UNI Update

Back to UNI News Friday, May 21, 2004 UNI professor says events in 'The Day After Tomorrow' are a possibility "The Day After Tomorrow," a movie scheduled to be released May 28, will show viewers the catastrophic results of global warming: multiple tornadoes, earthquakes that demolish entire cities, and floods that engulf skyscrapers. It's a fictional account, of course, but Alan Czarnetzki, director of UNI's Science center for Teaching, Outreach and Research on Meteorology (STORM), says it could happen. "Maybe not as quickly as it will happen in the movie, but it's possible." Czarnetzki said there is a theory among scientists that gradual warming of the earth could lead to a sudden change in the oceans' circulation. In the Gulf Stream, which transports warm water to areas around England, there would no longer be a need for heat transport to the Pole. The North Atlantic would cool, allowing the ice sheets to advance south. This would result in a cold-air surge farther south. "And that would cause a very dramatic shift in weather patterns: cooling in Northern Europe and the northeast parts of North America could see arctic outbreaks."

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