Michael Crichton's State of Fear as impacting Oklahoma's U.S. Senator -- providing more regional context around Cricheton's Graphs Showing Global Cooling.

1. Criterion: Crichton used data from one station in my state, Guthrie, OK, as part of his proof that global warming is a hoax.
2. Why: Crichton's data analysis influences Oklahoma's U.S. Senator Inhofe to constantly rant and rave that global warming is a hoax. 
3. Significance: Senator Inhofe would be chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment if Republicans retake the U.S. Senate in 2014, and in a position to block any discussion of mitigation strategies by the U.S. What if he realized Crichton was wrong in Oklahoma?

Here is a composite of the cities in the area of Guthrie, OK. 




Crichton's Oklahoma data from page 372 of his thriller. 


A quick look at the Crichton graph for Guthrie, OK, reveals that a fit starting in 1958 would surely have shown a rising temperature. One form of cherry picking manipulates the begin and end dates for the data.

The link below is a monthly fit of average temperature trends from the Time Series Browser covering all the stations in the area of Guthrie, Oklahoma, from 1950 to 2013. Out of 17 stations in the region of Guthrie, OK, only three show a downward temperature trend; and Guthrie shows an increase. None of these stations can be called "heat islands". If Crichton today were randomly choosing his data from 1950 out of 17 stations in the area of Guthrie he would probably have come up with graphs showing temperature increases.



Limiting the data from 1930 to 2000 in order to correspond to Michael Crichton's selection (see next link), would increase the chances that Crichton would randomly pick a graph favorable to his agenda. 




But, 1930's included the infamous "Dust Bowl" years in my region, which was an ecological disaster not fully resolved until after the war (by 1950). Dust settles out quickly, compared to other aerosols. But the regional albedo was surely reduced due to the bare earth and reduced vegetation during those times. 

I do not accuse Crichton of cheating or intentional distortion of data. For a rigorous probabilistic analysis of that proposition, see the excellent work of one of our fellow students, Johan Sigrids at the following link:. 

http://nbviewer.ipython.org/gist/johansigfrids/7881705

Summary and Conclusions:
As the first climate series graphic above illustrates, Crichton's evidence relating to my region would be false and misleading if it were applied uncritically today.When Crichton's data is viewed in context, perhaps there is a motive to acquire a broader understanding of global warming issues for the "warm crops" climate type.  


The following is a published quotation of an analysis of Crichton's contentions:

 "A character in the novel asks, "So, if rising carbon dioxide is the cause of rising temperatures, why didn't it cause temperatures to rise from 1940 to 1970?" . . . Only when the trends for human-induced heat-trapping gases, sulfur dioxide emissions, soot, ozone, and land use changes are also included do the hindcast model results (Figure 3) and the recorded reality match up. This is particularly true of the pronounced warming that has occurred since 1970." Source: Union Of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/crichton-thriller-state-of.html

I personally remember flying into Wichita, Kansas, early in 1973 and noticing that the troposphere was extremely dirty on a calm day. The aerosols would have reduced radiative forcing in my area in the late 60's and early 70's. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. It is reasonable to assume that the albedo was decreased as reflective aerosols such as Sulfur Dioxide began to be cleaned out of the atmosphere. This could explain why warming increased after 1970.