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Talk:Climate change

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Latest comment: 16 days ago by Chidgk1 in topic UK response
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.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 21, 2006, and on October 31, 2021.
In the news Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 28, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
May 17, 2006Featured article candidatePromoted
May 4, 2007Featured article reviewKept
March 26, 2020Peer reviewReviewed
January 21, 2021Featured article reviewKept
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

RCP 8.5 etc

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Much of the futurology in this article relies on studies that use the offiicially no longer credible (not that it ever was) RCP 8.5. Therefore the statements should be modified to pick another scenario. Greglocock (talk) 04:23, 24 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

The article mentions neither "futurology" nor "8.5", and it didn't when you wrote that comment. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:39, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
The futurology section refers to 3.3-5.7, which is in table SPM 1 and is driven by SSP-8.5. Greglocock (talk) 07:45, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
We should not omit mention of a high-emission scenario. The text now is not neutral as with only optimistic and middle-of-the-road scenarios. The RCP8.5 scenario is still useful as a worst-case scenario (e.g. strong carbon feedbacks), even if the underlying emissions scenario is now considered implausible. If we want to be up-to-date, we can cite https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/19/2627/2026/, and show these new temperature predictions, which combine lower emissions with more modern estimates of climate sensitivity. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 14:05, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hang on, if they have decided that 8.5 is not plausible then on what grounds do you include it, you might as well have 18.5 or -5, which are implausible as well. What degree of implausibility do you want this article to encompass? How do you establish that limit? Or do we put a note in by each 8.5 scenario that it is an implausible extreme case? What is the real point of including an implausible extreme case? It doesn't half smell of POV pushing. Greglocock (talk) 22:42, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
First of all, we include scenarios because overview sources include it. They include the two implausible scenarios (very optimistic, very pessimistic). Why do we include the optimistic scenario but not the pessimistic? I imagine overview sources do this because you want to know what your risks are. It's certainly a possibility to carbon feedbacks are large, and that countries decide on very uneconomic pathways of coal dependence for ideological reasons. Just like with your house insurance against fire, on a global scale people plan for these kinds of scenarios. I don't see any route towards -5 or 18.5. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 07:51, 12 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Greglocock can you point to a specific statement that you think needs updating? I could do with an example to think through. DecFinney (talk) 07:05, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
This is the debated diff: In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 15:43, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
The sixth assessment report included the RCP 8.5 scenario. Removing that from the Wikipedia description of the report is malpractice. Also note: in the current text the high emissions scenario is referred to in the very next sentence. But that scenario has been deleted.
If future reports have different high emissions scenarios, they will be correctly described in Wikipedia. -- M.boli (talk) 18:11, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
No it isn't malpractice 8.5 has been labelled as implausible . https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/11/climate-crisis-science-emissions-good-news-corp-misrepresentation a source that I assume is acceptable to the hive mind. Nowhere is it assumed that IPCC reports are the only source of climate information, hence if the science changes between IPCC reports then keeping the article up to date is the right thing to do. Greglocock (talk) 22:34, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Femke were you going to add a link to an edit? im not sure what this comment means otherwise. DecFinney (talk) 06:15, 21 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's the part of the article Greg objects to and the removal. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 16:29, 21 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Nuclear is not a sustainable, safe, or viable, energy source

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Ref. last paragraph (with citation number 28). It should be edited out. ~2026-43989-85 (talk) 11:19, 9 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

The last paragraph doesn't contain citation #28. Where did you get the idea of Nuclear being unsafe / unsustainable from? 海盐沙冰 / aka irisChronomia / Talk 11:21, 9 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I believe they're referring to These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power, which does indeed cite ref 28. Removing the mention would of course be an inappropriate NPOV violation. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 06:09, 10 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
The sentence doesn't state that nuclear is sustainable. It simply states nuclear produces low levels of CO2, which is true. Its safety and economic viability are different discussions. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 11:23, 9 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

New Holocene Temperature Chart -- Feedback wanted

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Hi, I have started a thread on WikiProject Climate Change, which I am linking too here, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change#Rebuilt Holocene Temperature Variations figure, feedback wanted This is a modern update of the Holocene temperature proxy chart that you see in the article, for example, of Holocene climatic optimum (among several others). Scroll to the bottom for the most recent versions. Feedback wanted, appreciated if you can keep it to the other (linked) thread. Dawei20 (talk) 23:29, 9 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Causes of Climate Change

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I wish to raise several points that, to my knowledge, have not been refuted with physics-based arguments. These relate to radiative processes, atmospheric temperature gradients, and the interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in climate modelling.

1. Prof. Claes Johnson (KTH, Sweden), recently recognised as a leading scientist in his field, demonstrated that radiation below a material’s cut‑off frequency is not thermalised. His analysis (see p. 24 of Mathematical Physics of Blackbody Radiation) is consistent with simple empirical demonstrations, such as the differing microwave response of two identical ceramic mugs, one containing water and one empty.

2. Josef Loschmidt correctly described in the 1870's how a temperature gradient forms in a gravitational field at the molecular level. This is observable in vortex cooling tubes and in natural environments such as the Grand Canyon, where the base is consistently warmer than the rim and the gradient tracks rim temperature. The same principle appears in all planetary tropospheres and even below solid surfaces. The gradient follows directly from maximum entropy production under the Second Law.

3. The Second Law of Thermodynamics (as summarised in the Wikipedia article Laws of Thermodynamics) applies to individual natural processes or sets of interacting processes. Each one‑way radiative transfer must be treated independently. It is therefore not valid to assume that “back radiation” from a colder atmosphere increases the kinetic energy of a warmer surface simply because the surface may be losing energy elsewhere (evaporation, convection, radiation). Those processes are not interacting with the incoming low‑frequency photons. When such photons strike a warmer surface, they do not thermalise; they raise electrons to higher quantum states and the electrons then return to the ground state, emitting similar photons. This pseudo‑scattering process is energy‑neutral with respect to thermalisation, analogous to reflection.

4. Jeong & Park (2022), Scientific Reports (Nature), performed a direct experimental test of the temperature gradient predicted by Loschmidt’s gravito‑thermal effect. Their peer‑reviewed results support the conclusion that gravity redistributes molecular kinetic energy to form the observed tropospheric gradient. This does not require solar heating of a surface nor the conventional “warm surface → rising air → lapse rate” mechanism. A relevant example is Uranus: the base of its troposphere is ~320 K, hotter than Earth’s surface, despite the absence of a solid surface, the absence of solar radiation at that depth (≈350 km below the cloud tops), and no evidence of internal cooling at a rate sufficient to maintain such temperatures. Yet the gradient matches the same physical relationship used for Earth, Venus, and other planets: gravitational acceleration divided by the weighted mean specific heat of the atmospheric gases.

5. Several authors have reported correlations between variations in cosmic‑ray intensity and low cloud cover, including: Svensmark & Friis‑Christensen (1997) Palle Bago & Butler (2000) Erlykin, Gyalai, Kudela, Sloan & Wolfendale (2009) Sloan & Wolfendale (2008)

These studies examined satellite cloud data (ISCCP) and neutron‑monitor cosmic‑ray records. While interpretations differ, the correlations themselves were reported in multiple peer‑reviewed papers. The key point relevant here is simply that variations in cosmic‑ray intensity — for whatever reason — have been observed to correlate with changes in low cloud cover in several published analyses. ~2026-44211-15 (talk) 07:53, 13 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

English, please. Don't write with LLMs and Wikipedia articles don't publish original researches. 海盐沙冰 / aka irisChronomia / Talk 08:09, 13 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Please explain what changes to this article you propose based on https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360213911_Temperature_gradient_of_vertical_air_column_in_gravitational_field . All the other sources you mention are before the cutoff date of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report so if significant would have been considered when preparing that report Chidgk1 (talk) 09:53, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Add CMIP7 emissions scenarios to modelling section?

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Perhaps somewhat related to the RCP 8.5 discussion above, how about we add a couple of sentences about CMIP7 emissions scenarios cited for example to https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-cmip7-emissions-scenarios-and-how-they-explore-future-climate-change with a wiki link to a more detailed article?

Chidgk1 (talk) 04:52, 12 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Could we still be missing feedback processes?

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To make room for new info suggested above I am thinking of shortening:

The 2017 United States-published National Climate Assessment notes that "climate models may still be underestimating or missing relevant feedback processes".[1]

to

Climate modelling of some feedback processes is poor.[2]

But that would cut out the "unknown unknowns". I suppose by now any "unknown unknowns" are likely to be small so not worth mentioning?


Chidgk1 (talk) 06:34, 12 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

References

  1. ↑ USGCRP Chapter 15 2017.
  2. ↑ USGCRP Chapter 15 2017.

UK response

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I know creating a committee is less exciting than declaring an emergency, but in the long term it might be more effective - if next UK govt does not repeal 2008 Climate Change Act (which seems very difficult according to text at end of Carbon Brief cite below).


How about changing:

In 2019, the United Kingdom parliament became the first national government to declare a climate emergency. Other countries and jurisdictions followed suit. That same year .....

to something like

The United Kingdom created a powerful independent advisory committee to try to prevent short-term political change affecting long-term decarbonisation progress. https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-what-the-climate-change-act-does-and-does-not-mean-for-the-uk In 2019 .....


Chidgk1 (talk) 07:25, 12 September 2026 (UTC)Reply