Day-after-Tomorrow Myth Might Not Be So Farfetched After All

October 10, 2015 By Andreas Petersen 15 Comments

"Day-after-Tomorrow myth might not be so farfetched after all"

Jack Hall may have been right after all.

What if Jack Hall might have been right after all and what happens if we, one day, discover that the Day-after-Tomorrow myth might not be so farfetched after all? Researchers from the Department of Ocean and Earth Science at Southampton come to back up the movie with some theories of their own.

Maybe they don’t have a genuine Jack Hall to stand up for their theories but they do have some very interesting explanations to what can happen in a not-so-distant future. In the movie, Dennis Quaid explained that the thermohaline conveyor (the real name is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC for short) collapsed due to a sudden climate shift.

This led to the formation of tornadoes that razed the city of New York to the ground and of great floods that engulfed the northern hemisphere. Ruling out the dramatic outcome of this event, Professor Sybren Drijfhout tells us that the AMOC will not shut down, although it will decrease by 30 or 50 percent each year.

Also Sybren Drijfhout that if the event would follow its course as it did in the movie, Earth’s temperature will not drop immediately by 12 degrees. It’s a rather intricate and time consuming event. If this were to happen, it will take Earth at least 40 years to recover from AMOC’s collapse and the rising tide will not hit New York city but rather the North Atlantic area, including the British Isles.

Recently Sybren Drijfhout has been in charge of conducting a series of experiments regarding the scenario in which global warming and the total collapse of AMOC occur at the same time. If this happens, Drijfhout explains that over a period of 20 years Earth’s temperature will drop considerably.

Although he ruled out the possibility of AMOC’s shutdown, the professor warns us that even though the outcome of these events may not be so catastrophic as depicted in the movies, it could lead the world into a Little Ice Age.

The little Ice Age is depicted in scientific literature as being a period of cooling that took place in the Middle Ages, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. This little Ice Age came after the Medieval Warm Period. Scientist trace its cause to cyclical lows in solar radiation absorption, increasing volcanic activity and variability in overall global climate.

Drijfhout studied the AMOC used the AMOC-Rapid array assembly and stated that even though he observed some ups and downs in AMOC’s strength, this cannot be construed as evidence for a global catastrophe.

Image source: www.upload.wikimedia.org

About the Author

About Andreas Petersen

Andreas was too little to remember when he and his parents first set foot in America. He considers himself a true American citizen, but uses every opportunity to promote his Danish origins. He is deeply found of politics, all nations’ politics and generally looks forward to the presidential elections. His BA degree in Political Sciences has helped him get familiar to the constitutional frames of US and non-US nations.

Donald Fry

Just an editorial note; the tornadoes destroyed L.A., not New York.
Thingumbob

When such “improved” models of climate “scientism” are observed there invariably ensues incomprehensible gobbledygook. Perhaps this is the key to the much ballyhooed quantum consciousness…
- Chan Dinkins
  
  Thingumbob’s comments are puzzling to me. Why would he wish to display his witty thoughts about anything that possibly shows that he is anything other than a clever obnoxious wordsmith. Check the facts about the Little Ice Age recorded in the 17th and 18th century.
  - Thingumbob
    
    Sorry to be opaque in my allusion here.I was simply referring to the collapse of the quantum eigen wave function upon observation. But I suppose I’ll have to “grant” you that the Ice Age doth indeed cometh…
Broadlands

Forty years ago Climatologist Dr. Reid Bryson was asked…in an interview:

“How soon will we find ourselves in the next ice age?” One hundred years from now, or 9,000 years from now?

INTERVIEWER: And?

BRYSON: “The odds are very small for 100 years and approach a certainty for 9,000 years. There is, to put it another way, just the barest hint of a possibility that we could start a transition into a glacial epoch during the next century.
The difference between the climate we have now and the climate we’ll have as we enter a new ice age will be so small here in North America that, for the most part, you won’t even notice the change.”
- Thomas Lee Elifritz
  
  Reid Bryson is widely considered to be a climate crank. Even in Wisconsin. He was a meteorologist without a clue. Trust me on that. I’m from Wisconsin.
  - Broadlands
    
    Not sure being from Wisconsin means authority so can you document your assertion of “widely considered” as a crank without a clue?
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_Bryson
    - Thomas Lee Elifritz
      
      Verner Suomi called Reid Bryson a crank to his face.
      
      Reid Bryson was a climatological crank.
      
      Only cranks think otherwise.
      - Broadlands
        
        Any fair and objective reading of their relationship says otherwise…
        
        http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/24/science/a-30-year-feud-divides-experts-on-meteorology.html?pagewanted=all
        
        Suomi was a meteorologist not a climatologist. He gathered facts…like the fact that since 1998 the annual temperature trend in Wisconsin is cooler, fueled by cooler trending Winters, Springs and Falls.
        
        Maybe it’s those who throw out ad hominems who seem cranky?
      - Thomas Lee Elifritz
        
        Verner Suomi was a planetary astrophysicist and engineer. Reid Bryson was a meteorologist of the caliber of William Gray, in other words, a outright crank.
        
        You are just another puffed up Dunning Kruger case.
      - Broadlands
        
        Socrates…
        
        “When debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser”
      - Thomas Lee Elifritz
        
        The only debate around here is among the Dunning Kruger afflicted tin foil hat crowd preaching to their choir.
Neil Murray

Not necessarily far-fetched. Remember that climate change is a chaotic (the mathematical variety) phenomenon. The climate is disturbed; the way that plays out is difficult, but it’s unlikely to be pleasant. We have almost certainly missed our chance to prevent climate change; the best we can do now is mitigate it (but that does not mean doing nothing.
USAMEDIALIES

Ahhhhhhhhh the sky is falling again
Chris Crawford

The science on this can be quite complex. The earth as a whole will continue warming due to the greenhouse effect; a postulated collapse of the AMOC will not change that.
However, it is certainly possible that a dramatic change in ocean circulation could lead to a great deal of extremely cold water in the deep ocean being brought up to the surface. That would cool the atmosphere, leading to a decline in SURFACE temperatures, even as the planet overall continues to warm.