7/27/2019 The Day After Tomorrow: The Real Deal on Global Warming

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  Corresponding Author: Garcera, AAC. Email Add:elleica@yahoo.com Mobile Num: +63.927.439-5273

F ACT OR FICTION: D AY AFTER T OMORROW  – 

THE REAL DEAL ON GLOBAL W ARMING 

Acielle Angeli C. Garceraa

 Bs Biology, Institute of Biology 

College of Science University of the Philippines

December is usually a cool month for most

parts of the world and the Philippines is no

exception to this. Yet I can’t help but notice that I

celebrated Christmas amidst a very hot weather –

almost like that of the summer season. This

observation was further verified in a local news

broadcast were they reported that indeed this

year’s Christmas has been one of the hottest inPhilippine history. PAG-ASA however predicted that

the coming New Year would witness a wet spell and

the accustomed cold weather. My sister and I

waited for this prediction to come true and along

the way we were somehow disappointed since the

skies were clear and sunny right up to the last day of 

the year. We then started speculating how hot

summer can get. Then just when everyone was

ready to welcome the dawn of 2008 and start

showcasing the fireworks they’ve bought, rain

began pouring in. And it poured and poured until

the creek behind our house overflowed. And up to

now, as I’m writing this, the cold environment and

the wet grounds outside bears testimony to how

abrupt the weather has changed in the last few

days.

The same scenario, though in a rather

extreme way is depicted in the movie “The Day After

Tomorrow” which was released in May 2004 and

starred Dennis Quaid. In the movie, hail the size of golf balls fell in Tokyo as hurricanes devastated the

whole area of Los Angeles. Temperatures rapidly

decreased and in a matter of days the whole

Northern Hemisphere including Europe and North

America were covered in a deep blanket of snow

making the landscape somehow similar to that of 

Antarctica. These forces the residents of the

affected regions to migrate south seeking refuge in

foreign lands. Some were unfortunate enough and

died during the unexpected ordeal. And the culprit

for such an abrupt climate change? Global warming.

Climatologist Jack Hall (Quaid) forewarned

prominent leaders of various nations about the

effects of the world’s current actions to the earth’s

climate yet they remained indifferent thus leadingto the unexpected and unprepared for disasters. But

what is global warming exactly and is there any

grain of truth to the situations depicted in the

movie?

The past decades saw an increase in the

sequestering and use of coal – a major source of 

energy that fuels almost everything happening in

the world today. This increase in coal consumption

has led to an increase in the carbon dioxide released

in the atmosphere. On top of that deforestation has

prevented carbon dioxide to be recycled back into

the earth leading to an influx of greenhouse gases in

the atmosphere that cause the temperature of the

earth to rise and consequently that of the oceans.

These caused the water to expand and the sea levels

to rise. It has been estimated that the past century

has witnessed a total of 1°F (0.56°C) increase in the

atmosphere and 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) increase in

sea levels. It may not seem much but this small

change in temperature has caused the extinction of a lot of animal and plant species.

The increasing threat of global warming also

affects the thermohaline circulation otherwise

known as the great ocean conveyor belt (Figure 1).

Temperature as well as salinity regulates this

circulation. In this system of currents, heat from the

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equator is moved to the North Atlantic region where

it is cooled eventually moving back to the tropics as

a deep sea current. With global warming it can be

possible that some parts of the system or even the

whole system would shut down. Evidences from the

past has even showed that there were instanceswhen the Gulf Stream, the current responsible for

the climate conditions in the North Atlantic Ocean,

shut down leading to cooler climate conditions in

the region.

Figure 1: Great Ocean Conveyor Belt

Sources: National Center for Atmospheric Research,

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, MSNBC 

Therefore, the explanation for the abrupt

climate change in the movie is true. Increasing

temperatures cause the melting of the Arctic

glaciers and results in huge amounts of freshwater

being dumped into the ocean reducing the salinity

of the North Atlantic current and preventing it from

sinking back to the tropics. In the past, there have

been cases where retreating glaciers caused massive

dumping of freshwater to the North Atlantic Ocean

resulting in the current totally stopping. However,

what climatologists refer to as abrupt climatechange in fact happens within the span of several

decades – not days. The ocean circulates

temperature in a much slower pace than the

atmosphere thus making it highly improbable for

the extremely abrupt climate change depicted in the

movie.

The movie may be a highly sensationalized

approach to the threats of global warming but it

should serve to warn us of the very real danger we

face. We may not live to see the effects of our

actions now but our children’s children and

grandchildren may. Several institutions as well asgroups have taken on the role of actively reducing

their contribution to the greenhouse gases and

raising the awareness of the serious threat of global

warming. What about us? Simple ways of conserving

electricity and other forms of energy such as car

fuels can go a long way in the fight against global

warming.

The earth is not our own and that includes

the climate. It is a poorly misunderstood system that

we often have experimented upon. The disasters we

encounter now – tsunamis, stronger storms,

droughts and other abrupt day-to-day weather

conditions are the beginning pangs of an earth

succumbing to the effects of global warming. How

many more alarm signals will cause us to wake up?

How long will we still wait before we act? If we

continue with our adamant ways and our ignorance

of the situation around us, we, or our descendants,

will be facing a very real ice age in their time, not

the day after tomorrow.

Sources:

“Day After Tomorrow” Ice Age “Impossible” Researcher Says.

May 27, 2004. Stefan Lovgren. National Geographic News.

Accessed at: Accessed on:

Day After Tomorrow Movie: Could Ice Age occur overnight?.

May 18, 2004. Stefan Lovgren in Los Angeles. National

Geographic News. Accessed at: Accessed on:

The sciene, and fiction, of Day After Tomorrow. May 27,

2004. MSNBC. Accessed at: Accessed on:

Great Ocean Conveyor Belt. Potential Impacts of Climate

Change. UNEP. Accessed at: Accessed on: