The day after: does the film’s script have a chance of becoming reality?

Lovers of disaster films can rejoice since a classic of the genre is broadcast this Friday, April 15 on France 3 from 9:10 p.m. It is The day afterWhere The day after tomorrow in OV. Directed by Roland Emmerich and released in theaters in 2004, the film tells the adventures of Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) who tries to survive the arrival of a new ice age in the northern hemisphere. It all starts with weather alerts from beacons placed at sea before natural disasters follow one another due to drastic climate change. Multiple tornadoes, tsunamis, cyclones and then snowstorms until an extreme temperature of -101°C is reachedit is in this classic film that we can see the Statue of Liberty which sits on Liberty Island in New York completely buried under the snow.

This disaster scenario could it really happen to us? Researchers from the University of Southampton have looked into the case from the catalyst of everything that happens in The day after : the collapse of atmospheric circulation. Our temperate climate is due to what is called the meridian ocean circulation in the Atlantic, also called AMOC. It is this circulation that creates the famous Gulf Stream current, a warm surface ocean current that allows Western Europe in particular to have winters that are much less cold than those of North America, despite being located on the same lengths. In the film, Sam’s father Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) warns of this problem when beacons in the Atlantic Ocean suddenly signal a sudden cooling of the ocean which then causes a New York glaciation.

Towards a new ice age?

In reality, this phenomenon could be caused by the rapid melting of the Arctic ice which would then cause the ocean current to disappear by bringing a gigantic quantity of cold water into the current. The consequences of the disappearance of the Gulf Stream would be, for North America and Europe, extreme cooling bringing freezing temperatures. Contrary to what happens in The Day After Tomorrow, however, this climate change would take much longer and span decades. This scenario also remains one hypothesis among others of climate disruption caused by human activity. But it is a serious and current problem that the film addresses, as demonstrated in particular by the climatologist Niklas Boers who, in a recent study, underlined that the sudden disappearance of the AMOC is more and more probable.

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