Is there any truth to the movie "The Day After Tomorrow"?

Question

I'm hoping to get a science wiz to answer this question, so here goes:

What I hean is: if the next Ice Age were to happen, is that how it might start?

Could the temperature drop at such a radical rate?

Could there be multiple storms of that size formed at once?

Could Tornadoes touch down in California? Etc.

Could any of this happen?

Answer 1

I was entertained by the movie as a source of entertainment only.   All of those scenarios are highly unlikely with the exception of tornadoe in California.

Answer 2

Potentially yes. The movie is based on the worst case scenario which scientist believe has happened in pre history....

Answer 3

The events as depicted in that movie occurred way too quick and were too extreme.  It is not possible to get the super cold superstorms that were the central theme of the movie.  A lot of artistic license was taken.  Ice ages take may centuries to develop and end.  The movie was for the most part science fiction.

Answer 4

The movie is based on this theory:

If the global warming continues, it will melt the Greenland's ice and put a lot of fresh water in the latitudes between 60 and 70 N.

The Gulfstream is a clockwise current in the northern Atlantic that goes from the Gulf of Mexico toward northern Europe. Outside the British islands, it parts in two branches: one turns south and comes back to the Gulf via the Canary Islands and the trade winds pattern. Another branch goes north east to the north of Norway (I live in Norway). That's why we have ice-free harbours all the way to latitude 72 N.

Now, there is a possibility that the excess of fresh water coming from the polar ice melting, changes that pattern because - as it is now, the denser salty water falls to the bottom of the ocean in the polar region. If that is upset, some predict that the Gulfstream may take an entirely other course and divert to the southern hemisphere instead of warming up north Europe. Should that happen, one can expect north Europe and north America to be much colder and see glaciers all the way to say, Scotland.

But that is only a theory of a possible future scenario that may take decades to form, if ever it can at all.

Look who made the movie: Roland Emmerich. The same person who made Independence Day, The Patriot,  Godzilla and newly: 10,000 BC. None of those can be said to hold any scientific ground. It's just Hollywood entertainment!

Answer 5

Not likely. It's more likely to be caused by the orbit changing -which is very unlikely.

No, it can't. Not even if you dumped a zillion gallons of liquid nitrogen into a hurricane, or on to a helicopter.

There are usually multiple storms around, sometimes a bunch of nasty ones, but they don't often join up together.

Sure tornadoes can touch down about anywhere, if they feel like it.

It could happen right on your TV, but that's it.