OT: Day After Tom. "Hurricanes"

[chris_fit]

I hope its ok for me to post this in this forum :-P

First I'd like to say hi to all and glad to be back for the 2004 season! This forum served as my "Weather Channel" for the 2003 season, and no less this year!

Ok, I'm sure most of you have seen "Day After Tomorrow." How realistic are the 'Land Hurricanes' with the super cold eye. Is that completely made up or is it possible? I feel stupid for asking cause I'm sure its all fiction but just want some other opinions from good sources

Also, the Atlantic current that 'Shut Down' in the movie which trigged all the weather events. Is there really one? Does it effect the earth's climate as much as it did in the movie? I tried searching on google but only found a few pages that didn't help me much. This has been bothering me for days and I must find out and no place better to ask than here

[wxman57]

The cold they described in the eye of that ice hurricane is impossible. In the movie, they said "the air is sinking too fast to warm up on the way down". That's a bunch of bunk, as it assumes that the air would be heated by the surrounding air on the way down. But it doesn't happen that way. Sinking air is compressed by increasing pressure, heating INSTANTLY. It's just like if you release C02 out of a cartirdge and it forms ice instantly upon expanding (but in reverse).

As for the current, it is quite real. Dr. Gray and Chris Landsea talk aboutu the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation or "conveyor belt" all the time. This conveyor belt does speed up and slow down each 20-40 years. The last time it slowed down was from 1970-1994, resulting in significant cooling of the North Atlantic and much fewer major hurricanes. In fact, it's in a speeded-up period now (just as it was from 1926-1969). When this happens, the average SST across the North Atlantic heats up by 1/2 to 1 deg F, resulting in a significant increase in major hurricane activity (doubles). This latest warm-up began in 1995. You can read about it here:

http://www.clivar.com/publications/othe ... ip/pd3.htm

http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~christof/div/fact4thc.html

http://www.ocean.fsu.edu/Courses/sp00H1 ... paper.html

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/acvp/gray.htm

[Steve H.]

The funny part of the whole thing was that the satellite photos/loops they showed were described as hurricanes; the photos showed intense thunderstorms around the center, which implied a warm core (they used some hurricane shots) which have rising, not sinking air. You may also have noticed that they showed a few loops of southern hemisphere storms that were rotating clockwise. Also, where he got the data to update his ice age model in a can was beyond me. He must have been talking to the guy the froze in the glacier milleniums ago. And our hero was able to drive from Washington to NY through all this, and they couldn't get the president to go from Washington to Dixie when he left before them; but the nurse was OK and the little boy; and they were the last one's out of town. And............etc

[chris_fit]

Interesting!!! Thanks!