk) 17:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Upon reflection, I'd like to keep since the Industrial Revolution. One of the criticism in the article is that we are vague in terms of our tenses. When things happened, are happening, or will happen. (Why is it so hard to arrive at a clear understanding of when climate change is happening and why do temporal constructions of this event vary so broadly)
since the Industrial Revolution gives precision and clarity to that sentence. I think it accurately describes rough timescale of human-induced climate change.
Other overview sources might say things like The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by nearly 50% since 1750[1]
If you click Industrial Revolution, it largely matches with above: Beginning in Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States, from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. Bogazicili (talk) 14:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My thinking here is that "since the industrial revolution" may be a bit misleading, in the sense that most warming really happened in the last 50 years, rather than over such a long period of time. I'm also appreciating the simplicity of the POTD description below, and would like to move away from a WP:seaofblue in terms of number of links. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good point, but I think we should add that (in the last 50 years part) into the lead, instead of removing "since the Industrial Revolution" part. I know you value conciseness but I think this time precision beats conciseness.

Again, the study was up to May 2022 version of this article. This is the 31 May 2022 version of the article. I think the current version of the lead is much more precise, as we define since when the current climate change has been happening. Industrial activities (NASA source) started with industrial revolution. Of course it was limited in 18th century. In 19th century it was few countries (UK etc), with coal etc. With technology (oil etc) and more countries industrializing, warming increased in 20th century, which is your point.

Also note that many cumulative emissions graphs go back to 1750 Our World in Data. I'll check few more sources tomorrow, including WP:Tertiary sources, to see how they cover it. Bogazicili (talk) 17:38, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The prose quality of the first paragraph was definitely better in that version at least. I don't think "adding to greenhouse gases" is correct English. If I can find time, I might suggest a new version of our opening in a separate discussion section.
My guess is that many sources don't talk about "industrial revolution" in their first paragraph, instead only use that when they go into the weeds of the topic.
—Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:03, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Femke: here are some WP:Tertiary sources I found with Oxford Reference Online database through Wikipedia Library.

There are lots of results. Only some of them are below:

The first two have detailed entries. I'd recommend you to check them:

The term global warming has become synonymous in the press with human-induced climate change. ... Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased such that 2009 values of about 385 ppmv are over 36 percent higher than preindustrial values of 280 ppmv and over half that increase has occurred since 1970 (Figure 1).

Climate Change entry:

An Overview
... During the past two centuries, anthropogenic activity has resulted in large increases in the atmospheric greenhouse gas content, which has caused a detectable increase in global temperatures and are predicted to continue to increase for many decades before the climate system reaches a new equilibrium. [See Greenhouse Effect; and Global Warming.] ...

Global warming entry:

..Levels rose to 275 ppmv during the warm interglacial phases, and that level is also considered representative of the preindustrial era of the nineteenth century...

The two below have shorter entries:

By the way, there is an entire encyclopedia on climate change communication, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication.

I think we should mention something like pre-industrial in the first paragraph. But we can shift things around. For example, the last sentence in first paragraph cites IPCC AR6 WG1 Technical Summary 2021, p. 67. That page mentions:

Since 1750, changes in the drivers of the climate system are dominated by the warming influence of increases in atmospheric GHG concentrations and a cooling influence from aerosols, both resulting from human activities

p.4:

Observed increases in well-mixed greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by human activities

I'll make my proposal below in a new section Bogazicili (talk) 19:02, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Article housekeeping

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Thanks Femke for removing unused references and other tidying. I could pitch in to help with that kind of thing for an hour or two this week. What else needs to be done? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know, I intend to clean up after myself, but got sidetracked. For the areas I edited, some of the citations aren't to chapters but to overall IPCC reports. I'll be fixing those. Bogazicili (talk) 16:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Bogazicili!
In terms of housekeeping, I try to do the following every one/two years:
  • See if overcitation has slipped in, which is often a red flag for text-source integrity issues. One example is overcitation after "Smaller contributions come from black carbon, organic carbon from combustion of fossil fuels and biofuels, and from anthropogenic dust", which has 6 sources. (I you could help here!)
  • Check if jargon such as anthropogenic has slipped back in, and reword using plain English
  • Reread the article, and check if there is text-source integrity for surprising statements
  • Reread the article, and update numbers which need updating.
—Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not that big of an issue, but the source formatting is also slightly messy and inconsistent in places (e.g. Harvnb is used for most things but not all, some things are missing various fields, etc). Sgubaldo (talk) 19:17, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that's a lot of work that you've been doing regularly! I'll take on the overcitation thing. Will indicate here when I've finished checking. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have much more time to work on this tomorrow (Sunday). I think I added most of the AR6 citations. I'll be fixing those tomorrow. And then I can also pitch in with the rest of the housekeeping. Bogazicili (talk) 17:18, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello! This is to let editors know that File:1880- Global surface temperature - heat map animation - NASA SVS.webm, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for November 12, 2024. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2024-11-12. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you!  — Amakuru (talk) 10:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Contemporary climate change involves rising global temperatures and significant shifts in Earth's weather patterns. Climate change is driven by emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Emissions come mostly from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), and also from agriculture, forest loss, cement production and steel making. Climate change causes sea level rise, glacial retreat and desertification, and intensifies heat waves, wildfires and tropical storms. These effects of climate change endanger food security, freshwater access and global health. Climate change can be limited by using low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar energy, forestation, and shifts in agriculture. Adaptations such as coastline protection cannot by themselves avert the risk of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts. Limiting global warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. This NASA animation shows global surface temperature changes from 1880 to 2023. The colour blue denotes cooler temperatures and red denotes warmer temperatures.

Video credit: NASA; visualization by Mark SubbaRao

Suggestions for the first sentence

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The first sentence is awkward, and I'd love to craft a new first sentence before we get to be on the main page. The "in common usage" is especially jarring, and may fall slightly foul of WP:REFER. I have two suggestions:

  1. Climate change encompasses global warming—Earth’s ongoing temperature increase—and its wider effects on Earth's climate.
  2. Current climate change is the ongoing rise in global average temperatures and the resulting effects on Earth's climate.

It's a common thing that more text gets bolded than the title alone, to clarify immediately to the reader what the topic is where there is some need for disambiguation. I think this may release us from the need to be a bit pedantic in the introduction. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The preamble "In common usage" distinguishes current CC from "Climate change in a broader sense" that's in the second sentence. The distinction is important since we should (must?) quickly define the article title, focus attention on what this article is about, and link to the other article (Climate variability and change). I remember the community grappling with how to achieve these goals; the current text was the result. "In common usage" isn't jarring, though some might call it a bit formal. "Current climate change" (suggestion 2) isn't a much-used term. —21:10 The current wording tells the reader immediately that common-use "CC" is not the academically correct use. Of Suggestion 1 and 2, though, I definitely prefer Suggestion 1. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The distinction is not between "academic usage" and "common usage". Academics use the terms like everybody else in their papers. IPCC has it in their name, WMO classifies their reporting under climate change. The difference is between definitionally and non-definitionally. If you have a sentence with is, you imply a definition, so we need to make clear in some way that we're talking about "Contemporary", "Present-day", "Current" climate change. What we can do as well is 2b:
2b. Current/present-day/contemporary Climate change ...

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:00, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer 'Contemporary' to 'Current', but I like the wording in Suggestion 1 more. My suggestion would be something like:
Contemporary climate change encompasses global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate.
Also, if the first sentence changes, the next two will probably need tweaking too. Sgubaldo (talk) 12:20, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder what percentage of the population knows what "contemporary" means. I'd estimate less than 80/90%, hence my suggestions for slightly less elegant wording. Two difficult words close to each other (contemporary/encompasses), makes it more difficult to guess the word meaning for those unaware. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:23, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, I would propose: "Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate." Sgubaldo (talk) 12:52, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I like that variation. Present-day may prevent some knee-jerk reactions of Wikipedians trained to remove the word MOS:Current from articles. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:58, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging all those with recent talk page activity: @Clayoquot, Amakuru, Bogazicili, Chipmunkdavis, Sunrise, and Alaexis:. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:31, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the first one because it includes the other common term, global warming. Global warming also redirects to this page, as it should. Bogazicili (talk) 14:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I concede Femke's point (09:00) re academics/definitions. My concern is to explicitly convey that there are two definitions of CC. This distinction parallels the fact that today's CC is different from historical/generic CC. Detail: reviewing https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/contemporary, I'm OK with "current" or "present" or "present-day" or "recent" or "ongoing" or "newfangled" (well, maybe not "newfangled :-) :-). —RCraig09 (talk) 17:03, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's more elegant to do it implicitly (present-day climate change), rather than explicitly. We want people to read about the topic of climate change, rather than about the intricacies of how terms are used in the first paragraph. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:06, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By "explicitly" I didn't mean super-ultra-formally. I think the distinction of definitions is accomplished by the second sentence, "Climate change in a broader sense...". That's all I meant. I'm OK with most of the smaller-change proposal I've read in this discussion. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:11, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have a slight preference for Sgubaldo's proposal. All of them sound fine to me though. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:17, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, since there are multiple proposals. I'm ok with this latest one: "Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate." Bogazicili (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If no one objects, I'll wait until tomorrow to see if there's any more replies, and then I'll make the changes. Sgubaldo (talk) 19:12, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Changes made. Sgubaldo (talk) 12:43, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: removed 'mainly' from lead

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I changed "The current rise in global average temperature is mainly driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution" to "The current rise in global average temperature is mainly driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution". The best guess is taht 100% of climate change is driven by human activities (per new source), so the old wording was misleading and the old source didn't talk about this. The word driven itself also doesn't require 100% causation (that would be is caused by), so even when the percentage of human-induced climate change deviates from observed climate change, this wording should remain correct.

I did this boldly, as the old text was not really supported and misleading. Hope that's okay. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:20, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. As Earth was on a very slight cooling trend for ~10,000 years, I remember reading that humans cause "more than" 100% of global warming, though it would be confusing to say that literally. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:07, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The idea of a Holocene Thermal Maximum some 8,000 years ago is a bit contested. Regional climate proxies say there was one, but globally it's a more complex picture, and models think there's been continuous warming / stable temperatures.
    The more than 100% since pre-industrial also isn't true anymore as I understand it, as the last couple of years have seen very rapid warming. The source I cited is also the one used by the IPCC, and they say the best guess is exactly 100% caused by humans with some uncertainty. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:17, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Femke: do you still want to remove "since the Industrial Revolution" part? That can be reworded and moved to the last sentence. Proposal below. Bogazicili (talk) 20:30, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The lead, first paragraph

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This is what the first paragraph of the lead would look like, after recent changes and suggestions in Talk:Climate_change#Suggestions for the first sentence and Talk:Climate_change#Paper about our work & suggestions and above section.

Didn't include the sources in the article, and some of the new sources are above. For the "accelerating in the past 50 years", I will use [2].

In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current Present-day rise in global average temperature is driven by human activities, especially burning fossil fuels. especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases.[1] These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming, has grown by about 50% and is at levels unseen for millions of years. Starting roughly around 1750 and accelerating in the past 50 years, greenhouse gas concentrations have been increasing. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming, is at levels unseen for millions of years

Bogazicili (talk) 19:31, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the the new text is not great for flow. Most of the sentences are roughly the same lenght, with makes for slightly uncomfortable reading. I don't feel strongly about removing "industrial revolution", but I don't think moving it to later is that much of a change? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:52, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suggested the changes with this criticism in mind. Why is it so hard to arrive at a clear understanding of when climate change is happening and why do temporal constructions of this event vary so broadly
Now we have two clear dates (since 1750 and accelerating in the past 50 years). Bogazicili (talk) 22:02, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Our World in Data, 18 September 2020