Comments on: Sheep Shrinkage: It’s probably cosmic rays.

By: The Blackboard » Global Warming & Shrinkage.

The Blackboard » Global Warming & Shrinkage. — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:23:09 +0000

[...] (15:23) | Uncategorized Written by: lucia Some may recall global warming was reported to cause sheep shrinkage. Today, we have a shrinkage related story from the Canadian Press! Janet Gardner, an Australian [...]

By: M. Simon

M. Simon — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:24:05 +0000

Instead of painting roofs white perhaps vast herds of sheep would do the trick.

By: Andrew_KY

Andrew_KY — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:22:30 +0000

I heard somewhere that “sheeps bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes”… is there any truth to that?

Happy Friday Everyone!

Andrew

By: Julian Flood

Julian Flood — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:04:32 +0000

Lucia,
Normally I find your blog illuminating, but this time I feel you are wide of the mark. Let me explain this slowly. Sheep live outdoors. As the globe warms, more water is evaporated from the oceans. This means that west-facing islands receive more rainfall and are warmer.

Wool shrinks when it gets warm and wet. Sheep are made of wool.

OK? Some people just don’t think things through.

JF
(Actual situation: oil and surfactant spills have altered the nutrient dynamics of the Atlantic. Reduced fecal fall-down has led to light carbon excess in the atmosphere, reduced fertilisation of seaweeds and thus poorer feed values for seaweed-eating sheep. It’s the Kriegesmarine effect. To show that this is real science, unlike that CO2 nonsense, I make a prediction: studies of sheep size during the WWII temperature excursion will find a drop in carcass size from 1940 to ‘46.)

By: John M

John M — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:14:11 +0000

Sheep seem to be pretty fragile beasts. In the 90s, ozone depletion was supposedly causing them to go blind in Chile. I can rembember Sam Donelson huffing and puffing about this as a smoking gun that all of civilization was in peril from ozone depletion. You can still Google the hand-wringing aritcles in the Washington Post and New York Times, although we now know from climate scientists and current science journalists that the historical media is not to be trusted.

Whatever the merits of the real science around ozone depletion, it is interesting how easy it is to find an “effect” when you think you know what you’re looking for.

In this case, the “science” was self-correcting.

http://www.wunderground.com/ed......asp#sheep

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:39:43 +0000

Scooter–
These seem to be wild sheep, which also seem to be actively monitored. I found a paper discussing the effects of people treating some of the sheep for nematodes. I don’t know if people have been more or less active in interfering with the sheep’s lives over the last 50 years.

I am waiting for the paleo studies.

By: Scooter

Scooter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:09:45 +0000

I’m sure too much is unknown.
1. Has it been examined whether someone is breeding sheep to be smaller, perhaps to get more wool from less food?
2. Are their owners different, perhaps due to many city boys retiring to a farm?
3. Is the population of sheep the same, or is prime sheep pasture no longer being used for that purpose?
4. Are sheep being fed differently? British cattle feed was changed several years ago.
5. Have prices for wool or mutton changed? Their care might have been altered depending upon whether they are raised primarily for wool or food.
6. How do observations differ from sheep models?
7. What are the results from sheep coring paleoclimatology studies? Have the results been replicated by independent coring of the same sheep?

By: kuhnkat

kuhnkat — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:07:24 +0000

No No No No,

It is all SOLAR!!!! Just like a skin exposed to the sun or heat in tanning, with the high level of sun output during the latest solar maximum, the sheep skins have SHRUNK stretched out on the SHEEP!!!

It is soooooo obvious!!!!

By: Bill Illis

Bill Illis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:33:58 +0000

Here’s another unbelievable climate change study.

Apparently, climate change is going to impact the habitat of the Sasquatch (no joke).

http://www.nature.com/news/200.....s=news_rss

By: Colin Aldridge

Colin Aldridge — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:33:15 +0000

Further analysis suggests that the smaller sheep are in fact sheep who have had their wool removed as part of a recognised annual solar driven cycle. The “smaller” sheep have new wool which is whiter than the old shaggier coat. Initial results suggest that these two factors cancel each out … Missing this damping factor out of the study was shear ( groan ) incompetence when it is described in the literature as the Constant Ratio Albedo for Sheep Shearing “CRASS”

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:23:26 +0000

Perhaps the strip-bark sheep were not sampled?

By: j ferguson

j ferguson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:23:09 +0000

Global Sheep Mass (GSM) is a constant.

Mass/Sheep-Sheep (MSS) + Mass/Human Sheep (MHS) = 1

The recent increase in HS pursuant to C02 increases is balanced by reduction in Total Mass/Sheep-Sheep TM/SS.

Still looking for HS for peer review.

By: Andrew_KY

Andrew_KY — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:40:16 +0000

I think we can safely conclude that Sheep Shrinkage is probably similar to Human Shrinkage, a la Seinfeld. Cold Water is one of the culprits.

Yes, I went there. And I apologize.

Andrew

By: Don B

Don B — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:32:07 +0000

This is … Baaaad.

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:14:05 +0000

Maybe you're missing the obvious answer because it is so obvious. We're talking about global warming, right? When things get warmer they expand. The sheep are not getting bigger. The island on which they live has expanded so they look smaller. This is physics. It is undisputed.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:57:30 +0000

I fitted a nonlinear trend line using an embedding period of 10,000 years without padding and proved, robustly, that woolly mammoths were, in fact, giant sheep.

I therefore infer that this is a 100% natural progression and that in another 10,000 years sheep will have shrunk to such a size that they will be invisible, even with the aid of our most powerful electron microscopes.

This also is further evidence that leprechauns could be the remains of a very ancient race.

There is no need for fanciful explanations when a simple extrapolation reveals the past and the future. I did contemplate calculating error bands at both ends of the fitted line but decided this might confuse non-experts. Those who understand these things can, of course, consult the standard statistical literature where my method is explained.

Yours R

By: VG

VG — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:27:23 +0000

Wow looks like the IPCC people/scientists are admitting that ALL the climate models are all c##p or BS.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038082.pdf
Also the head of the EPA, Jackson is admitting that US efforts would not do anything so forget the whole thing anyway.. she probably was influenced by Carlins’s report.. she read it and in her privacy had a look at the current graphs and charts on (even IPCC sites) and came to a conclusion (she WUWT). Basically covering their b######ds.. just in case better not follow the AGW blindly anymore. LOL

By: tetris

tetris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:38:18 +0000

This story is an excellent example of the sort of OF [i.e. Ovine Feces or Sheep Shit] that the nematodes at RC feed on … Let’s hope that AGW/ACC makes them smaller too and fast, to the point of vanishing.

By: Mark Fawcett

Mark Fawcett — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:06:39 +0000

Leprechauns? Leprechauns? If any species would be involved in trying to shrink sheep it would be the Nac-Mac-Feegle (probably so they could be used as ‘war-sheep’):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nac_Mac_Feegle.

With everlasting thanks to Mr Pratchett.

Cheers

Mark

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:49:18 +0000

Well it doesnt seem to affect our sheep in NZ http://nemp.otago.ac.nz/read_s.....%20col.jpg or here http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/im.....rek300.jpg. (:o)