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The day
after
tomorrow

The big turnover ...

Can global warming stop the ocean currents and lead to an ice age?

His Scottish colleague Prof. Rapson (Ian Holm) calls Hall:

"Do you remember, what you said recently about the melting of the poles and that it could mean the end of the gulf stream?"

"Yes, I remember!"

"I think, we reached that point."

Would the end of the Gulf Stream result in the end of heat transport from the tropics towards the North? The film producers depict the melting of the polar ice in an increasingly warming world. But is this just fantasy?

In fact, the rise in sea level had already hit the headlines years ago and famous European monuments that have been submerged by rising sea levels in a computer simulation of the future have been on the front covers of magazines. In recent years however, less has been talked about it. Scientists assume that the sea level will not rise by more than 1 m during the next 100 years. So is there no melting at the poles?

Studies have shown that ice is melting at the North Pole and the theory that links this with the disruption of the North Atlantic Stream is being investigated. Scientists regard this disruption to be possible, not the day after tomorrow but during the next century or next centuries. Also, the ice at the North Pole will melt more quickly than at the South Pole. At the North Pole there is pack-ice and drift-ice, because the North Pole is not located on solid ground. The map shows the seasonal fluctuation of the amount of floating ice between February on the left and September on the right. The melting of floating ice does not contribute to sea level rise, but it can have an impact on the ocean currents.

The film makes a scientific hypothesis become reality (for more information, refer to the sections 'oceans in flux' and 'abrupt climate change'). But then everything takes place in a very short time and becomes extreme. Processes that take decades in climate models occur within days. The changes in the ocean circulation cause severe storms with catastrophic impacts everywhere in the Northern hemisphere. The weather plays up and a giant flood wave drowns New York under masses of water. Orange size hailstones bomb Tokyo. In the end, the lack of warmth leads the industrialised world into an ice age. The thoughts of climate researchers are replaced by a horror scenario, as is typical for Hollywood. But unfortunately we cannot leave behind our worries in the cinema when the curtain falls. The film is thought-provoking and it is worth the effort to keep an eye on climate change after its end ...

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Orange size hailstones bomb Tokyo © 20th Century Fox