A New Ice Age?

barakn writes "Scientists have savaged the new movie The Day After Tomorrow, which depicts global warming causing a new ice age and freezing New York solid. The movie follows on the heels of a report to the Department of Defense in February, written by two guys who are not climatologists, about the implications of global warming triggering the growth of ice sheets in the northern hemisphere. There is a plausible theory which suggests that melting ice may release enough fresh water to halt circulation of warm water from the Gulf Stream, thus significantly cooling Europe and the east coast of North America. Note that this theory depends on melting ice, not growing ice, which may be one reason scientists find the ice age scenario so hard to swallow. New satellite evidence suggests a part of this circulation may already be slowing down. Those on the North American west coast will not have to worry about ice sheets, but changes in Arctic ice could mean the western drought will be permanent. For those of you who would rather do something before it's too late, iron seems to work, but the long-term ecological implications are still unknown."

Comments

Movie trailer

[Pzykotic]

For those who are curious:

(Quicktime)

The Day After Tomorrow (Trailer)

Grandiose claims do not substitute for facts

[barakn]

I didn't see any relevant facts in your link.

It was also said that the toxic output of this blast contained nearly a thousand times the ozone depleting chemicals that humans have created since the Industrial Revolution."

I've heard this claim before, investigated it, and found it to be ridiculous.

From this reference: "...[T]he large explosive eruption of Mount Pinatubo on 15 June 1991 ... injected about 17 million tonnes of SO2 into the stratosphere. ." The fossil-fuel derived output of SO2 was roughly equivalent to 68 Tg/yr of S (68 million tonnes/yr) in the late 80's (source: Global Environment: Water, Air, and Geochemical Cycles, by Berner and Berner, 1996). Since this number is only for the sulfur component, the total mass of SO2 is even larger, 136 million tonnes/yr.. A year's worth of human sulfur dioxide production far outweighs Pinatubo's production. The sulfate aerosols resulting from SO2 act as surfaces for ozone-destroying chlorine. The lifetime for these sulfate aerosols is 3 years, as compared to 45-100 years for common manmade (and ozone destroying) CFCs (ref).

Also from the 1st ref."...[V]olcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons). Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes...."