Mariah Castillo

Project #1 The Day After Tomorrow

Five Key Concepts
1. Science helps us predict hazards
The world is very technologically advanced and we have a lot of technology at
our finger tips. This can help us be able to measure certain things that happen in our
environment easier. In the movie The Day After Tomorrow science and technology are
used to better understand what is happening with the climate changes they are
experiencing. For example, at the very beginning of the movie it shows some
paleoclimatologists drilling for ice-core samples. The movie also shows many more
examples showing how science can help us predict hazards.
They can see a storm system from outer space.
Ice caps melting changing North Atlantic currents.
Climate buoys are being triggered because of the drop of temperature at sea.
NASA can judge Solar Outputs.
They can measure how much air descends and at what speed.
They know the vortex is 50 miles wide.
2. Knowing hazard risks can help people make decisions
In this film it shows that climate is drastically changing in the northern hemisphere so
knowing this hazard risk could help people make the decision of evacuated all people from the
northern hemisphere and getting them somewhere safe. Although, the people did not take this
hazard risk seriously and people ended up getting caught in the storm. Another hazard risk they
could of took advantage of, is when scientist said to stay indoors and keep warm because the
weather would only get worse, by using this warning they could have used their resource by
creating a method in order to keep warm. However, many people did not obey these hazard
warnings which lead to many people trying to evacuate to somewhere warmer at last minute and
many deaths then occurred. Knowing the hazard risks of climate changes could have helped

people evacuate sooner and if the people listened to scientists and stayed inside instead of trying
to evacuate there could have been a lot of lives saved. Knowing hazard risks of simple things as
the climate changing could really benefit in the decision making process when facing a natural
disaster.
3. Linkages exist between natural hazards
The Day After Tomorrow is a really good example of this key concept. In this movie one
disaster leads to another sort of like a domino effect. First, it starts off with global warming
making the ice glaciers melt, leading to an unbalance of fresh water to salt in the sea, which then
leads to a tsunami. Also because of this global cooling there is a new ice age that takes place.
There are many snow and hail storms leading to the flooding of sewer systems in the streets and
the violent weather occurrences also had an impact on the hurricanes shown in the movie.
4. Humans can turn disastrous events into catastrophes
Humans have a big impact on how disasters are handled and what effect they have on
people. In the movie there had been no mitigation for any of the disasters that had taken place, a
main reason for this was because scientists had a theory that this sort of disaster would have not
happened for several 100 more years. In some situations as the one in the film The Day After
Tomorrow, many people do not take theories seriously and are not prepare for the worst. Another
big impact humans have that can turn disastrous events into catastrophes is the populations of
people from where the disaster occurs. For example, the tornadoes that hit the city of Los
Angeles had a catastrophe effect because of how many people live in LA and where affected.
5. Consequences of hazards can be minimized
Consequences of hazards can be minimized in several different ways, in this there was no
mitigation involved and if there were the consequences of the hazards could have been
minimized by a lot. However, there were a good number of search and rescue teams shown in the
movie before the snow storm hit, evacuating hospitals and other places. Another good strategy

they had was gathering as many people as they could into one place where they searched for
food and items they could burn for fires in order to keep warm.
Rights and Wrongs
This film had a lot of facts right on the natural disasters that had taken place throughout
the movie, although there were some things that were unrealistic that were put into the film to
create the Hollywood affect.
Rights

Paleoclimateology is the study of changes taken on the scale of the entire history of

earth (can be measured in ice glaciers).

This movie is actually based on a book called The Coming Global Superstorm.
The effect that melting ice glaciers have from global warming is actually true, creating
an uneven balance between salt and fresh water in the sea, which changes the seas

currents.
Stopping of warm water pushing into the ocean by the Gulf Stream will cause the
climate to cool.

Wrongs

At the very beginning of the movie there is no real explanation to why there are several

big tornadoes that are forming all over California.

In the eye of the storm it is to be said that the air is descending to fast causing everything
in its path to completely freeze, however the Gas Law says that air would naturally warm

itself when descending.

Hurricanes can only happen over the sea and not over land. Hurricanes need heat energy
from the warm ocean water to form.