Apocalypse tomorrow 26 April 04

Great storms are brewing around the first Hollywood blockbuster ever to directly tackle the subject of global warming. ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, by the same director responsible for the disaster epic ‘Independence Day’ has sent climate scientists into a tizz. First, NASA ordered its experts not to comment (reported in the New York Times), for fear of offending the White House by helping fuel what it sees as ‘climate alarmism’. Then, fossil fuel-funded sceptics started jumping on the bandwagon: like the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s odious Bill Murray. So what of the scientists themselves? One group of climatologists, writing in the journal Science (vol. 304, p.400), were largely unmoved by the film’s depiction of a new global warming-sparked ice age, accompanied by giant waves crashing into Manhattan. The experts concluded that there was little possibility of major glacial growth while greenhouse gas concentrations remained at today’s elevated levels. Moreover, a total shut-down of the North Atlantic Ocean conveyor, which would plunge Europe into sudden cold, remains “highly unlikely”. In my view, The Day After Tomorrow’s producer Mark Gordon gets it about right: “All they need to be saying is that the drama of this movie is fictional but the fact is that global warming is real,” he told reporters.