Talk:List of climate change controversies

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Uncertainty bars and uncertainty bands: Uncertainty budget[edit]

I am a scientist in metrology at international level since several decades, having set the Italian temperature primary standards below 0 °C at the primary metrological Institute of Italy. In science however, recalling to metrology should not even be necessary for the comments that follows, because it is a basic rule of science to associate an uncertainty to every (set of) measurement result (and also to models and theoretical inferences). It is mandatory in communications between scientists and in communication with media and socially. To limit myself to a single example, in your initial figure about the temperature variations in the last century, the uncertainty band of the trend is lacking, not probably being of uniform width in that interval, since today it is likely to be narrower. The “noise” in the trend is NOT indicating the uncertainty of the measurements, is only that of a running mean. The lower uncertainty of a mean does not increase the confidence on the base precision of the single measurements. My personal position, as a metrologist competent in temperature measurements, is that the uncertainty level at a 90% confidence level, based on a full uncertainty budget, cannot be lower that ≈ ± 1.5 °C (round estimate). The fact that the width of the band results to be almost as wide as the total temperature change does not in itself mean that one cannot estimate an overall increase of temperature in time of the mean Earth temperature, but that one cannot assess that it is close to (+1.5 ± ...) °C with reasonable confidence (yet), also considering that the present visual increase is limited to a few decades, not even on the full period of time. I do not share the opinion contrasting the possibility that the increase could even be quite smaller with the argument that symmetrically there is an equal possibility of a much higher increase: not for the thermodynamic quantity temperature of the Earth. Instead, the factually large uncertainty places very big difficulties in choosing reasonable accurate models concerning the present trend and, consequently, in devising reasonable extrapolations ahead of decades (not even speaking of centuries!).

37.182.14.206 (talk) 11:33, 17 February 2022 (UTC)Dr. Franco Pavese Senior Scientist, Research Director[reply]

frpavese@gmail.com https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franco_Pavese

(formerly: Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) (National Institute for Research in Metrology) Division Thermodynamics strada delle Cacce 91 10135 Torino, Italy until 2006: CNR - Istituto di Metrologia "G.Colonnetti" (IMGC) strada delle Cacce 73 10135 Torino, Italy)

Please red wp:or and wp:v. It does not matter what you think, we go with what the bulk of RS say.Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The OP makes a valid point, that many of the images in this article lack information about the uncertainty of the data. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 15:44, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, so provide some RS that challenge that data.Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are missing the point. A measurement of uncertainty doesn't challenge the data, it describes the data more completely. Is it your contention that this tenet of science doesn't apply here? --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:01, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No I am not missing it, I am not understanding it. So explain (in simple, not technical terms) why this change needs to be made.Slatersteven (talk) 16:06, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Climate change has this picture:
The curves there have a sort of aura around them, denoting the error bars. The pictures in this article should have that too. Omitting it is unprofessional, like omitting the °C units would be. Every measurement or computed value needs an error bar. Everybody who studied physics or an adjacent science knows that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IPCC, like in that figure, often includes the set of single readings in addition to the running mean, looking like a gray "noisy" band wider than the noisy running mean trend. It is NOT an uncertainty indication, but only the SPREAD of single readings. A trained scientist easy understand this issue since an uncertainty band is, obviously, almost of constant width in the full set. Also the band is not a sufficient indication, since it cannot detail the uncertainty components:, a scientist has always to publish also the underlying "uncertainty budget" (e.g. see F.PAVESE: “Graphic method for retrieval of quantitative data from computer-mapped qualitative information, with a NASA video as an example”, 2020, ESIN 13, 655-662) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frpavese (talkcontribs) 10:32, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not actually sure what the question is, but note that the mean of many values has a much smaller uncertainty than the individual numbers. If you compute a standard deviation of some numbers, that tells the spread of those values. The uncertainty, or standard deviation of the mean, is the standard deviation divided by the square root of N. With large enough N, you can get small uncertainty in the mean, even with large uncertainty in the data. Gah4 (talk) 10:47, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am not referring to the mere standard deviation of a set of numerical values, the scholarly minimum notion of uncertainty. The fact is that, when a scientist has to obtain experimental data, he has to use a measurement setup and procedures. Consequently, the scientist has to evaluate the uncertainty components introduced by them (e.g., the uncertainty of the calibration of the used thermometers), and to form what is called the "uncertainty budget" for the set of results to be obtained. The (random) dispersion of the measured values is only ONE component of the uncertainty budget, typically NOT the larger one, while the confidence on the quality of the results is commensurate to the total uncertainty budget ONLY.

In a graphical representation like the IPCC figure, it is represented by a smooth upper and lower line making a band larger than the data reported (single data or running mean). The results uncertainty is NOT lowered by elaborating the data in ANY way, e.g. by the mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frpavese (talkcontribs) 16:24, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Villainy"? Is that an autocorrect accident? It does not make any sense. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:56, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
do you consider fair your message of 16:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC) to which my editing of the initial post is referred to? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frpavese (talkcontribs) 16:24, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I had understood your first posting as referring to error bars, and I wanted to support you. But it seems you meant something else, therefore I am a "villain". You really need to work on your social skills. Or language skills. Or both.
Also, see WP:SIGN. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:33, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, I misunderstood the destination of your last sentence "Everybody who studied physics or an adjacent science knows that", my apologise. It arose from your interpretation of the "aura". I think that you misunderstood its meaning: read my above sentence starting with "IPCC, like in that figure,...". As in other IPCC figures, it is supposed to report the full set of measured values (with no individual connecting lines visible, nor data or mean uncertainty bars), whose dispersion is made clearer (but obviously reduced) by the running mean. In all instances, the bars would not measure the measurement uncertainty, but only the uncertainty component arising from the data dispersion. ∼∼∼∼Franco Pavese — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.182.14.206 (talk) 17:00, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To get back to basics, for any discussion we need a relible source showing published discussion of this issue as part of Global warming controversy, and not just personal opinions or fringe claims that it's "controversial". The topic of measurement uncertainty is itself of interest, and doesn't seem to be well covered in the instrumental temperature record article which I think would be the appropriate place. Can you have a look at that, and propose good published sources for appropriate coverage? . dave souza, talk 18:10, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I limited myself to climate temperature evaluation because it is the basic effect of the CO2 increase, which is the basic argument supporting the change (and it is my main professional competence).

In that respect, you do not have to see it as a mere discussion about technical issues concerning temperature measurement in itself, but about the consequences of what I consider a wrong approach for hearth climate. Temperature is the most difficult parameter to measure with high confidence, for many reasons, one being the fact of being a local parameter: even locally, it is not trivial to have it affected by an uncertainty lower than 0.5 °C (I do not know if I have enough room here to list all the main reasons). Consequently, putting on the floor mean earth values without an indication of the total estimated uncertainty is not only un-scientific, but deceiving at the social and political frames. There are editorials on scientific (and not) Journals about the difficulty to have the concept of uncertain value understood in those frames, even recently on Nature, but it is difficult to indicate a first-class specific paper covering the issue, even in the frame of philosophy of science. I might only provide papers demonstrating how large may be the difference between the standard deviation of the data dispersion and the actual one of a full uncertainty budget, even in primary thermometry. I might try myself, having personal competence, to write one, but, if I will also place doubts about the current (very ambiguous) situation, I will incur in a risk that I have already experienced personally: to have the manuscript rejected for being considered controversial with respect to the "currect majority" of thinking and support about the climate change, irrespective to its quality. That is the true situation, growing rapidly up. Therefore, I am really appreciating the possibility offered by Wikipedia, and I will do my best to correctly implement its conversation rules. I close now by simply stressing that, in the lack of any published uncertainty budget associated to the provided values (the error "bar" to be associated to any published value being a consequence of that budget, not the simple standard deviation of the measured values set), a scientist cannot have any confidence (in statistical meaning) of the fact that the present increase of less of +1 °C in a few decades after 1980 is not affected by a comparable, if not even larger uncertainty, as to its size. There is an IPCC 2018 figure on the "temperature anomaly" (I am not able to add it here) showing various ways of picturing the situation, from running mean, to full set of measurements, to holocene range, all having a different standard deviation and all not implicating an uncertainty budget. In principle, the most recent trend could even merely be a temporal singularity without firm back support and sensible extrapolation ahead, in scientific terms based on the acquired knowledge from the past measured trend. Frpavese (talk) 11:52, 19 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

The standard graph we used to use for detailing global temperature rise does have uncertainty indicated.
Here, the graph is meant to show that the median values of the estimates does not depend on the organisation measuring; i.e. there is no controversy on this topic. Femke (talk) 12:02, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We who? Where is it publicly available? Thanks. Frpavese (talk) 14:09, 19 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]
In measurement science there no type of treatment that can cancel the uncertainty of the original data. Mean is one trivial way, but is concerns only the dispersion of the data value, and, anyway, carries an uncertainty different from zero.

If you are involving the "organisations", you are thus talking of consensus values, as in fact IPCC is stating in his Report on uncertainty (ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter2). However that position has been discussed in a philosophy of science recent paper, where it is indicated that, so doing, IPCC si relying not on consensus (i.e. an –empirical– decision) but on adhesion (of each single organisation, "political") (sorry, I have to retrieve the paper), a non-scientific practice. In that sense your last statement is scientifically false. The uncertainty budget of each contribution has to be made public, and a weighted mean of them should also be public. Can you indicate me the relevant references? Frpavese (talk) 14:09, 19 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

Those confidence intervals are easily accessible. For instance for HadCRUT, NASA GISS. You could have Googled this yourself. Femke (talk) 14:40, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As someone noted above, are there any WP:RS that indicate that there are problems with the uncertainty in the data? As I found from some other articles, it is not required that WP follow the uncertainty in the source. (That is, often enough an approximation is good enough, even if the WP:RS doesn't use that approximation.) Numerical data is often enough written with an appropriate number of digits, and often not with an uncertainty on each one. (Though the latter might be nice.) Or the uncertainties might be indicated in the text, and not in data tables. If there are questions about the data, we should report that. But if not, we don't need to report it. Gah4 (talk) 08:13, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have examined the paper on HadCRAT 5.0, and I found a map that I was unable to find so far, the distribution of the temperature increase on the Earth map.

In particular, Fig. 6 brings a lot of light on the actual situation. I concentrated on the map for the period 2000-2018 and, by using my computer technique described in F.Pavese, “Graphic method for retrieval of quantitative data from computer-mapped qualitative information, with a NASA video as an example”, 2020, ESIN 13, 655-662. I computed the areas where the temperature had increased, in steps of +0.25 °C or higher (from +0 °C up to > +2 °C). I found that, by increasing temperature increase, it becomes almost totally concentrated on the northern emisphere, and increasing toward the North pole, where is more than 2 °C. There is no much increase in the North America except in a small part of California and in South America except in a small part of Brazil. In Eurasia it is only above approximately the latitude of the Mediterranean sea plus north-est Africa. Being the representation squared, the areas indicated above are corrected for the real shape of the eart. In first approximation I considered triangular (so I divided by 2 these areas) the Artic and Antartic regions, so that both these regions play in fact a very small role on the total earth increase. In the NASA graph, in the same period the total mean increase of the earth is reported, being 1980 the baseline, to be about +0.8 °C. From the above analysis a consistent value can be obtained with the HadCRAT map one. However, more important is, in my opinion, the fact that, looking at the HadCRAT map, one perceives the extreme un-homogeneity of the variations, and that the changes are quite mild for most of the surface, so that one does not get the same impression and a reason for the extreme alarm that IPCC is launching by only supplying information about the global mean temperature increase. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frpavese (talkcontribs) 09:18, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you have even billions of data, here produced by temperature sensors (of medium-low quality), of both of the contact or radiation types), sensors originally affected by an uncertainty, all placed in different and distant locations of the Earth, measured in large time spans you will be unable to mitigate or reduce their original uncertainty arising from calibration and measuring system uncertainties. Both the above analyses do not include this initial step.

An uncertainty of ± 0.05 °C today, and of a few tenths of a degree batch to one century, is by far not representing the metrological capabilities and status of the meteological stations, by a factor of not less than 10, in general more. In addition, the local total (not only methodological/computational) uncertainty of such extremely complex kind of analysis is certainly the result of dozens of components, each carrying a non-zero contribution (in this case at 2σ level). This means that, in order to get 0.05 °C as their full combination, most should be at a level lower than 0.01 °C or less, which sounds to be simply impossible to believe and to justify as a mean world surface temperature, a parameter probably the most difficult to evaluate, also because it is local. In order to avoid basing that immense work and this conversation on believe, there are only two metrological tools (mandatory pillars) available in measurement science: (a) thermometer calibration and (b) calibration traceability (worldwide in this case, far from being widely implemented). (a) Only a direct inter-comparison of the calibrated thermometers at one site, can correct off-calibration conditions, so reducing the sensor uncertainty; (b) Traceability worldwide of those calibrations is also mandatory and can mitigate the need for (a) in some circumstances. In addition, all these checks have a finite-time validity. None of the above requirements looks applied to the immense work done by the authors. In conclusion, their paper cannot simply ask the reader to look at a large number of previous publications. In these publications, a Table with the full Uncertainty Budget must be included and commented. The published uncertainty is only credible if considered a (minor) component of the effective total uncertainty of the results, and thus is not suitable for information diffused toward non-technical audiences, like the social and political are. I am surprised by the fact that NIST was apparently not involved. Such lack makes other scientist to think that they can consistently make extrapolations in time of the past trend(s), while the true uncertainty would quite clearly make clear the high level of risk about the confidence that can be attached to those extrapolations. I think I should add to the title of this Talk: ". Uncertainty budget.", just to eliminate some misunderstandings that occurred so far in the conversation. References to what an uncertainty budget is and how it looks like can be found by reading any Final Report of a Comparison of temperature sensors collected in the BIPM website at: https://www.bipm.org/kcdb/comparison/quick-search?keywords=thermometry&displayResults=true . The rules for primary thermometers apply also to “industrial” thermometers, simply for larger uncertainty levels.Frpavese (talk) 09:54, 21 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

The whole subject of statistical treatment of experimental data is too big for one talk page, but many books have been written about it. I suspect climate researchers have read some of them. But yes, you can compute the mean from values with large uncertainty and get a result with a small uncertainty. One does have to be careful to avoid systematic errors, and sometimes it does take a lot of data. In any case, it is not required to, and WP:OR mostly disallows us from, studying the uncertainties in the data. We do report on what WP:RS say about the data, and about its uncertainties. Gah4 (talk) 14:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This comment seems to suggest that this Talk does not match the intended Wikipedia subject matters. In particular its reference to WP:RS and WP:OR looks to me biased. Are defined Reliable Studies the ones that support the present NASA position, and with OR “new studies”? New studies ??? There is long since an International Organization specific for meteorology, and there has been in the last decade a couple of European Projects on Metrology in Meteorology also involving worldwide that Organization. Frpavese (talk) 08:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]
Please read and try to understand Wikipedia:Core content policies: reliable sources are required for Wikipedia:Verifiability, points must be published as required by Wikipedia:No original research, and questions of bias are dealt with in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy, including wp:WEIGHT – "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views." For questions about the reliability of particular sources, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. . . dave souza, talk 10:23, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The uncertainty issue does not only involve certain branches of statistics, in particular thus presently mostly used, but also the metrological branch of measurement science, that is also and unavoidably methodological. My point is prevalently methodological, and saying that the relevant studies are OR only means ignoring one century of specific studies, bringing to international procedures that sound measurement, and their numerical results, must follow to be considered acceptable. Omitting the metrological step from evaluation of the results means funding the conclusions on sand, especially for a worldwide study, where one cannot assume that all (or most) of the data are collected and based on the correct procedures. The need of calibration and international traceability is not disputable, and ignorance of any sector of experimental science about these foundations cannot be admitted, especially for results of social importance, like medicine and ambient. One of the resulting need is the obligation to inform about uncertainty, by also publishing a summary Uncertainty Budget for allowing the Community to understand the reliability of the data and the level of confidence, not only in strict statistical sense, that can be associated to them. That budget must include the first step, the initial uncertainty of the collected data, and then the additional uncertainties that arise from any manipulation of them (the mean of different sorts being only an example). Obviously, there is a big difference, for the final level of confidence, of a result e.g., (+1 ± 0.05) or (+1 ± 0.8).Frpavese (talk) 08:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

See WP:TALKPOV which advises that talk pages are not a place for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue. They are a place to discuss how the points of view of reliable sources should be included in the article, so that the end result is neutral. The best way to present a case is to find properly referenced material. Concise proposals with references are needed, and to be on-topic for this article the sources must specifically discuss "controversy". . . dave souza, talk 10:32, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the placed issue: no personal opinions, only scientific and professional facts to improve Wikipedia supplied information. Wikipedia kindly accepted to open this talk (now) on “Uncertainty bars and uncertainty bands: Uncertainty budget”, a subject matter, related to the controversy, that is not important only to me as its Editor, but that has a basic influence in the understanding of the degree of completeness of Wikipedia about “global warming”, in the equilibrate way that is typical of Wikipedia (incidentally a reason why I appreciate it). As far as I know, another great point in favour of Wikipedia is just about asking suggestions for making its contents more accurate and non-partisan, a very difficult job on many issues. Global warning is one of these.Frpavese (talk) 15:04, 23 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

As a scientist, I learned since many years that one must of science is having discussions confronting different opinions, without one position systematically labeling another position, e.g. “denialist bullshit. --Hob Gadling”. My impression is that, unfortunately, something similar fact risks to happen in this discussion, where “consensus” on IPCC position has been given for granted, and competent papers are apparently considered only those supporting a single position. I can bring here a few quick examples (among many) of the fact that some criticim I rised on the present information supplied by Wikipedia are also considered in papers that I consider scientific and competent: –Value management and model pluralism in climate science, Julie Jebeile, Michel Crucifix, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 88 (2021) 120–127: “we believe that including diverse views can make estimates of uncertainty more reliable by taking into account sources of uncertainty related to geographical and other representational shortcomings overlooked in previous models” –Uncertainty and Decision Making in Climate change economics, Geoffrey Heal and Antony Millnery http://reep.oxfordjournals.org/ at Columbia University Libraries on July 9, 20: ““uncertainty” (unknown probabilities) rather than “risk” (known probabilities)”” –Non-additive probability, Damjan ˇSkulj, 20021 Wordcat Identities /oclc/444083262, Meeting of Young Statisticians (6: 2001, Ossiach, Proceedings Str. 98-112): “The difference between risk and uncertainty is that risk is related to decisions made with known probabilities of events, while uncertainty relates to decisions with unknown probabilities”. I do not include any paper of Dr. Roy Spencer since I am supposing that they are considered “rubbish” here. About the obligation to include an Uncertainty Budget in Final Reports (and possible subsequent publications) there is consensus in measurement science and specifically in metrology (I have already supplied the BIPM reference). About the standard deviation not being sufficient to validate the state-of-the-art in critical conclusions there is scientific consensus that does not need a specific reference. About the possible human effect, I did not express any partial position: it may arise only after the actual total uncertainty of the evaluations is ascertained, correctly attributed and published. About using World maps (like done by HadCRAT), instead of stating a single worldwide value of the annual increase (like done by IPCC), is certainty highly desirable to clarify the controversy, because it adds a lot more critical information, useful not only to the scientists. That would be a benefit for Wikipedia.Frpavese (talk) 15:04, 23 February 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

See wp:TALK – this page is for specific well-sourced proposals for article improvement, directed to the article topic. You're waffling, and tending to WP:WALLOFTEXT looking increasingly like disruptive editing which will get stopped. Unless you can propose suitable concise improvements, it will be time to hat this section and end the offtopic discussion. . . . dave souza, talk 22:16, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Following the fair suggestion of Dave Souza I spend several hours in the days to rpepare a draft of an addition that I would like to suggest to the present text of "Climate change controversy". Before trying to submitting it to Wikipedia (incidentally I did not understand how to do that), I reporting it below (without the references because is already possibly too long. In that case please tell me which other way I could use. It has a header indicating the suggesnted position in the Wikipedia term.

"Climate change controversy 2.6 Analysis of temperature records 2.6.1 Instrumental record of surface temperature

Needs be preceeded by: 2.6.0 NEW "Data uncertainty budget" (not concerning model uncertainty, which could deserve a separate item; not for Measurement Uncertainty)

Meteorological temperature records consist of numerical values of temperature (local, of air, at Earth surface) Tlas, measured with thermometers at the meteorological stations round the World. The values are strictly local as any measured T value is, so requiring additional local assumptions to form a regional map. They are measurement of the air temperature at a certain level above ground, requiring standardized methods taking into account other factors, e.g., radiation, wind effects, introducing corrections in the uncertain measured value. That substantially brings, accordingly, to a consensus value. WMO international standardized rules exist [1, 2] for these types of measurement and their uncertainty computation. They are conforming the general methods used in measurement science and specifically in those concerning metrological good practice, [3–9] but they are not yet implemented uniformly and with the same conformity round the world, as it would be strictly necessary in this case. In science, the measurements are based on two basic principles originating from the metrological frame of measurement science: (a) Calibration of the thermometers; (b) Worldwide traceability of the calibrations. (a) Calibration. It ensures that the measured values pertain, within a specified uncertainty, to a specific and unique scale of measurement, in this case the Celsius scale based on the Celsius unit °C (considering also the kelvin scale and ITS-90 is irrelevant here). The thermometer stability in time is not un-definite, meaning that recalibration is necessary at regular time intervals. (b) Traceability. It means that the measured values can be compared with each other, because it is known that the standards used to calibrate the thermometers are, within a certain uncertainty, realizations of the same temperature unit (so that they are consistent with each other). For the numerical values to be collected in the Earth overall database, conformity to the same standard of the measurement technique and of the apparatus used must be ensured (often the thermometers used today are of the electrical type, e.g. measuring an electrical resistance, but not all, as mercury-in-glass thermometers are still widely used). This fact is introducing additional uncertainty, as is the way to report the local data—e.g., by making means from different thermometers, or measurements at different times when the provided value concerns a full (or part of a) day. Consequently, already the originally supplied data are affected by a (large) number of uncertainty components. Then, their elaboration follows, performed by the central bodies dedicated to obtain the global mean value. By reading their Final Reports summarizing the elaboration, one becomes informed about the procedures adopted (e.g., normalization, interpolation of data when not existing, smoothing, homogenization, introduction of new assumptions, …), normally based on sound statistical procedures, but very rarely numerical information is also provided. Since a decision must eventually be taken to provide a single Earth mean value, the above procedures as assumed to take into account also the risk of false components of the decision, so they are elaborated being based on “known probabilities” [10]. Instead, “uncertainties” are affected by “unknown probabilities”, [10] originally affecting the originally supplied data, not mitigated by the risk evaluation. Actually, these uncertainties are apparently not included in the computation of the final standard deviation eventually quoted as the uncertainty of the supplied Earth mean value— the latter being the only numerical datum included in most final Reports. If so, the provided result looks confounding data consistency with data uncertainty: In fact, consistency can be improved by the above manipulations, but the original uncertainty (plus all the above indicated supplementary uncertainty components) cannot be mitigated, What looks lacking at present is the so-called “Uncertainty Budget” (UB). This is an item that, according to the worldwide metrological definition [11], solely explicitly provides the actual total value (or interval) of the uncertainty, for a given confidence level, to be assigned to the computed final mean temperature value—the only one allowing the users of these data to make their own evaluation on scientific bases. The UB, which internationally is mandatory to be attached to any Report of a metrological exercise (see, in addition to the Wikipedia term UB, also [12, 13]), as the meteorological instrumental records also are, basically consists of a Table, reporting in single lines each measurement component having an uncertainty affecting the results—a numerical estimation arising from the measurement procedure. In the present case, the first line is the uncertainty attributed to the value assigned by each meteorological Station. The overall uncertainty is then computed by combination in quadrature of the values in all the lines (also according to the classification of the type of uncertainty). The Report due from each measuring Station is used by the Central Bodies as the initial input information from each Station. Then, each manipulation on these data made by the Central Bodies introduces new uncertainty components, so that the final Uncertainty Budget will also contain one line for each overall component of uncertainty arising from one type of manipulation. Then the final uncertainty of the Earth mean temperature value should computed by combination in quadrature of all these component values. [12] The one reported in [14–16], is instead the standard deviation for 95% confidence level of the final one resulting from the final statistical treatment only (e.g., for IPCC at present ± 0.05 °C). A complementary way for numerical evaluations is the use of regional or full-Earth temperature maps, whose visually and analytically consultation is much more informative with respect to the single overall mean value. The temperature distribution on the Earth surface, while possibly bringing to the stated mean value, will also show a distribution and in-homogeneities that are vital to get a firmer evaluation of the evolution with time of the distribution in the map and on the overall mean value (e.g. [15]), especially in view of extrapolation to future time. The resulting confidence about the estimated trend and mean final value of the existing data is decreasing by increasing the uncertainty of the trend and of that value, and is rapidly decreased for extrapolations of the trend to future—progressively more for longer extrapolation time." Frpavese (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2022 (UTC)Franco Pavese[reply]

Please do not post walls of text. Can you say this in 20% of the words, with use of paragraphs? Femke (talk) 17:15, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I know what you mean about walls of text - but (sorry) - the point has been well made several times and I think the 'wall' is a result of someone, knowledgable on the subject, patiently continuing to try to explain something.
I'm no scientist but I'll restate my understanding.
Failure to adequately represent the level of uncertainty in the climate change projections and their related effects means that the article (inadvertently) misrepresents the situation. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 09:31, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here comes a set of questions that fits every such comment on a fringe topic Talk page:
  • How do you know it is the article and not you who misrepresents the situation?
  • Why do you think you know better than the reliable sources the article is based on?
  • Are you familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect?
WP:YWAB has examples for similar Talk page comments. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:08, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of Australia[edit]

I find it remarkable that this article lacks any information about the "climate wars" in Australia. If anything climate change is as politically divisive there as in the United States, meaning this article is also highly relevant to the country. Currently Australia is not mentioned once. There has been plenty written about this. E.g.

Would be great to include this here. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 08:23, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57606398.amp Arcahaeoindris (talk) 08:24, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think in general this article needs to be less focused on a particular country or two and rather try to be more global. It is overly focused on the United States so I have moved some out to climate change in the United States. I've also moved the Australia content to climate change in Australia. EMsmile (talk) 10:17, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some culling and updating (ahead of potential merger)[edit]

Today and yesterday, I did some culling and updating. I moved quite a bit of content to other Wikipedia articles where it fitted better, like public opinion on climate change. Also, I think we should not double up with content that is at scientific consensus on climate change. So I have removed that as well and replaced it with an excerpt. More culling and condensing needs to take place. See also merger discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:History_of_climate_change_policy_and_politics#Merge_Global_warming_controversy_into_here? EMsmile (talk) 10:20, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Moving the section "Political pressure on scientists" to elsewhere[edit]

I think the section on "Political pressure on scientists" is somewhat interesting but doesn't fit in this article as it's not really a "controversy", just a description of what happened and more related to denial tactics. I am pondering if I should move it to an article that is U.S. specific like climate change in the United States or Climate change policy of the United States. Of should it be moved to climate change denial? Or history of climate change science or History of climate change policy and politics. Thoughts? EMsmile (talk) 09:28, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Except that History of climate change policy and politics has a very unclear scope itself and should probably be scrapped (my opinion). See talk page there. But I guess for now I could "park" that content there... In any case, it doesn't fit here. But on second thoughts isn't this content very specific to the U.S. and could therefore fit in a U.S.-specific article? EMsmile (talk) 21:30, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The content is not related to the US per se; location isn't the issue. Scientists, and pressure on scientists, are worldwide phenomena, not local. Political pressure, as relates to denialism etc. is the issue. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well to start with, the section title is "Actions under the Bush Administration in the United States". Secondly, all the examples given relate to scientists in the U.S. Granted, the same could happen elsewhere but it is not described here. To me, this is another example of Wikipedia being Global North centric, assuming that whatever happens in the US is automatically relevant globally, rather than looking for and including actual examples from outside of the U.S. For that reason, I think it could fit at climate change in the United States more so than at History of climate change policy and politics. But probably not worth spending too much time on. I'll park it at History of climate change policy and politics for now then. EMsmile (talk) 22:01, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The subsection is titled re Bush Admin, whose main fault is that it is long-winded for old events. More pertinently, see WP:RELEVANCE which describes connections between topics A and B and C etc. Here, the topics are:
CCinUS — ScientificConsensus — PressureOnScientists
The true issue in this content is the pressure, not the location (US) of the pressure, and especially not climate change in one location. If you object to editors having predominantly found content re the US, the solution is to add content from other countries, not to presume it only pertains to the US and relegating it to "CCintheUS" article. Obviously (source1, source2), it's not just a US phenomenon. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Explanation for removal of graphs[edit]

Hi User:Yopienso: I see you objected to me having removed some graphs from the "scientific consensus" section. The reason is that I am condensing this article back down to its core content: it should talk about any real or imagined controversies. It does not need to repeat the actual scientific consensus as that is in the other article. But I have now included two graphs via the excerpt function from scientific consensus on climate change. I think that is a good compromise. They are more up to date than the one that you had re-instated, and which I have now taken out again. I plan to also rework the section about "instrumental temperature record" and remove the graph that is currently there. Again, this could be replaced by an excerpt. Overall, I think this article could work if it's refocused and renamed to climate change debates, like I suggested above. Or fully merged into climate change denial, see also above. EMsmile (talk) 10:04, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks for your politeness and care. With Thanksgiving in 4 days and moving cross-continent next week, I'm bowing out. Shouldn't have butted in. All the best, YoPienso (talk) 15:28, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Possible way forward[edit]

There is now another merger discussion to merge this article into climate change denial, see here: Talk:Climate change denial#Merge global warming controversy into here?. An alternative option could be to rework this article to become one that just lists past and ongoing debates (calling it purposefully debates not controversies). It could then be renamed "climate change debates" and contain quite a few excerpts. It could be a bit like a landing page to point people to the right sub-pages. A bit similar to climate change action (but longer). Thoughts? EMsmile (talk) 16:30, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am still trying to reach consensus for the way forward. My move proposal below was closed and the result was "not moved". I copy below what RCraig09 wrote on the talk page at: Talk:Climate change denial#Merge global warming controversy into here?. Is that the broad consensus? EMsmile (talk) 09:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above arguments that are on-point, favor dismantling the GWControversy article. The issue is that a "controversy" doesn't really exist, so the arguments that don't directly address this issue should not carry weight for consensus. The GWControversy article should be merged out of existence and replaced with a redirect to CCdenial. A fraction of what's still in the GWControversy article might be moved... somewhere, not necessarily here. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've now moved all content out and have begun to convert the article to a list type article. I think this might work. It's basically just a landing page to show people where they can look for more detail. Does that work for everyone? EMsmile (talk) 10:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 22 November 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Edward-Woodrow (talk) 21:49, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Global warming controversyClimate change debates – I have recently reworked this article to become one that just lists past and ongoing debates (calling it purposefully debates not controversies). I propose to rename it to "climate change debates". It could contain quite a few excerpts and be a bit like a landing page to point people to the right sub-pages. A bit similar to climate change action (but longer). - We also discussed merging it into climate change denial and a few editors have supported this but I think some of its content is not about denial per se but just about past discussions. One of the Wikipedians said "Global warming controversy should be eliminated as "controversy" is a fabrication of deniers.". At a later stage, some of its content could also be moved to history of climate change science. EMsmile (talk) 18:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose with every atom of my being: The concept of "Climate change debates" is not substantively different from "Climate change controversy". Both are a fabrication of denialists undeserving of a Wikipedia article, and should be redirected to Climate change denial. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I too supported the proposal to merge to climate change denial, but as you know it has not acheived consensus. So if this proposal is also rejected I think you should make a formal proposal as it seems none of us are happy with the current situation. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose: as far as I can tell, all of the "X debate" sections on this page now are almost entirely fabricated debates that are just denialist smoke blowing. These aren't debates in the scientific literature, and calling them "debates" adds credence to them that they don't deserve. - Parejkoj (talk) 21:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perfectly stated. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:36, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think your view is too simplistic here: As far as I can see there were some valid discussions around various aspects of climate change science and policies. They were often hijacked very quickly by climate change deniers but they were originally valid discussions at the time. For example, the section "Discussions around locations of temperature measurement stations" and "Debates over most effective response to warming". Those debates about mitigation options are now mostly explained in Economic analysis of climate change but they were and are legitimate discussions and not just "climate change denial stuff". Also, the "Antarctica cooling controversy" started off by a discussion amongst scientists; yes, it got hijacked and distorted by denialists. But originally it was simply a scientific investigation which is worth remembering (OK, another approach would be to move that to history of climate change science). - In any case, it feels to me a bit like you are saying any "discussions" around climate change equate to denialism.
See also related discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change_denial#Merge_global_warming_controversy_into_here? Let me ping in two more people, User:KimDabelsteinPetersen and User:Mary Mark Ockerbloom who had commented there. Kim D. Petersen had written there which I thought was interesting: "While denial and conspiracies is a subset of the whole, the controversy also encompasses the political and economic struggle to figure out how to translate the very real problem into action (or inaction). If anything denial and conspiracies stem/arise from the controversy not the other way around." (I had replied there but got no further replies from them) EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Although it is not a good title it is better than the one we have now. Supporting this move does not stop anyone editing the article further or proposing another move next year. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:45, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, to think of this as an incremental improvement but not necessary the "final" situation. I think my proposed title (and scope) would certainly be better than the existing status quo. Merging all of it into other articles may or may not work, time will tell (I don't think all of it would fit at climate change denial; also, that article is already way too big and needs to be condensed).
Looking at the edit history of this article you can see that it's been in existence since 2002 (21 years!). Most of its content was added in 2007. After that it was slowly growing in size until I came along and slashed it down a lot recently. So deleting this article completely might not be warranted. For now, I think it would be a good compromise to re-focus it (like I have done) and to give it a more neutral name. That is what I am proposing at this stage. EMsmile (talk) 08:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I see no reason to doubt that an average reader, who infamously rarely even makes it past the lead, would approach any article with the proposed title exactly as we all fear - as the reason to debate the existence of climate change - rather than as a debate about the higher-level aspects which the supporters of the move want them to see. In that sense, the move would be massively unhelpful.
The main issue is that the current article is very loosely scoped, as a range of arguments about very different things, and of highly variable validity, are all crammed into a single article. In some ways, it reminds me of effects of climate change on terrestrial animals (now a redirect): that used to have anything and everything from impact on domestic cattle to wild bats and birds, to snails going extinct to the spread of pest insects and pathogens - all because "terrestrial animals" is an inherently loose formulation that covers far too many species which often have very little in common, and me and EMsmile had to spent weeks on moving the content to more appropriately focused articles.
This is what I currently make of the article's subsections:
  • "Debates around the...Authority of the IPCC" - massive issues with WP:UNDUE, and not in one, but in two ways. Firstly, it gives undue weight to the perspective of deniers and delayers, based on statements from 2000s, which overlooks that a larger and more recent "debate" has been from the other side of the spectrum - the various figures who have accused the IPCC of being too timid and optimistic about the impacts of climate change, with varying credibility. Secondly, even including "both sides" in even proportion would still be WP:UNDUE - if you take a look at scientific consensus on climate change, there have been surveys of hundreds of climate scientists which altogether represent a resounding endorsement of the IPCC. On balance, it seems like we should cover these matters on the IPCC article itself and on one of the "history of climate change" articles (themselves clearly far from ideal.)
  • "Emphasizing studies that are regarded as flawed" - the way this is written, I do not see why this does not belong in climate change denial. It clearly has no role in any article about good-faith debate on any aspect of the matter.
  • "Funding for scientists who are skeptics or deniers" - This also seems rather out of place for an article which is supposedly intended to examine higher-order aspects of the matter?
  • "Debates around details in the science" - for me, the most charitable reading is that this could be used as a basis for something like Uncertainty in climate change science. However, a lot more material would have to be combined (some more from the "delayer" side, like the iris hypothesis, but the majority from the "alarmist" side - i.e. the debates around climate sensitivity or the thresholds of various tipping points) to justify the existence of something like this than what is currently present in that section (Interestingly, it seems like this article did mention some of those things earlier, albeit not in the ideal way, before EMsmile culled all of that.) Everything that is left here now can be reworked to fit History of climate change science: right now, that article effectively tapers off after 1988, with mere two paragraphs describing "Increased consensus amongst scientists: 1988 to present". That article is still mid-sized (34 kB, ~5.5k words), and it can certainly fit a few more paragraphs describing how some figures tried to use these supposed discrepancies to oppose the consensus, and how the science had moved past that.
  • "Debates over most effective response to warming" - the article's defenders suggest that this should be the crux of the article, but right now, it's mostly just an excerpt and there's almost nothing relevant there. At the risk of excessive self-promotion: at the start of the year, I proposed to create an article titled "Secondary impacts of climate change responses", which would describe how climate change mitigation and adaptation can have additional benefits if done right (incorporating Start-class Co-benefits of climate change mitigation in the process) and how they can have negative impacts, and how to balance those issues. You can see a very rough draft of this proposal on my userpage here.
TLDR; I strongly oppose the new name of this article, and I believe that its remaining material doesn't belong under the same roof and should be moved to other articles, whether existing or newly formed. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:19, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you have time to rework it in that way, I wouldn't stand in your way. I just wanted to make sure that the current status quo does not persists any longer. I think a basic name change for now is better than nothing but I do agree that the article has many flaws in its current format (and that it's loosely scoped). Do you have time to move any content that is worth keeping to either climate change denial or History of climate change science in the near-ish future? If yes, go ahead would be my suggestion. EMsmile (talk) 15:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have done your good suggestion and moved subsection →Emphasizing studies that are regarded as flawed - thanks Chidgk1 (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose "Debates" can be seen as WP:FALSEBALANCE, since the general scientific consensus is that global warming/climate change itself is not a matter of debate. I think this article should be merged into climate change denial, as when you remove the FALSEBALANCE aspects of it, it's pretty much the same thing. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ () 08:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes if you can persuade the people opposing Talk:Climate change denial#Merge global warming controversy into here? that would be wonderful Chidgk1 (talk) 14:33, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I pretty much reiterated there what I also said here, although keep in mind you aren't allowed to directly ask someone to influence a discussion per WP:CANVASS. Bringing it up in a neutral manner is what should have been done. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ () 06:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I agree with those above who have pointed out that both "debates" and "controversy" can be interpreted as supporting the idea that there is a lack of scientific consensus on climate change. I think that some good suggestions have been made for reorganizing and moving materials to other pages, and if that can be done, I see it as preferable to renaming. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 19:51, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - It should be kept as is. 120.28.224.32 (talk) 08:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a vote. You are supposed to give reasons. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I think it's good to move some of the content to other articles where it fits, like I have just done with a segment on climate change mitigation which I have moved to climate change denial. However, I still think there could be merit in having a form of "landing page" which then sends people to the relevant sub-articles on a range of topics. We could easily use excerpts for this. With "landing page" I mean a page (with an appropriate article title, to be decided) which basically says "this is not about disputing the existence of climate change. This is about past and present discussions about some specific aspects in relationship to how climate change pans out, how it happens, how fast, how we can deal with it, how the research is carried out and so forth".
We cannot claim that each of those past debates was the work of climate change deniers: Some of those debates were real and valid, e.g. about the siting of temperature measurement devices. They usually got hijacked in no time by the climate change deniers but that's a different problem. So a landing page that provides an overview of the difficult topics could still be useful in my opinion. Unless we say it's not the job of Wikipedia to provide such a landing page. But isn't climate action also a kind of landing page? Or call it a disambiguation page, or a list article.
Maybe the new title should be Topics of discussion around climate change or Climate change discussion topics or List of discussion topics on climate change. Or maybe this would make it too broad and it wouldn't work at all? EMsmile (talk) 10:56, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note we do have something a bit similar called Index of climate change articles. EMsmile (talk) 10:59, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Discussion topics..." (etc.) is definitely too broad. Index of climate change articles serves a valid purpose more succinctly and neutrally. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:45, 28 November 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.

Correcting the "what links here"[edit]

Many of the incoming wikilinks that can be found from "what links here" ought to be corrected and changed to link to climate change denial or to scientific consensus on climate change in some cases. This is a large, tedious task. If anyone is willing to help please go ahead. I've already corrected some of the redirects. The list of redirects is actually quite interesting, see here (what is a "warmist")?:

The redirect Global warming wager has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 29 § Global warming wager until a consensus is reached. Jalen Folf (talk) 21:53, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect Brownlash has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 30 § Brownlash until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 15:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 8 December 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to List of climate change controversies. Per consensus on the alternative proposed title. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 01:20, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Global warming controversyList of global warming controversies – This article has now been reworked to be a list article. It's basically a landing page to show people where they can look for this kind of content. Most of the previous content has been moved to climate change denial. I think it is important to change it to plural (i.e. controversies, not controversy). My previous proposal to change it to "climate change debates" achieved no consensus. Setting this up as a basic list article is a good compromise solution, I think. EMsmile (talk) 11:16, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - Thanks for all your cleanup work. I think this is in a much better state now, and that rename makes sense. - Parejkoj (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The proposed title is appropriate given that the article is now mainly a list of links to more specific subjects. ╠╣uw [talk] 18:12, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per VQuakr below, List of climate change controversies seems preferable, since it's the form used by all the listed articles. ╠╣uw [talk] 11:14, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But @EMsmile: why not List of climate change controversies? All the listed items seem to be in the form of the latter. VQuakr (talk) 18:39, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I still retain concerns that an article with such a title may be misinterpreted, and that we could see attempts to add denialist talking points into such an article, but I cannot currently think of a better alternative, so I will not formally oppose this.
I should also note if the move happens, as it seems like it will, we would likely need to reintegrate the mention (in the form of links, I suppose) of some of the things which got cut out of this article earlier, such as the iris hypothesis or arguments that the IPCC/mainstream science is too conservative. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we'd have to watch this new list article to ensure it stays as a list and no substantial new content, especially not denialism stuff, (other than links) get added. Regarding the two points that you mentioned they are already included with links in the article:


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.

Request for comment regarding related articles[edit]

I noticed that there are several users who have been quite active in discussions on this talk page, even though I do not usually see them participate in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change. According to WP:CAN, it is perfectly acceptable to request comments on talk pages of related articles, so I would like to do that right now for two articles.

  • Scientific consensus on climate change - a highly related article. I voiced several suggestions on the talk page there two weeks ago, yet nobody had commented on them yet in one way or another.
  • Climate apocalypse - a controversial topic, and there has been a long-running merge discussion there (in addition to some other proposals) which hasn't really gone anywhere. Perhaps input from editors active here could help to resolve the question.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]