Facts and fiction about the iceage

When I heard about the movie "Day after tomorrow" I was really eager to go and see it. There were two reasons for my wish. One part of me really loves those catastroph-movies with all their horrors, were always the main character seems to survive against all odds. Another part of me wanted to find out what the film-creators had come up with concerning the iceage's return. It was truly interesting and I recognized quite a few scientistic facts. Unfortunately I forgot some of the facts they mentioned in the movie, so I have to buy it later on and see it more times.

One thing I strongly remember was when the scientist and hero were talking about the last iceage; that it should have come 10.000 years ago and lasted 100 years. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. My knowledge about the iceage is way different and so is all the scientific sources ever revealed to me. The last main iceage lasted about 100.000 years and ended almost 11.000 years ago. That is the general view. Quite different from the movie and makes me wonder how come movie-makers are so sloppy with wellknown facts. Seems like a hard efford to ridicule the whole movie, which would be a fools doing. Any movie dealing with catastrophic themes needs to be at least the slightest probable to get the audience really caught.

They did get the tremedous temperature falling theory throw though. How it could really explain the frozen Mammuth with food still in its mouth. That I believe could happen as I have heard terrible stories about that in modern time up here in the north where I live. A day with slightly stormy weather, where a sudden rainfall ended with a terrible cold which froze everyone - man and mamal - to death. After a shower it would not take much cold to kill and knowing the coldest temeratures on this planet has been as low as over 80 degrees below the freezingpoint it all seems very likely. Though I do feel doubts about it going as far as 100 below.

Already today the ice is melting up in the north and the movie very correctly stakes out this theory how the current will swift by all sweetwater added to the salt. That is why the iceage returned 3.000 years after it actually had ended 15.000 years ago. I believe it is from these warm years the myth of the last iceage came up. When a huge sweetwater sea in Northern America found its way into the Atlantic sea the current turned south again leaving the northerners again without any summers. The legend of the year summer never arrived which drove all the people from those northern lands to go south still lives. After 3.000 years the ice had melted quite far why these people very likely could be living as far up as in Irland when the ice returned for another 1.000 years.

Eventually the ice did melt again leaving us with this wonderful and warm weather. But it is mainly making a difference here in Europe. In the movie they made all USA vanish under the ice. New York is very far south compared to European cities. My capital city Stockholm would be situated up in Alaska for instance. And the ice in Europe went during the iceage only as far as to the Alps. So my guess is the ice would never reach New York. I remember once seeing a map of the ice in America and am pretty sure it covered nothing more than Canada at the most. So why make whole of USA go away? That was one big annoying thing with the movie.

My oppinion in this subject is that all the present deserts in USA will in the new iceage once again be blooming and well watered. The costline will climb down atleast 100 meters adding alot of land to places like Florida. So if anyone is going to be lucky if a new iceage came it should be the US-people. The poor Europeans and Canadians on the other hand have to go south. Or start building igloos and start hunting seal. My bet is south - I never could stand the cold. Cause the iceage is returning. Any time now the current will swift and then the year with no summer arrives.

Author Ingis Erlingsdotter 2004

New information: I finally got a hold on a map over the iceage. Why should that be so hard? It covered all the world! And to my surprise the ice did cover USA at most parts 20.000 years ago. I have no explanaition for why as big parts of northern east Asia was ice-free. My guess is that the American continent suffered from constant northern wind-flows. In Europe the ice ended by the Alps as I remembered seeing before at maps. The only map I've seen before of America was from about 10.000 years ago and as you see here on the map I now added it does not look that bad. 20.000 years ago was during the extreme cold period. Maybe the ice-status from 10.000 years ago are more what could be called the planets normal status.