And the Oscar for worst science in a Hollywood blockbuster goes to . . .

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2004)

Just watched this movie on DVD, and was awestruck - not at the CGI, but at the sheer badness of the science in this by-the-numbers disaster flick. The North Atlantic Current jumping 13 degrees in temperature in a matter of hours? Supercells sucking supercold air from the upper troposphere directly to the earth's surface without any warming? Instantaneous freezing (yes, I've heard about the Siberian mammoth, but the explanation was crap 10 years ago and even worse crap now)? Ice sheets forming over the Northern Hemisphere in a matter of days? As an earth scientist, I resent having global warming and climatic change being made the subject of an Irwin Allen-style schlockbuster. Movies like this simply make the entire topic risible.
A few points -
1) What about the poor Canadians? We don't hear a word about their fate - maybe they're dancing with glee over having the entire country turned into a gigantic NHL rink.
2) I can't imagine the Chinese, Iranians, etc would be too happy about having hordes of Russians moving south into their turf. Maybe our intrepid new President can show them the way to peace and brotherhood, just like he does in Mexico.
3) The wolf attack struck me as incredibly offensive for a movie as environmentally pretentious as this one - those wolves would have been snuggled up tight in the nearest shelter, and the odds of them attacking humans would have been zero.