Another Look at Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"

[Jack Hays]

It is worthwhile every now and then to revisit a classic. Such is Michael Crichton's State of Fear. Along with Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist, it pointed the way toward today's climate skepticism and resistance to AGW propaganda.


Another Look at Michael Crichton’s ‘State of Fear’ – Part 1

SUBTITLE: Nobody Knows How Much of the Global Surface Warming from 1861 to 2005 Is Human-induced or Naturally Occurring. Climate Scientists Are Only Guessing. And Their Guesses Are Based on How They Program Their Computer Models to Meet the Expectations and Political Agendas of the Politicians Providing the Funding for the Computer-Modeling Efforts
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[FONT=&quot]INTRODUCTION[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It had been more than a decade since I first read Michael Crichton’s 2004 novel State of Fear. I purchased an e-book edition recently, and I’ve just finished reading it. I enjoyed State of Fear thoroughly the second time around. Now, though, with my much more-detailed understanding of the subject and the global politics behind it, it was interesting to see Michael Crichton arguing points in 2004 that heretics of the religion of human-induced global warming/climate change are still arguing today, 14 years later. I took a few notes, too, this time, when I found something interesting.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]State of Fear is described at the HarperCollins Publisher webpage as (my boldface):[/FONT]

New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton delivers another action-packed techo-thriller in State of Fear.
When a group of eco-terrorists engage in a global conspiracy to generate weather-related natural disasters, its up to environmental lawyer Peter Evans and his team to uncover the subterfuge.
From Tokyo to Los Angeles, from Antarctica to the Solomon Islands, Michael Crichton mixes cutting edge science and action-packed adventure, leading readers on an edge-of-your-seat ride while offering up a thought-provoking commentary on the issue of global warming. A deftly-crafted novel, in true Crichton style, State of Fear is an exciting, stunning tale that not only entertains and educates, but will make you think.
​

[FONT=&quot]Apparently eco-fearmongers didn’t want to be entertained, or educated, or made to think…or want anyone else to be entertained, or educated, or made to think. Examples:[/FONT]

• Union of Concerned Scientists here
• Weather Underground here
• The New York Times here
• The Guardian here
• RealClimate here (Yes, Gavin Schmidt added his 2 cents. Oy vey. Didn’t you have something better to do with your time, Gav?)

[FONT=&quot]Now for the meat of this post:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]CLIMATE MODEL HINDCASTS HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF GLOBAL SURFACE WARMING RATES FROM 1861 TO 2005, INDICATING THE CLIMATE SCIENCE COMMUNITY STILL HAS NO IDEA WHAT CAUSED GLOBAL SURFACES TO WARM DURING THAT PERIOD . . . .[/FONT]

 

[DaveFagan]

Actually Jack, they know mathmatically exactly what caused during the period 1861 to 2005. Like I have told you repeatedly. If you live in the atmosphere inside a house and you don't turn the heat dwon, the house gets hotter. Burn those heaters; natural gas, coal, oil, bio, nuclear, etc. and allow all that heat to migrate from within the Earth into the atmosphere and it will get hotter. No mumbo-jumbo. Real World simplicity.
/

 

[Jack Hays]

Actually Jack, they know mathmatically exactly what caused during the period 1861 to 2005. Like I have told you repeatedly. If you live in the atmosphere inside a house and you don't turn the heat dwon, the house gets hotter. Burn those heaters; natural gas, coal, oil, bio, nuclear, etc. and allow all that heat to migrate from within the Earth into the atmosphere and it will get hotter. No mumbo-jumbo. Real World simplicity.
/

In other words, based on the climate modelers’ hindcast simulations of global warming, the human-induced portion of global warming from 1861 to 2005 might be as low as 0.01 deg C/decade or as high as 0.82 deg C/decade. And that leaves a wide range of natural variability to explain the differences in the warming rates between the models and observations-based data.

 

[Threegoofs]

In other words, based on the climate modelers’ hindcast simulations of global warming, the human-induced portion of global warming from 1861 to 2005 might be as low as 0.01 deg C/decade or as high as 0.82 deg C/decade. And that leaves a wide range of natural variability to explain the differences in the warming rates between the models and observations-based data.

Bob Tisdale and Michael Crichton- both fiction writers that you imagine are science writers.

 

[DaveFagan]

There are no "in other words." If you leave the heat on it gets hotter. That is what you must address.
/

 

[Jack Hays]

There are no "in other words." If you leave the heat on it gets hotter. That is what you must address.
/

True and irrelevant. The question is about the origin of the heat.

 

[Jack Hays]

Bob Tisdale and Michael Crichton- both fiction writers that you imagine are science writers.

Another content-free post.

 

[<alt>doxygen]

True and irrelevant. The question is about the origin of the heat.

Okay, I'll bite. What do the skeptics believe is the origin of the heat. Obviously they believe fossil fuels are not a significant factor (or not a factor at all).

 

[Jack Hays]

Okay, I'll bite. What do the skeptics believe is the origin of the heat. Obviously they believe fossil fuels are not a significant factor (or not a factor at all).

I speak only for myself and not for "the skeptics" as a group. I see merit in the hypothesis advanced most prominently by Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv: temperature has been driven by a combination of solar influence and the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux.

 

[<alt>doxygen]

I speak only for myself and not for "the skeptics" as a group. I see merit in the hypothesis advanced most prominently by Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv: temperature has been driven by a combination of solar influence and the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux.

I'm skeptical of the solar angle because of the stratosphere / troposphere differential, but that's just me. This isn't really a topic I enjoy debating.

 

[Jack Hays]

I'm skeptical of the solar angle because of the stratosphere / troposphere differential, but that's just me. This isn't really a topic I enjoy debating.

Fair enough. I'll provide a few links and you can look at them (or not) at your leisure.

 

[Jack Hays]

I'm skeptical of the solar angle because of the stratosphere / troposphere differential, but that's just me. This isn't really a topic I enjoy debating.

[h=3]Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges | Astronomy & Geophysics ...[/h]
[url]https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/48/1/1.18/220765
[/URL]
by H Svensmark - ‎2007 - ‎Cited by 307 - ‎Related articles
Feb 1, 2007 - Data on cloud cover from satellites, compared with counts of galactic cosmic rays from a ground station, suggested that an increase in cosmic ...

 

[Jack Hays]

I'm skeptical of the solar angle because of the stratosphere / troposphere differential, but that's just me. This isn't really a topic I enjoy debating.

20TH CENTURY GLOBAL WARMING - "THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN" - PART I

... at all whether hurricane activity should in fact increase under warmer conditions (Note that under a warmer Earth, hurricane activity ... glaciers: Recent areal extent from satellite data and newinterpretation of observed 20 th century retreat rates”, Geophys. Res. ...

• 20TH CENTURY GLOBAL WARMING - "THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN" - PART II
  
  ... Herschel looked for indirect proxies. He compared the price of wheat in the London wheat exchange to the solar activity as ... rings. It is a proxy of solar activity since a more active sun has a stronger solar wind which reduces the flux of cosmic rays reaching ...
  shaviv - 12/03/2015 - 00:12
• 20TH CENTURY GLOBAL WARMING - "THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN" - PART III
  
  ... is that of liquid water. However, if the water vapor has nothing to condense upon, it will not do so. In fact, under very clean ... is reduced. Less ions reduce the efficiency with which new cloud condensation nuclei can grow, especially over the oceans, such that ...

 

[jeffchap]

Okay, I'll bite. What do the skeptics believe is the origin of the heat. Obviously they believe fossil fuels are not a significant factor (or not a factor at all).

Uh, big nuclear furnace in the sky?

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

[<alt>doxygen]

Uh, big nuclear furnace in the sky?

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

Which got progressively hotter as the world's population did a hockey stick from 1 billion to 7 billion. Nice of god to turn up the heat for his peeps.

Never mind. I project the denialists will win out at least during my lifespan. My investments reflect that. Good luck to your grandkids...

 

[<alt>doxygen]

Fair enough. I'll provide a few links and you can look at them (or not) at your leisure.

Thanks - I'll skim them later. Have a mixture of appointments and phone calls most of today.

 

[jeffchap]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

Which got progressively hotter as the world's population did a hockey stick from 1 billion to 7 billion. Nice of god to turn up the heat for his peeps.

Never mind. I project the denialists will win out at least during my lifespan. My investments reflect that. Good luck to your grandkids...

Both hotter and colder over long periods of time (incidentally, just as the Earth's climate has). It's pretty well established fact that our sun is a variable star.

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/05feb_sdo/

You're not one of those science deniers, are you?

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

[Surface Detail]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

Both hotter and colder over long periods of time (incidentally, just as the Earth's climate has). It's pretty well established fact that our sun is a variable star.

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/05feb_sdo/

You're not one of those science deniers, are you?

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

People can and have measured the output of the sun. It appears to bear very little correlation to the temperature of the Earth, especially over recent decades, which means that variations in solar output cannot be the prime cause of recent temperature variations.

 

[Jack Hays]

Thanks - I'll skim them later. Have a mixture of appointments and phone calls most of today.

As I said, at your leisure.

 

[Jack Hays]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

People can and have measured the output of the sun. It appears to bear very little correlation to the temperature of the Earth, especially over recent decades, which means that variations in solar output cannot be the prime cause of recent temperature variations.

[FONT=&quot]Using historic variations in climate and the cosmic ray flux, one can actually [/FONT]quantify empirically[FONT=&quot] the relation between cosmic ray flux variations and global temperature change, and estimate the solar contribution to the 20[/FONT][FONT=&quot]th[/FONT][FONT=&quot] century warming. This contribution comes out to be 0.5±0.2°C out of the observed 0.6±0.2°C global warming (Shaviv, 2005).[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Fig. 5: Solar activity over the past several centuries can be reconstructed using different proxies. These reconstructions demonstrate that 20th century activity is unparalleled over the past 600 years (previously high solar activity took place around 1000 years ago, and 8000 yrs ago). Specifically, we see sunspots and 10Be. The latter is formed in the atmosphere by ~1GeV cosmic rays, which are modulated by the solar wind (stronger solar wind → less galactic cosmic rays → less 10Be production). Note that both proxies do not capture the decrease in the high energy cosmic rays that took place since the 1970's, but which the ion chamber data does (see fig. 6). (image source: Wikipedia)
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Fig. 6: The flux of cosmic rays reaching Earth, as measured by ion chambers. Red line - annual averages, Blue line - 11 yr moving average. Note that ion chambers are sensitive to particles at relatively high energy (several 10's of GeV, which is higher than the energies responsible for the atmospheric ionization [~10 GeV], and much higher than the energies responsible for the 10Be production [~1 GeV]). Plot redrawn using data from Ahluwalia (1997). Moreover, the decrease in high energy cosmic rays since the 1970's is less pronounced in low energy proxies of solar activity, implying that cosmogenic isotopes (such as 10Be) or direct solar activity proxies (e.g., sun spots, aa index, etc) are less accurate in quantifying the solar → cosmic ray → climate link and its contribution to 20thcentury global warming.
[/FONT]

 

[Surface Detail]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

[FONT="]Using historic variations in climate and the cosmic ray flux, one can actually [/FONT][URL="http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity%20"]quantify empirically[/URL][FONT="] the relation between cosmic ray flux variations and global temperature change, and estimate the solar contribution to the 20[/FONT][FONT="]th[/FONT][FONT="] century warming. This contribution comes out to be 0.5±0.2°C out of the observed 0.6±0.2°C global warming (Shaviv, 2005).[/FONT][FONT="]

Fig. 5: Solar activity over the past several centuries can be reconstructed using different proxies. These reconstructions demonstrate that 20th century activity is unparalleled over the past 600 years (previously high solar activity took place around 1000 years ago, and 8000 yrs ago). Specifically, we see sunspots and 10Be. The latter is formed in the atmosphere by ~1GeV cosmic rays, which are modulated by the solar wind (stronger solar wind → less galactic cosmic rays → less 10Be production). Note that both proxies do not capture the decrease in the high energy cosmic rays that took place since the 1970's, but which the ion chamber data does (see fig. 6). (image source: Wikipedia)
[/FONT]
[FONT="]

Fig. 6: The flux of cosmic rays reaching Earth, as measured by ion chambers. Red line - annual averages, Blue line - 11 yr moving average. Note that ion chambers are sensitive to particles at relatively high energy (several 10's of GeV, which is higher than the energies responsible for the atmospheric ionization [~10 GeV], and much higher than the energies responsible for the 10Be production [~1 GeV]). Plot redrawn using data from Ahluwalia (1997). Moreover, the decrease in high energy cosmic rays since the 1970's is less pronounced in low energy proxies of solar activity, implying that cosmogenic isotopes (such as 10Be) or direct solar activity proxies (e.g., sun spots, aa index, etc) are less accurate in quantifying the solar → cosmic ray → climate link and its contribution to 20thcentury global warming.
[/FONT]

Over recent decades, I said. Your graphs stop about 40 years ago. Since then, solar output has fallen to an unusually low level, while global temperature has continued to rise rapidly.

 

[Jack Hays]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

Over recent decades, I said. Your graphs stop about 40 years ago. Since then, solar output has fallen to an unusually low level, while global temperature has continued to rise rapidly.

The Sunspots 2.0? Irrelevant. The Sun, still is.

The two important objective proxies for solar activity are cosmogenic isotopes (14C and 10Be), and the geomagnetic AA index. The AA index (measured since the middle of the 19th century) clearly shows that the latter part of the 20th century was more active than the latter half of the 19th century. The longer 10Be data set reveals that the latter half of the 20th century was more active than any preceding time since the Maunder minimum. (The 14C is a bit problematic because human nuclear bombs from the 1940's onwards generated a lot of atmospheric 14C so it cannot be used to reconstruct solar activity in the latter part of the 20th century).

Figure 2: The AA geomagnetic index showing a clear increase in solar activity over the 20th century (From here).

. . . Given that long term variations in Earth's climate do correlate with long term solar activity (e.g., see the first part of this) and given that some solar activity indicators (presumably?) don't show an increase from the Maunder minimum, but some do, it means that climate is sensitive to those aspects of the solar activity that increased (e.g., solar wind), but not those more directly associated with the number of sunspots (e.g., UV or total solar irradiance). Thus, this result on the sunspots maxima (again, if true), only strengthens the idea that the solar climate link is through something related to the open magnetic field lines, such as the strength of the solar wind or the cosmic ray flux which it modulates.

. . . In an earlier work, I showed that you can use the oceans as a calorimeter to see that the solar radiative forcing over the solar cycle is very large, by looking at various oceanic data sets (heat content, sea surface temperature and tide gauges). How large? About 6-7 times larger than one can naively expect from changes in the solar irradiance.

More recently, Daniel Howard, Henrik Svensmark and I looked at the satellite altimetry data. It is similar to the tide gauge records in that it measures how much heat goes into the ocean by measuring the sea level change (most of the sea level on short time scales is due to thermal expansion). Unsurprisingly, we found that the satellite altimetry showed the same solar-cycle synchronized sea level change as the tide gauge records. However, because the satellite data is of such high quality, it is has a higher temporal resolution than the tide gauge records which allows singling out the thermal expansion component from other terms (e.g., associated with trapping of water on land). This allows for an even better estimate of the solar forcing, which is 1.33±0.34 W/m2 over the last solar cycle. You can see in fig. 4 how much the sun and el-Niño can explain a large fraction of the sea level change over yearly to decadal time scales.

Figure 4: Sea level data and the model fit. The blue dots are the linearly detrended global sea level measured with satellite altimetry. The purple line is the model fit to the data which includes both a harmonic solar component and an ENSO contribution. The shaded regions denote the one sigma and 1% to 99% confidence regions. The fit explains 71% of the observed variance in the filtered detrended data.


The bottom line is that the sun appears to have a large effect on the climate on various time scales. Whether or not the sunspots reflect the increase in solar activity since the Maunder minimum (as reflected in other datasets) is not very important. At most, if they don't reflect, it only strengthen's the idea that something associated with the solar wind does (such as the cosmic rays which they modulate).

 

[Surface Detail]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

The Sunspots 2.0? Irrelevant. The Sun, still is.

The two important objective proxies for solar activity are cosmogenic isotopes (14C and 10Be), and the geomagnetic AA index. The AA index (measured since the middle of the 19th century) clearly shows that the latter part of the 20th century was more active than the latter half of the 19th century. The longer 10Be data set reveals that the latter half of the 20th century was more active than any preceding time since the Maunder minimum. (The 14C is a bit problematic because human nuclear bombs from the 1940's onwards generated a lot of atmospheric 14C so it cannot be used to reconstruct solar activity in the latter part of the 20th century).

Figure 2: The AA geomagnetic index showing a clear increase in solar activity over the 20th century (From here).

. . . Given that long term variations in Earth's climate do correlate with long term solar activity (e.g., see the first part of this) and given that some solar activity indicators (presumably?) don't show an increase from the Maunder minimum, but some do, it means that climate is sensitive to those aspects of the solar activity that increased (e.g., solar wind), but not those more directly associated with the number of sunspots (e.g., UV or total solar irradiance). Thus, this result on the sunspots maxima (again, if true), only strengthens the idea that the solar climate link is through something related to the open magnetic field lines, such as the strength of the solar wind or the cosmic ray flux which it modulates.

. . . In an earlier work, I showed that you can use the oceans as a calorimeter to see that the solar radiative forcing over the solar cycle is very large, by looking at various oceanic data sets (heat content, sea surface temperature and tide gauges). How large? About 6-7 times larger than one can naively expect from changes in the solar irradiance.

More recently, Daniel Howard, Henrik Svensmark and I looked at the satellite altimetry data. It is similar to the tide gauge records in that it measures how much heat goes into the ocean by measuring the sea level change (most of the sea level on short time scales is due to thermal expansion). Unsurprisingly, we found that the satellite altimetry showed the same solar-cycle synchronized sea level change as the tide gauge records. However, because the satellite data is of such high quality, it is has a higher temporal resolution than the tide gauge records which allows singling out the thermal expansion component from other terms (e.g., associated with trapping of water on land). This allows for an even better estimate of the solar forcing, which is 1.33±0.34 W/m2 over the last solar cycle. You can see in fig. 4 how much the sun and el-Niño can explain a large fraction of the sea level change over yearly to decadal time scales.

Figure 4: Sea level data and the model fit. The blue dots are the linearly detrended global sea level measured with satellite altimetry. The purple line is the model fit to the data which includes both a harmonic solar component and an ENSO contribution. The shaded regions denote the one sigma and 1% to 99% confidence regions. The fit explains 71% of the observed variance in the filtered detrended data.


The bottom line is that the sun appears to have a large effect on the climate on various time scales. Whether or not the sunspots reflect the increase in solar activity since the Maunder minimum (as reflected in other datasets) is not very important. At most, if they don't reflect, it only strengthen's the idea that something associated with the solar wind does (such as the cosmic rays which they modulate).

Do you know what the word "detrended" means?

What do you suppose was causing the trend that was removed? :roll:

 

[Jack Hays]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

Do you know what the word "detrended" means?

What do you suppose was causing the trend that was removed? :roll:

The data were shown detrended because the point being illustrated was something else. That's an irrelevant side issue.

 

[Surface Detail]

Re: Another Look at Michael Crichton's &quot;State of Fear&quot;

The data were shown detrended because the point being illustrated was something else. That's an irrelevant side issue.

You seem confused. It is trend in temperature that we are discussing. And that trend has been upwards for the past few decades, even though solar activity has fallen. That fact that variations in solar output may be responsible for a few ripples on that trend is irrelevant to a discussion on the cause of the trend.