Hollywood rarely gets anything right when it comes to the facts in its science-fiction films, but in the case of the 2004 film “The Day After Tomorrow,” it may have hit the nail on the head.
Dismissed by scientists when it was released 11 years ago, “The Day After Tomorrow” featured an apocalyptic future where New York City is frozen over and catastrophic storms wreak havoc due to a disruption in the North Atlantic Current, according to a TomDispatch report.
But now scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say that the film may be closer to reality than they gave it credit for.
The reason it was dismissed initially was because scientists believe that the effects of global warming would be linear and gradual, but in recent years they’ve come to believe that there are actually “tipping points” that can lead to sudden drastic changes, and disruption of the North Atlantic Current as depicted in the film is not far-fetched at all.
This pivotal event in the film involves disrupting this current, often called a global conveyer belt that sends warm Caribbean waters up north in the Atlantic where it results in warmer temperatures in Europe and North America than there otherwise would be. But if it were to be disrupted — say, by a melting Greenland ice sheet that would introduce huge volumes of fresh water that would disrupt this cycle — it could cause tremendous and catastrophic changes. And scientists say the Greenland ice sheet is indeed melting at a significant rate.
The result would lead to a sudden cooling in the Euro-Atlantic climate, and the creation of huge storms that would cause big problems for humanity.
While this hasn’t come to fruition yet, scientists think it’s indeed possible for there to be a rapid increase in the ice sheet melting in Greenland, which would lead to one of these tipping points with dire consequences for Europe and North America in particular, but the whole world as well.
The North Atlantic Current is a tremendously powerful warm ocean current that basically continues to Gulf Stream to the northeast, where it splits into two branches, with one going southeast and the other going north along northwestern Europe. It plays a big part in affecting the climate, most scientists believe. Its originator is the Gulf Stream, which begins at the tip of Florida and follows along the eastern coastline.
Some scientists think that a rapid introduction of fresh water from the Greenland ice sheet melting could prevent the vital process of this warm salt water sinking and then returning to the Caribbean, which would interrupt the cycle and result in these dire consequences.
“The Day After Tomorrow” was released in 2004 as a climate fiction disaster film that was produced by Roland Emmerich. It starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid. The film depicts the drastic effects of a sudden shift in climate that results in global cooling and a new ice age. It was made in Canada and is the highest grossing film ever to be made in the country, pulling in $544 million with a budget of $125 million.
It had been planed for release back in the summer of 2003, but it was delayed to a May 2004 premier.
The plot centers around paleoclimatologists as they drill ice core samples in the Larsen Ice Shelf, which is in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The main protagonist, Jack Hall, presents his findings to the United Nations, but diplomats remain unconvinced. Suddenly, buoys in the North Atlantic depict a big drop in ocean temperature, and the scientists think it’s caused by melting ice that is blocking the North Atlantic Current.
Suddenly, the world is beset by violent weather, prompting the United States to stop air traffic due to tremendous turbulence, and astronauts on the International Space Station see a massive storm that spans the entire Northern Hemisphere, turning into three hurricane-like super storms that freeze everything in their path.
The film received mixed reviews, with much of the criticism reserved for their supposed liberties with science. The film was rated 45 percent on critic aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.