Geology and Earth ScienceThe Day After Tomorrow” Could it Happen?
Cheryl Kalman
The disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow” is a science fiction movie about an abrupt climate change cased by global warming that unleashes a “superstorm” on the unsuspecting world.
The book the movie was based on “The Coming Global Storm” was co-written by Whitley Streiber and Art Bell. Their theory is that an abrupt climate shift would cause such instability that a “superstorm” must result. They believe powerful thunderstorms in the arctic would penetrate the stratosphere bringing upper atmospheric air as cold as 150°F to the surface. That would flash freeze anything caught outside. The thunderstorms would then merge together creating the “superstorm” they would suck energy from the oceans that were heated by global warming. The “superstorm” would create blizzard conditions with over a hundred feet of snow. In Canada temperatures would fall a 100°’s an hour. There would also be thunderstorms with large hail, and tornados.
The scientific evidence they based this theory on was the discovery of wooly mammoths that had partially digested plant remains in their stomachs. Streiber and bell said "The sudden freezing that killed these animals required much more than a bad storm. It required a storm that was capable of delivering unprecedented levels of extreme cold to the surface and doing it so suddenly that the animals which were caught placidly grazing, did not even have time to look up [...] To all appearances they were simply frozen solid where they stood without enough warning to do more than raise their heads." That’s a pretty large assumption to make when ice core, sediment core, and tree ring studies show no evidence that a “superstorm” ever existed.
But Bell and Streiber are not scientists. “Whitley Streiber is a UFO expert and author of the best-selling 1985 book Communion, a non-fiction account of his abduction by extra-terrestrials. Art Bell hosts a nationally syndicated all-night radio show, Coast to Coast AM, which specializes in UFOs and the supernatural.”
The first part of the theory we can disprove is the flash freezing due to upper atmospheric air being sucked down to the surface. The air would be warmed on the decent to the surface according to the Ideal Gas Law, no matter how fast the air is moving. Next large storms that have calm eyes over land could never happen. Storms with calm eyes are hurricanes and can only occur over water they need the water vapor for energy. You would need 1200mph wind to create the 300 foot wave which hits Manhattan (that’s twice the speed of sound) and in the movie there is no wind. The last part we can analyze is not the authors fault, in many scenes the “superstorm” is shown rotating clockwise and in other scenes rotating counterclockwise. All storms in the northern hemisphere must rotate counterclockwise. Rotating clockwise would break one of the laws of physics on a rotating planet called the Coriolis Force. As a TV production major my guess is, a continuity error.
But that doesn’t mean global warming isn’t a problem. If a certain temperature is reached an abrupt climate change could occur. But when scientists refer to “abrupt” they mean a change over decades rather than centuries. If an abrupt change did occur scientists are worried that the West Antarctic ice sheet would break up or the Atlantic thermohaline would shut down. The Atlantic thermohaline is like earth’s air conditioner The Gulf Stream carries warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic where the water cools and sinks to the ocean floor where it is carried back south again. This ocean circulation pattern is caused by differences in water temperature and salinity in the ocean. The increase in ocean temperatures will increase the amount of freshwater dumping into the ocean. Some climate models show that higher ocean temperatures and reduced salinity could slow the thermohaline circulation while other climate models project a complete shutdown.
Another effect of global warming will be increased flooding, increased droughts, more severe storms; which we have already seen with Katrina and Rita, also a loss of plant and animal species.
In conclusion, “The Day After Tomorrow” is science FICTION and is not a true representative of what would happen if an abrupt change in the climate occurred. But the truth is global warming is happening and it is already too late to avoid some of the consequences.
References:
http://www.wunderground.com/education/thedayafter.asp
http://www.pewclimate.org/dayaftertomorrow.cfm
The disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow” is a science fiction movie about an abrupt climate change cased by global warming that unleashes a “superstorm” on the unsuspecting world.
The book the movie was based on “The Coming Global Storm” was co-written by Whitley Streiber and Art Bell. Their theory is that an abrupt climate shift would cause such instability that a “superstorm” must result. They believe powerful thunderstorms in the arctic would penetrate the stratosphere bringing upper atmospheric air as cold as 150°F to the surface. That would flash freeze anything caught outside. The thunderstorms would then merge together creating the “superstorm” they would suck energy from the oceans that were heated by global warming. The “superstorm” would create blizzard conditions with over a hundred feet of snow. In Canada temperatures would fall a 100°’s an hour. There would also be thunderstorms with large hail, and tornados.
The scientific evidence they based this theory on was the discovery of wooly mammoths that had partially digested plant remains in their stomachs. Streiber and bell said "The sudden freezing that killed these animals required much more than a bad storm. It required a storm that was capable of delivering unprecedented levels of extreme cold to the surface and doing it so suddenly that the animals which were caught placidly grazing, did not even have time to look up [...] To all appearances they were simply frozen solid where they stood without enough warning to do more than raise their heads." That’s a pretty large assumption to make when ice core, sediment core, and tree ring studies show no evidence that a “superstorm” ever existed.
But Bell and Streiber are not scientists. “Whitley Streiber is a UFO expert and author of the best-selling 1985 book Communion, a non-fiction account of his abduction by extra-terrestrials. Art Bell hosts a nationally syndicated all-night radio show, Coast to Coast AM, which specializes in UFOs and the supernatural.”
The first part of the theory we can disprove is the flash freezing due to upper atmospheric air being sucked down to the surface. The air would be warmed on the decent to the surface according to the Ideal Gas Law, no matter how fast the air is moving. Next large storms that have calm eyes over land could never happen. Storms with calm eyes are hurricanes and can only occur over water they need the water vapor for energy. You would need 1200mph wind to create the 300 foot wave which hits Manhattan (that’s twice the speed of sound) and in the movie there is no wind. The last part we can analyze is not the authors fault, in many scenes the “superstorm” is shown rotating clockwise and in other scenes rotating counterclockwise. All storms in the northern hemisphere must rotate counterclockwise. Rotating clockwise would break one of the laws of physics on a rotating planet called the Coriolis Force. As a TV production major my guess is, a continuity error.
But that doesn’t mean global warming isn’t a problem. If a certain temperature is reached an abrupt climate change could occur. But when scientists refer to “abrupt” they mean a change over decades rather than centuries. If an abrupt change did occur scientists are worried that the West Antarctic ice sheet would break up or the Atlantic thermohaline would shut down. The Atlantic thermohaline is like earth’s air conditioner The Gulf Stream carries warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic where the water cools and sinks to the ocean floor where it is carried back south again. This ocean circulation pattern is caused by differences in water temperature and salinity in the ocean. The increase in ocean temperatures will increase the amount of freshwater dumping into the ocean. Some climate models show that higher ocean temperatures and reduced salinity could slow the thermohaline circulation while other climate models project a complete shutdown.
Another effect of global warming will be increased flooding, increased droughts, more severe storms; which we have already seen with Katrina and Rita, also a loss of plant and animal species.
In conclusion, “The Day After Tomorrow” is science FICTION and is not a true representative of what would happen if an abrupt change in the climate occurred. But the truth is global warming is happening and it is already too late to avoid some of the consequences.
References:
http://www.wunderground.com/education/thedayafter.asp
http://www.pewclimate.org/dayaftertomorrow.cfm
4 Comments:
This article definitely calmed some of my fears from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” I didn’t believe that the extreme weather shown in the movie could happen that way, but the thought of something similar did cross my mind a few times. I find it hilarious that the author of this article was able to see that the storm was rotating clockwise one minute and counter clockwise the next.
Something that I don’t understand is the theory about the mammoths. The authors of the movie believe that an extreme ice storm hit during the time of the wooly mammoths without warning. If this didn’t happen the way they say then how did it? Truthfully, I would have believed them, hadn’t I read the rest of the article, call me gullible I guess.
Even though “The Day After Tomorrow” was far fetched, global warming isn’t and definitely scares me. Just in this past year, we have been seen and been apart of serious storms. Before last hurricane season, we had the devastating Tsunami and the deadly mudslides. And that was just the beginning. How many hurricanes were there last season? I can’t exactly remember a number but I can recall Katrina. It’s been almost a year and we still are suffering from it. These natural disasters only seemed to be getting worse and there’s no way of stopping them. I truly am afraid of what’s to come. Every year that goes by people keep saying “Long Island is due for one.” It’s true, we’ve been lucky, but I don’t think we are prepared. It will only take a category 3 hurricane to probably level Long Island.
Just these past couple of days almost all of New England has been flooded with rain. Some places are under three feet of rain. Rainy seasons, hurricane season, all seasons in general have changed dramatically. Will it go back to normal, not so devastating? Or are we just seeing the beginning of much more to come?
I like the movie the "Day After Tomorrow" I thought the graphics were pretty cool but I thought that it was pretty far fetching though. But you also have to remember that it’s Hollywood and they do anything that would entertain you by breaking the law of the real world. This isn’t the only movie that I thought it was far fetch because they also made a movie called "The Core" where the United Stated developed a weapon that causes the earth to stop rotating on its axis. But they make a shop that can go through the earths crust to restart the core.
I really don’t know if we could build a weapon that strong that stops the earth from spinning but then again they really don’t tell the public what they have because they don’t want our enemies finding out. However, the global warming is very possibly but not as shown in the movie. We are destroying our planet slowly with the power plant that we have or the cars the run on gasoline because foil that we are burning release carbon dioxide into the air. Using our natural resources way to much were they are raising the prices. We try to recycle but not every one does it so we are using more trees then we should and we need trees to breath, plastic doesn’t get decomposed so it just lays there for an animal to come up to it and try to eat it and dies. That is some of the stuff we can work but there is some things that we have no control of like the weather, were it should be warm it is cold and snow is coming down like in Texas. But that’s not as much a big deal then the pools are warmer then they should because if it is warmer things will start to melt fall into the ocean cause either the currants to change temperature or a tidal wave.
But leave it up the Hollywood to scare the crap out of every one because showing a movie like these two to the public; they think that can really happen the way it is shown but reality it is not that harsh they way they protrude it on the films but don’t get me wrong that it is still pretty bad situation.
Reading this article, reminds me of how enthusiastic people can get when it comes to the false portrayal of facts. By writing this article the author proves how enthusiastic she is when it comes to the true portrayal of possible catastrophic events.
When you really think about it, this movie was never really intended to be factual; it was merely made for entertainment. Movies do not promise truth or factual information; that is not their purpose. Movies, especially ones that were released in major theatres, are meant to influence the moods and emotions felt by the viewer, along with the suspension of belief. Close analysis of any movie would show that there's more fiction than fact.
When it comes to "The Day After Tomorrow", an emotional reaction was its major purpose, and would be any movies major purpose. It was meant to be flashy and exciting. Personally, I found the movie too "Hollywood", boringly overdramatic. Using these weather extremes to make the movie more action packed and "exciting." We shouldn't really think too much as to how real the "facts" are. Entertainment is whatever the movie creator believes that the audience wants.
If we, the viewer, spent all of our viewing time making comments on the inaccuracies of the movie, how are we ever to enjoy it? With these comments, we deny the movie the sole purpose of its existence of entertaining the viewers. We no longer play our part as the audience, keeping ourselves from being enthralled in any good points of the movie; in essence, keeping ourselves from having a good time. Through out the years, many movies have suffered through the criticisms of its viewers for the inconsistencies in the scenes. Of course, being made by people, there are bound to be faults in there; but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it.
Now think about what ifs. What if this happened to or around you? What if the Temperatures had become erratic, or tsunamis occurred out of nowhere? What if you watched your loved ones suffer a horrible fate, worse than what the mammoths or dinosaurs went through? What kind of feelings would you have? What kind of thoughts? Movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" were meant to pose such questions as these to the viewer, through any visual and aural means necessary.
As I was watching “The Day After Tomorrow” in sunny California, I contemplated the movie’s accuracy of scientific principles and laws. I knew global warming is possible and has happened in the past, but I was unaware of its roots. Being the exceptionally gullible person that I am, “The Day After Tomorrow” was convincing, but after much consideration I realized it is only science fiction. The script and book were based on imaginary thoughts by unscientific people.
Whitley Streiber and Art Bell, authors of the book that inspired the film, both believe in the supernatural. Streiber claims to have been abducted by extra-terrestrials and Bell is a disc jockey for the radio that focuses on extra-terrestrials. Now that I am aware that the book and film generated from unscientific minds, my opinion about its accuracy has changed. From reading this discussion and understanding that hurricanes generate over water and not land, the movie seems so far stretched from the truth, that believing a super storm like this can occur is foolish.
Since “The Day After Tomorrow” is about the means in which global warming can arise, my wonderment concerning global warming has caused me to question its causes and effects. If global warming is bound to happen, when will it happen? In my lifetime, will I live to die in the mist of the sun’s radiation beating on my delicate skin?
I do not know much about the ozone layer, but of what I understand, there is a hole in our ozone layer above the earth’s polar region. I am under the assumption that there is a hole in our ozone and that this problematic to our planet. This is problematic to our health and our earth’s health because the ozone layer acts as an atmospheric shield that protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. If our skin is exposed to UV radiation an increase in skin cancer is feared, as well as our earth’s exposure to the UV rays, causing the plankton population in our earth’s marine environments to decrease.
I have heard rumors that the hole in the ozone layer was bound to happen and other rumors insisting that mankind and their technological advancements are to blame for the ozone’s growing absence.
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