The Day After Tomorrow

:The Day After Tomorrow is an alternate title for the Robert Heinlein novel Sixth Column, as well as the title of a novel by Allan Folsom. It also is the name of a Japanese band.

Science analysis

It should be noted that there is little if any meteorological or climatological science in the actual events of the movie. It relies upon a concept borrowed from chaos theory that a critical change can rapidly destabilise an entire system, but many scientists believe the "global superstorm" depicted in the movie is extremely implausible, if not impossible.

Related Topics:
Meteorological - Climatological - Chaos theory

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The initial idea—that an increase in freshwater could cause a slowdown or stop of the thermohaline circulation—has some probability, say scientists, but would be more likely to cause regional rather than global cooling, and would probably operate on timescales of decades or more. Other aspects of the "science" in the film—that descending stratospheric air would be cold, for example—are considered by some to be blatantly wrong. George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow "a great movie and lousy science" http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1215824,00.html. The potential temperature of stratospheric air is higher (not lower) than the temperature of the surface air. Also, the "descending" air is depicted as freezing without a matching downdraft.

Related Topics:
George Monbiot - Potential temperature - Downdraft

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The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution provides some more detailed analysis of the flaws in the science of the movie http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_dayafter.html.

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A further incongruity is the appearance of the wolfpack, which is said to have probably escaped from a zoo. It is extremely unlikely that the few caged specimens kept in an enclosure would be capable of forming a viable hunting pack or behave in the manner depicted within the very few days involved.

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