The sheep albedo feedback
From RealClimate (thank you Alastair)
The already-reeling “consensus” supposedly linking climate change to CO2 is about to receive its final coup-de-grace from a remarkable new result announced in a press conference today by Dr. Ewe Noh-Watt of the New Zealand Institute of Veterinary Climatology [1]. Noh-Watt and his co-workers, describing work funded by a generous grant from the Veterinary Climate Science Coalition, declared “We have seen the future of climate — and it is Sheep.”
The hypothesis begins with the simple observation that most sheep are white, and therefore have a higher albedo than the land on which they typically graze (see figure below). This effect is confirmed by the recent Sheep Radiation Budget Experiment. The next step in the chain of logic is to note that the sheep population of New Zealand has plummeted in recent years. The resulting decrease in albedo leads to an increase in absorbed Solar radiation, thus warming the planet. (yes it’s still April 1 in Europe)
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
The solution, of course, is ‘Black Sheep’.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:06 am
This is great. Long live the April 1 tradition!
On a more serious note, I heard that there has been a breakthrough in wool technology, enabling much finer woollen yarn/thread and possibly use of wool instead of cotton in some products. Would this be more or less sustainable?
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 am
Are you sure that wasn’t a press statement from Augie Auer?
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
Augie Auer talks a lot of sense, what a pity those behind the climate change con do not do the same.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
hmm … silence people who disagree with you? … yes that is very sensible.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10432312
Augie has called for NIWA to be disbanded because they make statements supportive of AGW in the press. That’s such an over-reation, and completely non-sensical because of all the other valuable research work that NIWA do.
hmm … trash all the research and consulting services on water resources, aquatic biodiversity and biosecurity, fisheries and aquaculture, natural hazards and coasts and oceans, just because you disagree with the public announcements on a single subject? how mature of Augie.
I sure am glad that Augie is not the benevolent dictator of NZ - I wonder what else he would close down if they disagreed with him?