The Day After Tomorrow ***SPOILERS***

[TPRJones]

I'm just starting the movie, and I know I'll want to complain and nitpick everything somewhere where someone might actually read it. Not that I actually expect anyone to. But still, I need to say it. Most of this will no doubt be silly snarky comments. So here I go.

EDIT - I forgot to mention that to help get into the movie, I've cranked my A/C down to 45, which is as low as it will go.

6m - So, with that big ice sheet to have a crack go across it happens to do so right through the middle of their camp? Wow, what a coincidence. Unless the drill supposedly caused it ... but I'm betting that's not the case. We'll see. Oh, also, since when does a glacier breaking off suddenly stop and result in a seemingly bottomless pit, anyway? It doesn't quite work like that.

7m - Hey, I'm impressed! That's actually pretty close to current theory in a lot of ways. A little more panicky than usual, of course, but if there weren't an immediate threat it wouldn't be much of a movie.

10m - A sudden drop in the ocean temperature of 13 degrees? Even in a small area, that takes a huge amount of energy ... or more precisely it involves the removal of a huge amount of energy. So, somewhere something else got really hot all of a sudden. I wonder just where that energy went?

12m - Nevermind, it's been converted into hail and is destroying Tokyo. Anything that destroys Tokyo is allowed to defy scientific explanation, by long-standing movie tradition.

17m - Wow, they sure don't build overhead bin latches like they used to. They've gotten good at making trolleys without wobbly wheels, though, so that's a bonus.

19m - Most of the Atlantic is seeing a drop of 13 degrees now? Jesus, where is all this thermal energy going, anyway?! That's ... I'll have to stop and do the math, but I'm betting this thermal energy loss would best be described in terms of how many A-bombs of energy is involved.

24m - Oh, so the temperature drops are due to current shifts? So most of the equatorial Atlantic must have risen in temperature by 13 degrees. Okay, that explains where the energy is going, but it doesn't explain how such a huge temperature shift due to currents can take place in the course of days, much less months. This sort of major thermal shift should be measured in at least years and maybe even decades.

28m - That many tornados forming so quickly in LA so as to not have enough cloud cover and rain to obscure the view? Very convenient, but not very plausible. Still, it's worth it to see LA get shredded, I guess.

32m - Hmmmm, interesting. Giant glacier, too much fresh water dumped in the ocean ... okay, that could speed up the processes that I've been complaining about being so slow, but not THIS much. Not even close. I mean, it would take ages for the glacier to melt enough to effect the saline levels, so much so that the changes would still be gradual, not sudden. Maybe if you nuked the ice caps ... nah, I still can't buy it. We couldn't even do this on purpose if we tried, much less on accident.

38m - Oh, okay, so the ice age happened instantly last time, too, then? Well, I guess you can't blame the humans for this mess, then. Unless the woolly mammoths were burning fossil fuels and polluting the air with greenhouse gasses, then this crazy superfast ice age must be a natural phenomenon. There's a lack of internal consistency in the logic here, methinks.

40m - Instantly freezing helicopters over northern Scotland? No. Just ... no.

41m - The atmosphere over northern Scotland is -125 degrees Fahrenheit? Okay, that would cause some rapid freezing, but not instant. However, back to that same old question of where the energy is going. This is getting downright ridiculous. Or are we going to see that people in Cancun have to deal with air temperatures of 140+ degrees all of a sudden? No? Didn't think so.

44m - A cold hurricane? Okay, that's not implausible. Hurricanes are generally caused at their most basic level by collisions of hot and cold air, IIRC, so if you have supercold air and regular cold air, you could get some sort of coldicane. Stipulating supercold air, of course, which I won't do.

47m - Massive flooding in NY actually seems pretty reasonable given everything else going on. Of course, the water is rising about a foot every two minutes, which is pretty fast considering it's not raining all that hard.

48m - Now THAT's a storm surge! Way too fast, though. Way way too fast.

50m - Interestingly, if you stipulate such a storm surge, that's how it would look once it's been channeled into the streets of NY all right. Given buildings constructed of titanium alloy, of course. All those buildings should be crumbling in front of that, not channeling it. That's hundreds or even thousands of tons of pressure being driven in front of that surge.

52m - Oooo, supercooled air from the upper atmosphere? That's a pretty good explanation. Sort of. I mean, there's still the problem of where all the warm air is going ... eh, it's mostly the climatological version of technobabble, really, but it improves things a little bit. Of course, there's no mention that in order for this supercold air from the upper atmosphere to remain supercold it'll also have to remain very very thin (not quite a vacuum, but very close) as it comes down or the compression of sea level air pressure will warm it up quite a bit. Now not only do we have missing heat, we have missing mass as well, for a 50-mile wide eye it's about 20,000 cubic miles of air (on the order of 115 billion tons of air) sort of just ... missing.

1h 3m - You know, ice ages effect the southern hemisphere, too. I'm just sayin'.

1h 4m - Hey, I'm south of that line. Y'all could all come here when this happens. But if you stay, you'll help me shovel snow when it hits Houston to earn your keep, caphice?

1h 6m - You know, it occurs to me that they might be able to stop the supercold supercells (their words, not mine) if they hit the eyes of these things with nukes. That would provide plenty of warm air to stop the supercold downdrafts, wouldn't it?

1h 8m - All that seawater in the streets of NY has frozen over thick enough to walk on already? Yeah, sure.

1h 13m - Hey, it IS snowing in Texas! There’s a blizzard at the border to Mexico. Wow. Say, I wonder if all those Americans illegally entering Mexico will be called "drybacks"? Anyway, so much for staying at my place.

1h 22m - Wait a minute, did he just slam his ice axe into the glass to stop the slide? But that glass is super-fragile, that was just established by the sled rails breaking it. Maybe he hit a really strong piece of glass, I guess.

1h 33m - Where in the world did the cgi coyotes come from? Any sensible wildlife that has survived this mess is going to be well in hiding from the cold. They certainly wouldn't be in downtown Frozen Manhattan. This is a new low.

1h 36m - Even if we stipulate cgi coyotes in downtown Frozen Manhattan, they are not going to be attacking people. They're going to be too busy being freaked out to get anywhere near people. They certainly haven't had enough time to be close enough to starving to be doing it out of hunger.

1h 41m - I guess those doors must be airtight or something. As silly as this movie is getting, I'm surprised they didn't have the fire freeze. After all, a nice hot chopper engine froze over instantly before, and burning books aren't any hotter than that.

1h 52m - Now it's time for the "we shouldn't have burned so much oil" speech from the President. I'd just like to point out again that the movie already established that this is the same way the other ice ages started with the mammoth bit. So, how can you blame it on man-made global warming, then? Bah, there's not even any consistency in this fiasco of a movie.

1h 53m - This I don't know: can a chopper fly all the way from Mexico to NY and back without refueling? Somehow I doubt it. Especially not those cargo choppers, those things are gas hogs, aren't they?

1h 55m - And again, don't ice ages hit both hemispheres? *sigh*

So, all in all it's not nearly as bad as I had feared, but it's pretty bad. I enjoyed the movie anyway. It is a good story, if you can ignore the really really bad liberally-biased science.

[thibodeaux]

Somebody pointed out that they're in a library with lots of nice hardwood furniture...and they burn the books.

[TPRJones]

I have no problem with that, but only because they started with the tax laws.

Actually, it's a good point that I missed. I guess books are easier to disect and transport, though, so I can see why that'd be their choice. No need for an axe. But not as long-lasting, either, requiring constant refueling.