What were the many errors of "Day After Tomorrow"?

[Hypercane]

It is quite obvious that the time duration of storm formation was wrong, even hurricanes dont happen within two or three days.

What were the many other scientific errors?

Please refrain from saying "the movie was a load of bullshit" or "shitty movie" i want this thread completely scientifical.

[Andre]

Actually the movie is a splendid proof that we have no clue about climate yet. Neither the climate of the past, nor the cllimate of the future.

More later

[The Singularity]

The most obvious mistake in my view had to do with the three global storms. Those three storms were low pressure systems and because of that, the air should have been sucked up at the eye .... not blown downward. Even hurricanes exhibit this air suction at the eye.

Also of note, the scientist said that the storm was blowing extremely cold air from high in the atmosphere down toward the surface ... which caused everything to freeze alomost instantly. The problem with that is that clouds stop forming at the tropopause ... a boundry layer about 11 Km above the surface. At that altitude, the air only has a temperature of around 220 K (or -53 C) ... which is no where near the temperatures they were reading at the eye of the storm.

[eburacum45]

This movie was pretty wrong about most of the climatology.
http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/global-warming/

While scientists agree that the movie's science is bogus, they also agree overwhelmingly that human-caused climate change is real and will have real impacts, such as rises in sea level, species extinctions, dangerous heat waves (like the one that killed thousands in Europe last summer), and so forth.

This raises an inevitable question of tactics: Should mainstream climate scientists and responsible environmental advocates seize upon The Day After Tomorrow as an opportunity to talk about the real issues that we're facing, as Gore and others have done? Or will any association with the film's ridiculous scenarios discredit them by association?

During a recent trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts, I interviewed several scientists with expertise in climate, and ask them, among other things, about The Day After Tomorrow. I generally found them in agreement about the film's scientific plausibility (i.e., slim to none), but somewhat differently disposed in other respects.

On the one hand, physicist Robert Frosch, a former administrator of NASA during the Carter administration and now at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, wasn't so psyched about the film. "Even some of the guys who figured out what the big disasters might be are getting very impatient with the disaster merchants," said Frosch, who has contributed to several National Academy of Sciences reports concerning climate change. "I think the whole community is annoyed with whoever the producers of the new Hollywood thing are."

But James McCarthy, the Alexander Agassiz professor of biological oceanography at Harvard and a lead contributor to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saw things somewhat differently. "In the actual production of the movie, some people have said, 'Are we creating such a farcical image of future climate that it will serve to distract people from the real climate news?'," said McCarthy, an expert on climate change impacts.

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu...iFrameset.html

While I think there is only a minute (say, 1 in 1000) chance that Europe's climate could resemble that of Siberia by 2010, as projected as plausible in the Pentagon report (page 11), the more realistic prospects of enhanced droughts and floods, rising sea levels, super heat waves (like those that killed nearly 20,000 in Europe in summer 2003), disturbed patterns of plants and animals, melting glaciers, and slowly-building changes that could potentially be irreversible over time, should be enough to motivate any person who puts the planet and our future above short-term politics...

[eburacum45]

The main claim to accuracy that this scenario has is the possible reversal of the Atlantic conveyor current and Gulf Steam; this could cause Northern Europe to develop similar temperatures to the north east coast of Canada.
This did happen apparently in the Younger Dryas, just after the end of the last Ice Age.
However the entire climate of the world was obviously different, back then, when the glaciation was not completely finished; the dramatic cooling of the Younger Dryas is unlikely to happen now.

Even if it did, you know the climate of Northern Canada is not as extreme as this film makes out;
additionally there is no precedent for tornado swarms or any of the other bizarre phenomena in this film.
------------

[ck27]

The movie was never ment for accuracy. I didn't go see it because i wanted to see what could happen or how the earth is going ot change. I saw it because what could be more entertaining then watching la get destroyed by tornados and new york washed away?

[wesmorris]

It seemed to me that the movie was one giant mistake. How completely stupid. What a pathetic, retarded pile.

I watched it for the cool effects too, but it was a crappy copy so there was no redemption.

[Norman]

Maybe the movie wasn't that far off when it comes to "monster" storms and all.......hundreds of millions of years ago when the earth was much younger, it probably (when conditions were right) produced much lower atmospheric pressures, which generated much larger and more destructive storms and probably much larger "killer" tornados and similiar weather conditions seen in the movie!

Yob Atta

[Facial]

The producers gave us pretty good entertainment, nevertheless. Can't blame them for not being scientists

[Norman]

Too bad they didn't throw in a couple of dinosuars or neanderthals just for "kicks".......

Yob Atta

[Hypercane]

Actually as ridiculous as the movie sounds, I see that a few climatologists said its possible, its just the time duration of the storm depicted in the movie that is pretty outrageous.

[Starthane Xyzth]

Maybe the movie wasn't that far off when it comes to "monster" storms and all.......hundreds of millions of years ago when the earth was much younger, it probably (when conditions were right) produced much lower atmospheric pressures, which generated much larger and more destructive storms and probably much larger "killer" tornados and similiar weather conditions seen in the movie!

No reason to suppose that superstorms such as those you imagine couldn't happen again: just because they've not been seen in the last few millennia, a geologic eyeblink, doesn't mean they never can.

They do sound rather like the kind of catastrophes mentioned in the Old Testament...

Slight variations in the Sun's output, or a once-in-1000-years sized flare directed at Earth, could certainly set off some meterological mayhem.

But one storm starting a whole new ice age? No. It would require near-total cloud cover for weeks on end, to dramatically lower the air temperature all over the northern hemisphere (it would probably have to be both hemispheres, actually.)

[Hypercane]

But one storm starting a whole new ice age? No. It would require near-total cloud cover for weeks on end, to dramatically lower the air temperature all over the northern hemisphere (it would probably have to be both hemispheres, actually.)

It is most probable that the superstorms depicted in the movie would have to last for almost a century. The peak of the superstorm would happen after its development. It starts to get weaker, and weaker as time passes by. I have a pretty radical theory on how these superstorms are formed.

[Hypercane]

Beautiful how they make storms in movies so perfect, well most movies.

[Starthane Xyzth]

I have a pretty radical theory on how these superstorms are formed.

Then please, share it with us - in keeping with your username.

[Hypercane]

Then please, share it with us - in keeping with your username.

Ill private message you it.

[Essan]

But one storm starting a whole new ice age? No. It would require near-total cloud cover for weeks on end, to dramatically lower the air temperature all over the northern hemisphere (it would probably have to be both hemispheres, actually.)

Actually, it's a lot easier than that to start a new ice age: just shift current weather patterns ever so slightly and ensure that the Hudson Bay area receives more snow fall each winter than melts in summer. Wait a few centuries and viola: a new ice sheet has formed which, due to feedback processes, will contuinue to grow and grow until it covers N America

Of course, that doesn't make for dramatic cinema though.....

[MewSkitty]

The movie was right about how that if we keep pouring none-salty water in the ocean it could upset the ballence and cause the weather to change, but I don't think it'll be that quickly. All in all the movie was great.

[Facial]

And thus, you were entertained. The movie producers did their job.

[Hypercane]

If the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation would stop, There would also be no heat distributed to Antarctica, in areas close to the Drake Passage. Siberia doesnt receive heat from ocean currents, but will get seriously cold, pretty fast without heat being distributed to the Northern Hemisphere.