In May 2004, the American science-fiction disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow” was made and distributed throughout the world with a box office intake of over $540 million on a production budget of $125 million. The movie was based on a story in which catastrophic climate effects, following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation in a series of extreme weather events, usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age. This film became the 6th highest-grossing film of 2004 with mixed reviews including criticism of scientific inaccuracies.
In the world of science, we do not understand many things. Today’s truth becomes obsolete tomorrow as soon as a new “fact” is observed and confirmed. A life-long research by a distinguished scientist could be toppled tomorrow once a junior researcher finds unique phenomena which negates all “truths” from the experienced scientist. It is a dangerous world and science is risky business.
Information of Solar Minimum
As late as October 2018, Dr. Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University (in Northern England) and her group predicted that the solar magnetic field is getting so weak that our planet earth is in danger of an impending “Super Grand Solar Minimum” and that starting in 2020 our planet is going to experience deep cold with over 90% certainty. The Solar Minimum is considered as minimum solar activities, such as sun’s black spots are weak, so that the earth gets less energy from the sun. Her predictions include that the sun’s current energy appears similar to that of 350 years ago when our earth experienced lengthy years of minimum solar activities and scientists recorded it as mini-ice age (Maunder Minimum 1645-1715).
When a mini-ice age hits us due to a decrease in energy from the sun, the earth experiences a cooling period. Her prediction is somewhere between 2020-2055. She even predicts possible food shortage during 2028-2032. The counting of the sun’s black spots have been recorded since Galileo’s invention of the telescope and the Maunder Minimum period was no exception. Independently, NASA predicts the same cooling weather trend due to a reduction in the sun’s influence. Simply the earth gets colder when sun’s black spots count is less or not at all. The earth’s entire energy is supplied by the sun, we should pay more attention to the sun’s activities. In the last 40 years or so, our attention has been focused solely on greenhouse gases such as CO2, predicting earth’s warming trend without reviewing historical cyclic nature.
Gambling on Science
I found it interesting that so many Hollywood movies are related to disasters and end-of-the-human-life crisis. People (me too) go to Armageddon scenes and enjoy watching people die or the destruction of cities. The movie “The Day After Tomorrow” was one of them.
Why do we like them? At the same time, many people and scientists are predicting the future, saying “disasters are coming” and bet on their prediction of disaster. If not on global warming, they bet on global cooling. It is my intuitive feeling that we should give humans a warning saying “prepare for global warming due to CO2,” and “prepare for global ice-age due to disappearance of sun spots.”
Each side’s argument is based on their side of science. They do not consider the other side seriously, instead they simply dismiss the opposite side. If they do consider both sides of the stories, they are unable to present a plausible explanation. I will easily take on these issues. If a stray meteor hit the earth and I die tomorrow, so be it. Accepting anything that comes in on a daily basis instead of worrying about the disaster possibilities of all sides, may give me peaceful life. Preparation may be a good way to live, but not knowing what to prepare for makes me restless. I am not a good gambler with science.