Is the movie The Day After Tomorrow realistic?

The movie The Day After Tomorrow is loosely based on the theory of “abrupt climate change.” The plot of the movie is that, as a result of global warming, ocean currents that circulate water around the world shut down, heating up the tropics and cooling the North Atlantic. The result is a catastrophic storm and a dramatic change in the global climate.

In the movies, abrupt climate change can happen practically overnight. But when scientists talk about abrupt climate change, they mean climate change that occurs over decades, rather than the usual centuries.

While most of The Day After Tomorrow is safely in the realm of science fiction, there is some real science to back up concerns about potentially irreversible changes in our climate within a couple of decades that would affect our communities, health, infrastructure, and ecosystems.

There are a number of potential “tipping points” in the Earth’s climate system – when a threshold could be crossed, resulting in substantial change. The National Research Council report Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises identifies potential abrupt changes in the ocean (which could result in rising sea levels and influence ocean circulation), the atmosphere (which could increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events), at high latitudes (including loss of Arctic sea ice), and ecosystems (species shifts, extinctions, and rapid state changes).

What climate impacts are happening now?

The current pace of global warming, spurred by the human release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, brings an increased risk of more frequent and intense heat waves, higher sea levels, and more severe droughts, wildfires, and downpours.

Drought

Global warming will increase the risk of drought in some regions. Also, warmer temperatures can increase water demand and evaporation, stressing water supplies.
Learn about the links between climate change and drought.

Tropical storms and hurricanes

A warmer world will help fuel the development of some of the strongest hurricanes.
Learn more about climate change and hurricanes.

Arctic melting

Warming has increased Arctic temperatures at about twice the global rate, and Arctic sea ice cover has been shrinking much faster than scientists anticipated.
Our Arctic Security report explores how this can set the stage for international disputes.

Wildfires

The number of large wildfires and the length of the wildfire season have been increasing in recent decades.
Find out how climate change will worsen wildfire condition

Heavy Precipitation

Heavy downpours and other extreme precipitation are becoming more common and are producing more rain or snow.
Learn more about the link between heavy precipitation and climate change.

A scientist has warned that the scenes from the 2004 blockbuster disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow are no longer science fiction and are already starting to take place.

The movie, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid, is an overdramatisation of what would happen under extreme climate change, with New York City being frozen solid after just a few days following a huge tsunami. Most of North America and Europe becomes a frozen wasteland in the movie and, although it might seem farfetched, sometimes reality is scarier than fiction.

A recently published paper by climate scientist Niklas Boers, reveals that the Atlantic Ocean’s Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – which creates the Gulf Stream which moves warm water from the Indian Ocean across to the Gulf of Mexico and Europe before cooling down around Greenland and South America – is starting to falter.

In the paper, which is available on Nature, Boers writes: “Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades, but estimates of the critical transition point remain uncertain.

“Significant early-warning signals are found in eight independent AMOC indices, based on observational sea-surface temperature and salinity data from across the Atlantic Ocean basin.

“These results reveal spatially consistent empirical evidence that, in the course of the last century, the AMOC may have evolved from relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical transition”

Essentially, due to the rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis, more freshwater from Greenland’s ice sheets is melting and being dumped into the system and isn’t cooling down where it originally should have. This is therefore causing a problem in the AMOC which could lead to something similar to The Day After Tomorrow.

However, Boers believes that, unlike the movie, the effects of the kink would take decades to take hold and neither North America nor Europe would experience the extreme freezing depicted in the Roland Emmerich film – but it could happen eventually if the AMOC system has a critical transition.

Worryingly, this has happened before. Studies show that, 11,700 years ago, a glacial lake burst and spilt through into the Atlantic ocean, causing the AMOC to shut down towards the end of the Earth’s most recent ice age. This huge influx of freshwater plunged much of the northern hemisphere into a deep cold that lasted 1000 years.

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