The Day After Tomorrow

Personally, I think this is a trap. I mean, come on, isn't this Fox?

The science in the movie is probably so bad, no one with a high school diploma will think it's real - after all, it is by the makers of Independence Day.

I mean, this enviro-disaster movie about some sort of ice age brought on by global warming. It sounds like it is to warn or scare all of us about global warming, right? But no, because this movie will give every respectable sounding person who doesn't believe in greenhouse gases causing environmental catastrophe to come out of the woodwork and get free air and press time.

Besides, most people don't get how global warming can cause an ice age (I'm not sure I do).

And most people don't realize that any global climate change we cause, is likely to only be a few degrees. Most people say B.F.D. not realizing that snow doesn't have to fall along the Rio to be a disaster. Even a few degrees warmer or colder would be catastrophic because of the effects on agriculture.

Ah, but how boring that would be when Hollywood just loves "destroying" big cities and national landmarks.

What Van Helsing was to horror flicks.

Just throw everything in one big pot and make a billion dollars.

due the polar ice cap melt. Not good news for England, et al. An oceanographer relative of mine is certain our (the world's) coastlines will be very different in 10 years. How this effects Holland, Venice, NYC, I don't know and don't care to think about.

many of the major cities in the world would be swamped by rising sea levels.

the way global warming can cause an "ice age" is by the glaciers melting and putting out all that fresh cold water, it is quite possible to seriously upset the gulf stream. if that happens Western Europe will be in big trouble. The Gulf Stream is a large part why Britain and Ireland have any agriculture at all, much less the Scandinavian countries.

but hey, I'm all for a big screen big budget pic with lots of landmarks destroyed. a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon IMO

www.thedayaftertomorrow.com

Who says they have to be based on real science? I don't go to the movies to be depressed or reminded of grim truths or to critique the cinematographer's technique. It's just entertainment, and there's nothing wrong with that. Hell, I even bought "The Core." ;-)

"Killer Bees"
"Earthquake"
"Frogs"

I'm sure there were others. Mostly pretty bad.

They were bad ... but they were great! You know what I mean? :evilgrin:

The "Airport" movies ... "The Towering Inferno" ... "The Swarm" ... "Meteor" ... "Avalanche" ... "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Beyond The Poseidon Adventure" ... "The Hindenburg ... "Gray Lady Down" ... etc., etc.

Can you tell I really liked these movies? I must have seen every last one of them, LOL! :hippie:

Best 70's disaster flick memory: Victoria Principal (pre-Dallas) with a HUGE afro in "Earthquake" :D

from what I have seen. The "tipping point" theory suggests that climate change can (and has) suddenly transitioned from one state to another. The buildup to the tipping point is gradual ... but the transition is sudden. The oceanographer Sylvia Earle once made the analogy to adding vinegar to a bowl of milk with an eyedropper. Everything is fine until that last critical drop ... and then suddenly the milk curdles. (She was talking about the sudden collapse of stressed ecosystems, but that is another example of a "tipping point".)

The tipping point theory addresses discoveries like frozen whooly mammoths with green grass still in their stomaches. They ate grass in the morning and were frozen later that day. How did that happen?

Another point ... just 'cause average global temperature goes up doesn't mean where you are standing now won't be frozen over. The question is ... how will heat distribution change? Frankly, we haven't a clue. How could we? We've never done this before ... operated an atmosphere altering, biosphere ravaging high energy civilization. How can we possibly know the exact form of the changes we are wreaking?

Yes, it's a historical document, and yes, global climate has fluctuated rapidly in the past. I would have hated to be on earth ten thousand years ago.

First, in freezing conditions like the kind you find in the arctic circle, it would only take a few hours to freeze solid. A human can freeze in minutes, something as large as a mammoth a few hours longer.

Furthermore, those mammoths were found in a state of decomposition, they hadn't been "flashed frozen."

As for the vinegar in milk, the casein doesn't just crash out after a "last critical drop", it takes a lot of stirring, time, and addition of acetic acid. I should know since I just ran the experiment with several dozen undergraduates.

As for the cooling because of global warming, yes it can stop the atlantic conveyor which will cool Europe, but that wouldn't cause a massive tidal wave to wipe out New York City and subsequently freeze solid.

So the science in this movie is abysmal, and frankly so is yours.

It is more plausible than you think. If the gulf stream ever shuts down (as it has done several times in the past history of the earth) it will cause huge problems up to and including another ice age. And in the planet's past the current has switched off in as little time as a decade. So in year one every thing's fine and ten years later the climate has completely changed (and not just by a few degrees)...

So I can't wait to see the movie. Global climate change and Dennis Quaid. What's not to like.

It was always a mistake to name Climate Change "Global Warming".

Greenhouse gases (Carbon monoxide primarily) are the natural product
of burning fossil fuels (oil, natural gas). Releasing them into the
atmosphere can (will, has) change the amount of sunlight reflected
back into space, trapping the energy from that sunlight here on Earth.
This can create a condition of warmer temperatures OVERALL, however,
it is the fact that it is CHANGING the global climate which is the
problem. Certain places on the planet now will experience warmer
climates (polar regions in particular), this can (and is) causing
the polar ice caps to melt, releasing vast quantities of cold water
into the oceans, and, more importantly, disrupting the large ocean
currents (for example, the Gulf stream, a wide swath of relatively
warm waters traveling from the equatorial waters of the southwest
Atlantic, all the way to Ireland and Europe. Large amounts of ice
from the north polar region, like Greenland and Iceland, may cause
the Gulf Stream to simply stop or become much cooler than present.
That flow of warm water is what keeps Ireland "green" and Europe
mostly temperate rather than more like Siberia. So... it's possible
that Global Climate Change could cause part of the Earth (like the
US west coast, inter-mountain region and the Midwest to experience
higher temps and prolonged and more frequent drought, while at the
same time (at least for a few decades), plunge Europe into a winterish
nightmare similar to what happened in 1816 (The year without summer),
when ash from a number of volcanos caused a temporary change in
Earth's albedo (solar reflective index).

Here is a few quotes from an article on the subject :

The amazing weather of 1816 is well documented in the diaries and memoirs of those who endured it. Benjamin Harrison, a farmer in Bennington, Vermont. termed it "the most gloomy and extraordinary weather ever seen." Chauncey Jerome of Plymouth, Connecticut, writing in 1860, recalled "I well remember the 7th of June. . . dressed throughout with thick woolen clothes and an overcoat on. My hands got so cold that I was obliged to lay down my tools and put on a pair of mittens...On the 10th of June, my wife brought in some clothes that had been spread on the ground the night before, which were frozen stiff as in winter. On the 4th of July, I saw several men pitching quoits in the middle of the day with overcoats on and the sun shining bright at the time."

Following a frontal passage, temperatures tumbled dramatically under the onslaught of Arctic air. At noon on June 5, the temperature at Williamstown was 83 degrees. By 7am on the 6th, it had dropped to 45 degrees - the highest temperature recorded for the day. All across central New England, early morning temperatures were the highest recorded for the day.
From June 6 to 9, severe frost occurred every night from Canada to Virginia. Ice was reported near Philadelphia and "every green herb was killed, and vegetables of every description very much injured." In northern Vermont, the ice was an inch thick on standing water while elsewhere in the state icicles were to be seen a foot long... corn and other vegetables were killed to the ground, and upon the high lands the leaves of the trees withered and fell off."

<snip>

http://wchs.csc.noaa.gov/1816.htm


Hope this help explain things. And, yes, we could see stuff like this
again, without the help of volcanos, and on a more permanent basis
(since volcanic ash precipitates out in a year or two whereas carbon
monoxide could be considered fairly permanent).

Carbon monoxide is not a major contributer as it is highly reactive and does not accumulate.

Furthermore, CO2 does not "reflect sunlight", it absorbs in the infrared, which is why it heats up.

"The Coming Global Superstorm" Amazon.com by Art Bell & Whitley Strieber. Altho the presented as fiction, it's based on HARD science. Warming causes the ice caps to melt, which changes the density of the Atlantic waters, which changes/shuts down the North Atlantic current which changes the weather patterns. Cold gets Hot, Hot gets Cold.

The book has been poo-pooed since it came out, but almost EVERY on of the percursor events leading up to 'the big one' (many out of season tornados, huge storms, weird temperature patterns) have happened. Even Dr Bob Ballard at Woods Hole Oceanagraphic center (probably the most respected in the field) has said IT IS HAPPENING.
In the book, it took months, in the movie days. That's the reason that people are trying to put off the movie...

but people better start paying attention. As Art Bell said on his show this past saturday, it dosen't matter if it's a natural cycle of nature or the hand of man WE BETTER START TAKING IT SERIOUSLY...

That's not good, Art has an, errrrr, credibilty gap. I'm much less excited about this movie all of the sudden.

... are using to put the movie DOWN.

Is like David Duke righting a book on race relations.

It looks like it will be an entertaining diaster flick with some serious food for thought....

recommending seeing this movie. I probably will, based on that recommendation.

going out to the movies in years.

Even though it looks over the top, I think it will help get people to think about and talk about Global Warming.

There were a couple of silly movies about comets hitting the earth a few years ago, and the result of the heightened awareness was increased interest in and funding for programs that track near earth objects.

I'm starting to think that when most people see something on tv or in the movies, they believe it. Period. No questions asked. How else do you explain the fact that half of this country still thinks there are WMDs and about a third actually thinks we found them.

Logically, I agree with your point. But I wouldn't be too sure that people are going to watch this movie with a "critical" eye toward the science.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but if this movie is a commercial success, people will believe it. Personally, I don't care how far-fetched it seems. Most of us here know that the science about global warming --contrary to what Chimpy says -- is sound. So if it takes a little over-dramatization to get people to wake up, so be it.