Which RealClimate Satire Is Better – Sheep Albedo Feedback, or Doubts About the Advent of Spring?
Question by Dana1981: Which RealClimate satire is better – sheep albedo feedback, or doubts about the advent of spring?
The sheep albedo feedback April Fools entry from 2007 by Ray Pierrehumbert was a classic:
“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….
However, Dirk Blitzen, noted researcher from Hogwartz Institute of Technology, has proposed an additional wrinkle on the sheep-albedo idea, which he calls the “sheep-Iris effect” (see Dasher et al. [4] for details). According to Blitzen, a reanalysis of Landsat images shows that as the climate gets warmer, sheep tend to huddle together less. Since wool has a lower emissivity than bare ground, the lack of huddling allows more infrared emission to escape from the ground, cooling the planet and stabilizing its climate. “Frankly, I don’t see how the climate can change much at all,” stated Blitzen in recent testimony before the House of Lords, “To be honest, at this point I have a little trouble figuring out how there can even be summer and winter. In the end, I think it will turn out to be a problem with the data.” Ozark Junior College satellite expert Jhon Chrystal agrees; his new analysis of MSU satellite data in fact casts doubt on the “consensus” that summer and winter have different temperatures.
But the sheep story may not be as simple as it seems. Hendreck Svampmark of the Danish Institute for Solar-Sheep Interactions notes that at the same time the number of sheep has been going down, the number of cows (which have a lower albedo than sheep) has been going up. “We believe that what is really behind it all are Galactic Cowsmic Rays, which are transmuting sheep DNA into cow DNA.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-sheep-albedo-feedbacki/
But this year, Stefan Rahmstorf has a really good one too:
“A “consensus view” amongst climate scientists holds that the Northern Hemisphere will be warming this month, as spring is coming. This is thought to be due to the Earth’s orbit around the sun and the inclination of the Earth’s axis, tilting the Northern Hemisphere progressively towards the sun throughout March and April and increasing the amount of solar radiation received at northern latitudes.
In a new novel, State of Euphoria, bestselling author Michael Crikey uncovers major flaws in this theory and warns against false hopes for the arrival of spring.
This is not merely fiction: Crikey underpins his thesis with numerous scientific diagrams. He presents measurements from over a dozen weather stations in the Northern Hemisphere where temperatures show a cooling trend in March. He further cites scientific results which show that in some places, snow and ice have increased in the past weeks, counter to climatologists’ claims that they should be melting away in the spring sun. He further argues that even the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere has not increased steadily; during one week of March, it showed a slight cooling despite the increase in solar radiation…
Crikey’s book was welcomed by many organisations, such as the Science and Environment Propaganda Project (SEPP) and the Frontiers of Fallacy Foundation (FF). In an emotional speech, Senator Outhofe urged his colleagues to take the time for reading the novel. He called seasons a “great hoax” and emphasised that “science is overwhelmingly on the side that, in fact, they are not occurring, and if they are occurring, are not a result of the Earth’s orbit”.
Climate scientists, on the other hand, quickly jumped up to reject Crikey’s claims. “We have a curve called the ‘tennis racket’ which proves seasons are real,” says NASA’s Gavin Schmoot. “It is based on a sophisticated statistical analysis of the isotope composition of sediment in old French wines. In fact, we have many rackets so it is more like a tennis club.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/doubts-about-the-advent-of-spring/
Which April Fools satire do you think is better?
Best answer:
Answer by Jeff M
Summary:
1) Sheep assist in surface albedo because they are white and reflect more of the Suns rays. The disappearance of sheep may contribute to global warming. However the growing number of cows, who are also somewhat white, may work against the disappearing whiteness of sheep.
2) Season are a mass conspiracy because, as we all know, or at least believe, temperature get hotter as we transition between winter and summer. The current growth of sea ice and a few other measured occurrences show strongly that in fact this is not true and seasonal differences in temperature do not exist. Winter and Summer are just a scam by the government to make us pay more taxes.
What do you think? Answer below!