MQ_The Day After Tomorrow
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Jan 9, 2024
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EES 0836
The Day After Tomorrow (2004) Video Response Questions
Disasters: Geology vs. Hollywood
Introduction
As Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall is in Antarctica, he discovers that a huge ice sheet has sheared off. But
what he does not know is that this event will trigger a massive climate shift that will affect the world
population. Meanwhile, his son Sam is with friends in New York City to attend an event. There, they
discover that it has been raining non-stop for the past three days, and after a series of weather-related
disasters begin to occur all over the world, everybody realizes the world is about to enter a new Ice Age
and the world population begins trying to evacuate to the warmer climates of the south. Jack makes a
daring attempt to rescue his son and his friends who are stuck in New York City and who have managed
to survive not only a massive wave but also freezing cold temperatures that could possibly kill them.
-imdb.com
Learning Objective
●
Critically assess the portrayal of science and climate change in the movie The Day After
Tomorrow (2004).
(4, 5, b)
Questions
During and after watching the video clips, answer the following questions. Add your answers below and
submit on Canvas.
1.
In the opening sequence of the film (Clip 1), Jack, the climatologist, risks his life to retrieve the
ice cores his research team is collecting in Antarctica. What’s so important about ice cores to
climate studies that he would take such a chance?
The ice preserves air bubbles that are a record of past atmospheric concentrations.
2.
What causes the disaster at the Antarctic research outpost?
The ice shelf collapses and breaks apart – likely due to global warming.
3.
Have similar events in Antarctica happened in real life? (You’ll have to do a little additional
internet research on this one.)
In the spring 2020 an ice shelf collapsed rapidly, similarly, but not as dramatically as shown in the
movie.
4.
Jack tells the delegates at the conference that global warming can affect ocean circulation such
that it paradoxically causes global cooling. Is there any real scientific basis for this statement, and
if so, what?
Yes, a collapse of the Thermohaline Circulation would stop warm water from being brought north
– this warms the northern hemisphere, so without this current, the northern hemisphere would
cool – this has happened before during the Younger Dryas event.
5.
The weather station in the UK (shown in Clip 3) records sudden drops in ocean surface
temperatures in multiple places in the North Atlantic. Based on what you have seen thus far (in
class and in the previous clips), what do you think you are supposed to conclude is causing that
EES 0836
temperature drop?
Fresh water from melting glaciers cause the thermohaline circulation to slow or shutdown,
causing warmer waters from the tropics to stop moving northward.
6.
What disaster did it actually resemble?
A tsunami.
7.
What else was completely unrealistic about the water crashing through the Manhattan streets?
(Hint: Watch the motor vehicles.)
A tsunami-like surge wouldn’t occur from a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation or even
melting of the ice sheet – sea level would rise, but not cause a tsunami.
8.
Temperatures plummet, snow begins to fall, the floodwaters freeze, and Jack’s son Sam warns
that anyone who goes outside will freeze to death in the approaching storms that bring on the new
Ice Age (spoiler alert: they do). This all happens in the course of a few days. Do you think this
climate change shift is realistic on this timeline? Why or why not?
No, no… it’s happening too fast, we have seen abrupt changes on the order of a few years, but
over the course of 48 hours is unrealistic…
9.
Duke University paleoclimatologist Dr. William Hyde described the film as follows: “this movie
is to climate science as Frankenstein is to heart transplant surgery.” What do you think?
I guess, but it seems overly simplistic, it gets a lot of the basic science right, just on a sped up
timeline.
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