Investigating Climate Change Using Wikipedia

Anthropogenic climate change is arguably one of the most controversial and heated topics of our time. This project investigates a corpus of Wikipedia pages surrounding climate change and interesting observations drawn from this data. The selection of pages was methodical - starting with a collection of the 'major' climate change topic pages including "Climate Change," "Global Warming," and "Environmental Degradation." The next page selections were refined to the processes of global warming and temperature records, including "Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Atmosphere, "Greenhouse Gas," and "Global Temperature Record." Following included a larger selection of the accelerating negative effects of climate change, including pages "Coral Bleaching," "Holocene Extinction," and "Artic Sea Ice Decline." The last selection of pages included current reports and agreements on climate change - trying to encompass past and present policy. These included pages such as "Paris Agreement," "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," and "United Nations Environment Programme."

Climate change is an interesting topic to study over time due to its public controversy and subsequent deniers of the phenomenon. Although scientists have been warning about climate change for years, only recently has it been widely accepted as true that humans are the cause of this global warming. This shift in global warming ideology can be observed across multiple of the corpus pages. For example, this can be observed on the "Global Warming" page by investigating the language used over time on the page. In the first paragraph of the page in 2002 the concept of global warming is described as a "hypothesis," indicating it is a proposed idea that is not necessarily true. Digging deeper, the original "Global Warming" page from 2001 states "Whether this increase [in temperature] is significant or not is subject to debate" and that "Natural and anthropogenic (man-made) causes were proposed to explain the phenomenon." The general consensus on global warming and its causes dramatically shifts in the most recent Wikipedia pages. The 2018 page on "Global Warming" states "Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming. Many of the observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented" and acknowledges "the dominant role of human activity in causing it." This shift over time to the acceptance that humans are the main cause behind climate change is clearly presented here. While many argue this acknowledgement is too late, it is nevertheless crucial because it then leads to a responsibility for humans to create policies and mitigate the impacts of climate change for our environment.

Another interesting topic to investigate is the impacts of climate change over time. Not only are these trends intensely studied in the scientific community, but their accumulating and in most cases worsening effects can also be observed on Wikipedia. For example, in 2007 the "Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Atmosphere" page stated that "Carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is present in a low concentration." This is startling, because although climate science is a relatively new phenomenon in the past 20 years, an overabundance of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere has been occurring for centuries. This could be an indicator that the scientific data had not been publically accepted or was being neglected, not that it didn't exist. By 2013, the Wikipedia page had changed drastically, instead stating "The concentration has increased markedly in the 21st century" and further going on to describe the current parts-per million in the atmosphere (about 390ppm in 2016 and now over 410ppm in 2018) and how this rapid increase is largely attributed to anthropogenic sources. Another observation over time is the creation of a section for anthropogenic global warming on the page after 2013. These observations and conclusions, however, contrast pages for topics such as "Ocean Acidification," where in 2005 the page contributed the effect to anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide. This can show how climate data was not yet clear and concise in the way it was distributed to the public. Now, the most recent IPCC reports are published online so the public has access to the same most recent scientific climate data that policy makers are using.

Additionally, one can further observe the changing climate and impact statistics throughout the years when looking at the different Wikipedia pages. For example, the 2012 "Crtically Endangered" species page listed 2,129 animals and 1,821 plants with this assessment. By just 2014, the page had been updated to 2,464 animal and 2,104 plant species listed. These species are listed and can be found on the IUCN Red List. This increase of critically endangered species is just one example of the dramatic impacts climate change is having in only a short period of time.

Another example, the "Glacier Mass Balance" page reported a mean cumulative mass loss of glaciers as -11m on the 2008 page. By 2018, the page reported a mean cumulative mass loss of glaciers at -16m. Wikipedia reports this data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service - responsible for compiling and disseminating standardized data on international glacier fluctuations. This trend can also be observed on the "Retreat of Glaciers since 1850" page, where one can investigate how much further the glaciers have retreated since the creation of the first page in 2006. Even more interesting, is how the pictures of glacial retreat have changed on the page. For example, where in 2006 the photo of Grinnell glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park was used on the left, the photo on the right on the 2018 page shows the entire bottom section of the glacier broken apart:

This is a sad realization where one can see the predictions of glacial melt from 2006 become a reality over time on the newer Wikipedia page.

Some of the most interesting pages to investigate over time are the international policies and agreements concerning climate change. For example, in 2015, the "Paris Agreement" was described on the Wikipedia page as a "historic turning point in the goal of reducing global warming." This was the first agreement to include all 195 UNFCCC participating member states and the European Union with the same goal to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to reduce the impacts and risks of climate change. Having one of the highest eigenvalues for centrality compared to the other pages, this could be a direct result of its importance as a policy. By 2018, the main focus of the Wikipedia page shifts to the pulling out of one of the world's top carbon emitters and consumers, the United States. This change is apparent on the page since 2017, when president Donald Trump announced the withdrawal - even the top words on the page include "withdrawal" since that year on. While there have been many criticisms of the Paris Agreement, many critique Trump's administration for withdrawing from the first and only international commitment towards combatting climate change. A further line of investigation could include observing how all the U.S. government-run environmental organization Wikipedia pages have changed since the Trump administration came into office.

Overall, these observations and further investigations show how Wikipedia data can be a useful resource. These trends help us understand the availability of climate science to the public and important changes over time. Hopefully, these observations about the immediacy and acceleration of global warming impacts can be a wake-up call for some to act.