some comments on "The day after tomorrow"
 

This is what I put on my internet site:

( http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/dat.html )
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"The Day after Tomorrow", spectacular & amusing bull****

These days a new (intended) "blockbuster movie" is released: "The Day
after Tomorrow". In this movie a climate catastrophe is riding
roughshod all over the world. First all kinds of voilent weather is
raking numorous places, and then "the big freeze" follows. In my
opinion it is a load of rubbish, which might give rise to an
opportunity to greenhouse sceptics to ridicule sound climate science
done by e.g. NOAA or the KNMI. Therefore I list some details from the
movie which are plain wrong or highly improbable.

The special affects look good as far as I can see from the trailers
available on the internet. From this point of view I may well go to
the cinema and watch it. But only in the same way that a looked at
James Bond movies: I am looking at unpretentious amusement. Don't take
it seriously.

Some minor details

Tornadoes in Los Angeles
In the movie Los Angeles is levelled by huge F4 to F5 multiple vortex
tornadoes. This is simply impossible. The sea surface temperatures off
the Californian coast are far too low to create the conditions needed
to produce such beasts. If there are places as examples where no
tornadoes (not even a waterspout) are possible these are the
subtropical areas where upwelling of cold water takes place: Marocco,
Namibia & the NW of South Africa, California and Peru & Northern
Chili.

A 300 ft tidal wave generated by a storm
A 300 ft tidal wave generated by a "superstorm" sweeps over lower
Manhattan. (Buildings do not topple - which is highly unlikely.) Also
this is simply impossible. The worst case scenario for New York is a
repeat of 'the New England hurricane of 1938' and the eye making
landfall slightly South-West of the city, thus sending the worst part
of the storm and its accompanying storm surge into the New York
harbor. In such a scenario the storm surge will be 30 ft above the
normal tide. Lower Manhattan will be inundated, and the subway will be
flooded. JFK international airport will be rendered useless due to
flooding. So: Quite major inconveniance and some $20 billion economic
damage, but nothing like in the movie.

The trigger is a big ice shelf breaking off near Antarctica
Quite big ice sheets (sometimes as big as 5000 - 10000 km²!) have
broken away from the Antarctic pack ice in recent years. Up to now no
appreciable climate effects due to these events have been observed.
They are probably a result of the present warming, so a consequence.
Secondly: The influence of these events on the sea currents in the
Northern Hemisphere is (at most) very indirect.

Climate change

Climate change doesn't occur in one day. So "the big freeze" in the
movie is not credible. The movie is in fact a highly exaggerated
version of the Younger Dryas cold wave which occurred 12700 years ago.
This was caused by a huge fresh water flood from the Laurentide Ice
cap (on Canada) into the Atlantic. Due to this the gulf stream
stopped, causing the tempratures in Europe and North America to drop
dramatically within 50 years. It was a mini ice age which lasted some
1200 years. 11500 years ago the climate flipped back to normal.

Currently the Younger Dryas cold wave scenario is regarded by most
climate scientists as highly improbable. A similar conclusion can be
found in the last IPCC report.

If you want to read some more on the subject of climate change, on
this internet site quite a few small articles on it can be found. As a
start look at http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/climate.html

A final remark

Enjoy the movie, but don't take it seriously.

__________________________________________________ ______

Mazzel & broge / kind regards, Evert Wesker
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://come.to/wesker (redirect URL, no adv's), or
http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/

some comments on "The day after tomorrow"
 

I'm intending to post this all in a separate new topic...

I actually saw this movie, in the actual theater. The reason I saw it
was mainly so that I could watch the spectacular weather CGI. I was
NOT disappointed. There was one scene, in which the residents of the
International Space Station (I think its the IIS anyway) look down and
several see gigantic cold hurricaines over the Northern hemisphere
made it worth my 5.75 matinee expenses (plus I snuck into troy). This
was a disaster film, and the script was often corny. Many things were
lame. However, I really enjoyed the actors, Dennis Quaid (like
harrison ford, but possibly a better actor), and the guy who played
Donnie Darko (the best performance of a wierd troubled teenager ever).
But I'm not here to do a real film review, I want to talk about
science. I was actually able to suspend my disbelief because the
movie presented a concept that was so foreign to me that I was unable
to really dispute it during the course of the film. I'm still not
sure what to think, tho I'd imagine the science is a little (or very)
hokey. Perhaps some of you gurus will enlighten me.

Be warned: A SPOILER FOLLOWS!!! As a weather geek, if further
discussion proves the film is indeed wrong and silly, you may not
attain the full level of Joy that I was. Also, Please forgive me for
any stupidity/ignorance I may exhibit in my explanation.

The root of the meteorology in this: Cold Hurricaines. Also there
are definitely a lot more presumptions than the 2 I cover in the
following...

Presumption #1 (the more hokey one, I think) It all begins when there
is a change in the salinity of one of the major currents in the
atlantic and also running throughout the world. I do have some vauge
recollection of such currents, but I'm a lot more interested in the
atmosphere than oceanic stuff. I also recall that salt water rises
and so presumably this alters the interplay of cold water The idea is
that there is a critical shift in the salinity at some point where
there is a confluence of currents. Suddenly, buoys all along the
length of the current off the coast of the East US and Greenland start
register 13 degree (F?) drops.

Presumption #2: Cold Hurricaines... IS THIS REALLY POSSIBLE? I'd
guess probably not, but who knows? The idea is that there are
gigantic storms that form all over the northern hemisphere (3 to 5).
The eyes of these hurricaines exhibit extreme freezing cold, to the
tune of -150 degrees (F?). Helicopters crash because of frozen fuel
lines and people freeze instantly. They form over Northern Canada and
Siberia and stuff, which sounds plausable enough. Has anybody ever
heard of such a concept?

Also, A month or two ago, the Defense Department released a report
which outlined a prediction that global warming would occur followed
by ANOTHER ICE AGE. I can't find the link, but it was on
cryptome.org. The report was intended to explore global strategy for
the US in such a situation.

Thanks,
Dubs

some comments on "The day after tomorrow"
 

John Krempasky (in your seperate entry) gave an adequate answer.

One more comment on the Pentagon stuff:

It was just a scenario study ("What, If"). Nothing more, nothing
less. It was done by Peter Schwarz, once employed with RD Shell.
Over there he did similar jobs: scenario studies for the corporate
planning dept.

Mazzel & broge / kind regards, Evert Wesker
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://come.to/wesker (redirect URL, no adv's), or
http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/