Scooby-Doo and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists

Much has been made of a good-journalism award handed by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists to Michael Crichton for his science-fiction novel, State of Fear. I wrote back in pre-Scienceblog days that the AAPG had gone off the deep end by confusing a bad novel with a "notable journalistic achievement in any medium which contributes to public understanding of geology, energy resources, or the technology of oil and gas exploration."

Fortunately not all geologists are happy with the choice of recipient for that particular award. Via RealClimate we have a copy of a letter (PDF) that appears in the Sept. 5 edition of the journal EOS, in which 18 members of the American Quaternary Association diplomatically express their profound disappointment. The group

feels it was inappropriate for AAPG to give a journalism award for State of Fear for two reasons. The novel is not journalism. Furthermore, it is fiction that presents a distorted view of global warming as a scientific hoax, and Crichton is using his prominence as a movie director and novelist to push his views into the scientific debate on global warming and its consequences.

Remember that Crichton has the ear of President George W. Bush. Now here's the best part:

State of Fear is mostly a blend of Scooby-Doo and The Lone Ranger, an extended chase scene in which a small team led by an intrepid government agent foils a plot of evil
environmentalists to engineer artificial 'natural' disasters in order to promote their cause.
Crichton drives the action with the contention that global warming is a hoax. He essentially accuses the entire community of researchers involved in climate change,
including those of us in AMQUA, of shading our findings on global warming in order to
obtain the government grants that support our research. In a work of fiction, this would
be fine--Crichton is free to spin his tale as he pleases. But it really does stretch the
imagination to argue that scientists, a disorganized and argumentative lot, somehow were able to orchestrate a vast conspiracy of fraud without blowing the whistle on each other.

I might argue that comparing State of Fear to Scooby-Doo does a disservice to those marvellous crime-fighting debunkers of everything scary and/or supernatural. But that's just me.

Anyhoo, and in case Michael Crichton is lurking, here's the latest in scary climate science, in the form of a joint press release from the American Geophysical Union and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

WASHINGTON - The Arctic Ocean's perennial sea ice, which survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrank abruptly by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005, according to a newly published study. Researchers found that the loss of perennial ice in the East Arctic Ocean, above Europe and Asia, neared 50
percent during that time as some of the ice moved to the West Arctic Ocean, above North America.

The overall decrease in winter Arctic perennial sea ice totaled 730,000 square kilometers [280,000 square miles]--an area the size of Texas. Perennial ice can be three meters [10 feet] thick, or more. It was replaced in the winter by new, seasonal ice, which was only about 0.3 to two meters [one to seven feet] thick and more vulnerable to summer melt. The research was published 7 September in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.