Natural Disasters: Fact or Fiction?

Filmmakers call loud special effects "whammies" -- and the summer blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow is reportedly a smokin', whammy fest.

In the setup, the Larson B Ice Shelf -- a large floating ice mass on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula -- has shattered and separated from the continent. A series of C-chain reactions lead to the tidal waves, tornadoes, and the freeze-drying of New York City.

"The melting of the Larson B Ice Shelf really happened," Daniel A. Lashoff, PhD, science director of the National Resource Defense Council (www.NRDC.org), tells WebMD, "but the reality ends there. The Gulf Stream did not disappear."

But what if someone told you the oceans would indeed rise 3 feet? The lower end of Manhattan would be flooding every four years? According to Lashoff, this is just one of an equally horrific sequence of real whammies that could occur by the end of this century caused by the slow simmering of our planet.

The heat-trapping property of gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases) traps some of the outgoing energy from the earth, retaining heat somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse.

Jonathan Patz, assistant professor in the department of Health Sciences, at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., published an editorial in the British Medical Journal (May 29, 2004) outlining the health impacts of global warming.

The theory put forth in the movie, that the melting of Greenland's glaciers stops the Gulf Stream and leads to an instant ice age, he tells WebMD, is one that scientists have put forth, although it is considered very unlikely.

However, the idea of abrupt climate change -- and accompanying human ills -- is not fiction, Patz says. Cases in point:

• Last year's devastating heat wave that killed 15,000 people in France.
• The heat wave that killed 600 in Chicago in the mid1990s.
• Various severe weather events: heat, droughts, floods, and storms that have killed 123,000 people a year since 1972.
• The Dust Bowl drought that devastated America during the Great Depression.
• Loss of wetlands in Louisiana and Florida that can wipe out species and stop production of seafood.

One does not have to go back to the dawn of time when dinosaurs were clomping around to chart noticeable changes in the weather and climate. Now there are RCCEs -- Rapid Climate Change Events. Seemingly slight changes called "forcings" -- even a 1% increase in the global temperature -- can press on the entwined ecological elements like a finger slowly pressing a light switch, as one scientist put it. At a certain point -- click! -- the climate switches abruptly to a new state. This process could lead to changes in agricultural, water, and health.

Elements Involved

The oceans are a huge agent of change as they transport heat around the world (witness the Gulf Stream scenario). Also involved, of course, are the "cold parts," earth sections covered in ice. Ice is white and reflects 90% of the sunlight and heat away from the earth. Then, there is the atmosphere, which creates winds and transfers heat or cold to every corner of the planet.