Talk:Greenhouse gas/Archive 6

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Spelling: British or US English?

@Femkemilene, you just reverted an edit I made that changes one isolated instance of "vapour" to US spelling "vapor" which is what the rest of the article uses (20+ other instances of the word.) Granted, I did not notice the "Use British English" template here on the talkpage, so my bad. But the template also doesn't square with the US spelling "vapor" currently being used in the whole article.

@EMsmile it appears that you were the one who applied {{British English}} template, but there was no discussion held, and the question mark in your edit summary indicates you did it with some uncertainty. That happened at around the same time as this edit, where it can be observed that "vapor" is used throughout the article except in a citation (which left the original "vapour" as-is). So it is far from clear that there is/was a consensus to use UK spelling.

I do not have a preference either way, but how do we go about making things consistent throughout? Both in terms of spelling within the article, and to reflect that in the spelling template applied? Is there a bot or tool that can assist with this?

Cheers, 2406:3003:2077:1E60:C998:20C6:8CCF:5730 (talk) 16:44, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Apologies. The 2021 version was US English, and the first nonstub version too, so that banner should not have been placed. (policy WP:ENGVAR) . Femke (talk) 17:04, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up! 2406:3003:2077:1E60:C998:20C6:8CCF:5730 (talk) 17:20, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. Sorry that I wrongly applied the British template here, I couldn't see a clear preference for either language version at the time, and thus felt British template would be fine going forwards, given that many of the articles that WikiProject Climate Change team members work on are British English. More broadly, we had a discussion about it here at the WikiProject Climate Change talk page which I feel was not 100% resolved but moved to the archive nevertheless. Perhaps we could pull it out of the archive and continue? NB I don't have a strong preference either way but I think it's nice to be consistent not just within the article but also for similar articles (if nothing speaks against it as per WP:ENGVAR), e.g. all the articles on "effects of climate change on ..." and "climate change in country X" are currently in British English which I think is good. Whereas the vast majority of the articles that WikiProject Medicine deals with are in American English. EMsmile (talk) 08:39, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

It was a bit of a mix before, so the confusion is understandable. Policy indicates that you should go to the first non-stub version of the article and look at the engvar of that version. I would advise against reviving that discussion, as there seemed to be a rough consensus against change, and I think this is unlikely to change. Femke (talk) 16:11, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I feel that my last suggestion in that thread was left unanswered (unless I should interpret unanswered = disagreed with). This is what I had written here: "But let me ask you something: if a new Wikipedian is setting up a climate change related article for example "Climate change in Mozambique" and they say "which English variant should I use? I don't care which one and I can't make up my mind?". What do you answer? I would say "if you can't make up your mind and honestly don't mind, look at the main article of this WikiProject (climate change) and use the same English variant that that article uses". That would be my guidance. I like consistency and I like to make it easy for new Wikipedians. It would not be a hard and fast rule to follow just a broad guidance if someone is looking for guidance."EMsmile (talk) 10:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd be against giving such guidance, as instruction creep like this decreases the emphasis on important guidance (like sourcing and notability). Femke (talk) 16:11, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, "guidance" is not the same as "instruction". I think guidance is useful for new editors and reduces the workload of experienced editors. Guidance is what we provide here at WikiProject Climate Change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change#Guidelines,_tools_and_advice . But I guess the issue about language versions is always iffy so few people want to put anything down in writing about it, apart from the guidance that is at WP:ENGVAR. Anyway, I guess I'm the only one with this opinion here so I won't push it further. EMsmile (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA22 - Sect 201 - Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 September 2022 and 8 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MichaelNhy (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by MichaelNhy (talk) 01:54, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - SP23 - Sect 201 - Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2023 and 5 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): KristinaAllen (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by KristinaAllen (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion to convert to long ref style

I think it would be better to convert the referencing style to the long ref style (currently some of the refs are in short ref style). Does anyone object? EMsmile (talk) 09:17, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for a new structure

I have just re-arranged the structure a bit. My thinking was that there should be fewer main level headings and that these should be more generic where possible so that readers can easily orientate themselves. With "generic" I mean headings such as: Definition, sources, concentrations, role in XX, etc. Earlier on we had main headings that were difficult for the reader to grasp (e.g. this as a main heading: "Chemical process contributions to radiative forcing" which I don't think is very suitable for a main level heading). This is now the new structure, what do you think?:

Definition
Sources
Role in heat transport and radiative forcing
Role in greenhouse effect
Concentrations in the atmosphere
Removal from the atmosphere
History of scientific research
See also
References

The two section headings "role in..." probably overlap a bit? If I have moved a text block under the wrong section heading, I apologise; I hope I got it mostly right.

For comparison, this was the structure of the article before I started:

Infrared active gases
Constituents of atmosphere
Radiative effects
Chemical process contributions to radiative forcing
Factors affecting concentrations
Contributions to the overall greenhouse effect
Contributions to enhanced greenhouse effect
Concentrations in the atmosphere
Sources
Removal from the atmosphere
History of scientific research
See also
References

Also, I tried to anticipate in which order a reader is looking for information. I am guessing it's in this order: what is a GHG (definition), where do they come from, what role do they play / what is the problem with having too much of them, how much of them is there in the atmosphere, how can they be increased or decreased. EMsmile (talk) 09:24, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

A summary of changes made in the last few months?

Hi User:Rhwentworth and others: could you perhaps provide a quick summary here what the improvements were that you recently made to this article (in the last few months) and the rationale for these changes? I am just trying to understand the editing (as there was nothing on the talk page but quite a bit got changed and improved). Perhaps you could also point out which flaws you were trying to address, and which flaws and shortcomings you still see with the article now. I came to this article as part of this project and am currently doing the baseline quality scoring (our baseline was the July 2022 version). Our scoring system is explained here. I think the current version is already quite a bit better than the 26 July 2022 version which is our baseline. EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I think in some cases, this article should interlink better with other articles, rather than repeat too much of the same/similar content. E.g. with respect to greenhouse effect or carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. There might be scope for using an excerpt in a few cases so that we later don't have to update the same information in two articles. EMsmile (talk) 10:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

IPCC's exclusion of water vapor?

I read at IPCC list of greenhouse gases that water vapor is excluded from the IPCC list of greenhouse gases. I think it would be useful if this is briefly mentioned and explained in this article? EMsmile (talk) 10:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, but not one that humans are directly adding to, so it's not one of the drivers of climate change the IPCC is concerned with. That's why I pulled it out from underneath "Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities". It is a feedback that impacts climate sensitivity in complicated ways (because of clouds mostly). Efbrazil (talk) 22:13, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a very helpful explanation so I have added it to the main article; could be tweaked further and a better ref found but I think it's useful to explain early on why water vapor is a "special" GHG. EMsmile (talk) 07:38, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm not sure I used the most artful explanation, but I'm happy to have it in there. Efbrazil (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Improving caption for the lead image

I had changed the caption for the lead image to this: "Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, trap some of the heat that results when sunlight heats the Earth's surface." This was reverted by you, Efbrazil, with the comment "Removing grammatically incorrect sentence change". What was grammatically incorrect about my sentence? I think it was a useful change and it gave the same three examples that are also shown in the image. EMsmile (talk) 07:26, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Gramatically, you are missing the "and", so text should read "such as carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor".

Second, I don't believe this addition is helpful. It's not relevant to the image, and we already enumerate gases in the first paragraph of the article. Why do we need them enumerated in both the first paragraph and the caption of the first image? Efbrazil (talk) 18:54, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I see in the image there are symbols for those three gases. I don't feel strongly about the deletion- if you want to put the grammatically correct listing of the gases in there that's fine by me. Efbrazil (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just changed the caption again with a suggestion for an improved caption that makes it more tangible for the reader (it's longer than my previous suggestion but better, I think?). Yes, it's also under definition but the lead image is a real eye catcher so I think its caption should be clear and helpful to our readers. EMsmile (talk) 20:54, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Mentioning of other planets in the lead

I had removed the mentioning of other planets in the lead but you (Efbrazil) put it back in with the justification: "I disagree with removing mention of the greenhouse effect on other planets in the lead. It is an important point that this is not just a phenomena on Earth, and further it makes it clear the issue is one of physics and not politics". I disagree that it would have to be in the lead (if it's not in the main text of the article) and in particular that it would have to get prime position in the first paragraph. So my compromise suggestion (which I have now implemented) is to have it at the end of the lead and also have it at the end of the main text. The lead should not contain content that is not in the main article. In addition, I think the mentioning of other planets makes more sense at greenhouse effect rather than at greenhouse gas and does not need to be elaborated in both articles. At greenhouse effect there is already a whole section for it: Greenhouse effect#Bodies other than Earth, so let's not duplicate. EMsmile (talk) 07:23, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand why other planets should only be mentioned in the greenhouse effect article and not the greenhouse gas article. The issue is equally relevant in both articles.

Keep in mind that this article would exist even if climate change wasn't happening. Placing greenhouse gases outside the context of climate change makes it clear that this topic is one of basic physics. If we only focus on climate change the article is more likely to be off putting for someone coming from a position of wanting to learn.

I'm not a fan of putting the text at the end of lead, because I think it is important for framing the lead. The framing I'd like to see is: greenhouse gas definition, scope across planets, how they work on Earth, how climate change is altering their makeup. Efbrazil (talk) 19:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I tried to resolve the issue by splitting the first sentence into two- first a defintional sentence, secondly how greenhouse gases cause the greenhouse effect. Doing that makes me more comfortable removing the mention of other planets, because I think it grounds the lead in physics. You raise a good point that the article really doesn't talk much about other planets, and the lead should be a synopsis of it. Efbrazil (talk) 20:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I like your new solution. Seems perfect for the lead. Do you think the section in the main text about other planets needs beefing up or is it enough like it is now, i.e. one sentence and then refer readers across to Greenhouse effect#Bodies other than Earth?EMsmile (talk) 21:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)