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Reno (775) 673-7375
Dr. Joe McConnell, Associate Research Professor Joe.McConnell@dri.edu
Reno (775) 673-7348
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May 27, 2004
Team of real life 'Jack Hall' scientists study climate change questions raised in 'The Day After Tomorrow' movie
 Dr. Joe McConnell, associate research professor at the Desert Research Institute, collects a shallow ice core in west-central Greenland at an elevation of about 8500 feet in the middle of a ground blizzard. The core provided a record back about 40 years. |
 Dr. Kendrick Taylor, research professor at the Desert Research Institute, points to light shining through the wall of a snow pit at Siple Dome, Antarctica. Taylor's projects use ice cores to understand why climate changes. |
Reno, Nev.—“The Day After Tomorrow” disaster movie, to be released tomorrow, challenges audiences to try to comprehend the devastating effects of rapid climate change, begging the question: “Are we on the brink of a new Ice Age?” This question haunts climatologist Jack Hall, played by Dennis Quaid in the movie, and it intrigues research professors Joe McConnell and Kendrick Taylor at Nevada’s Desert Research Institute, who frequent Antarctica and Greenland, pulling ice core samples from the earth to search for answers.
In the movie, Hall’s research shows that global warming could trigger an abrupt and catastrophic shift in the planet’s climate—albeit in a very compressed timeframe. He has drilled ice cores in Antarctica that show that a huge shift took place 10,000 years ago. And now, Hall warns officials that it could happen again if they don’t act soon, but his warning comes too late.
“Although the rapid climate change seen in 'The Day After Tomorrow' is compressed into a physically impossible timeframe, the movie gives us a larger-than-life perspective of the effects of global warming and raises awareness about it,” McConnell said.
Scientists at DRI have been studying this issue for more than 10 years and were part of the first research teams to identify abrupt climate changes. They routinely lead climate investigations that examine ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. Their research documents changes in climate that occurred in as little as 40 years that led to temperature changes of 20 degrees Fahrenheit and 50 percent decreases in precipitation.
Although these shifts would not cause the unrealistic events portrayed in the movie, they would result in unprecedented changes in agricultural, water, economic and social institutions.
The repeated abrupt changes, which Taylor named a “flickering switch,” occurred during the last ice age when floods of glacial melt water altered the salinity in the North Atlantic. The change in ocean salinity and density altered ocean circulation patterns, like the Gulf Stream, which warms the northern east coast of North America by moving warm tropical water to northern latitudes. The changes in ocean circulation and climate occur abruptly because there are only a few ways the ocean can circulate. Therefore, ocean and climate operate more like a light switch—with abrupt changes between a few stable conditions—than—like a light dimmer, which can vary over a wide range of conditions.
“Dramatic changes in the extent of sea ice and glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland, well-documented changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, and even the shrinking of local glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, are clear evidence that a climate change is occurring now,” Taylor said. “DRI’s paleoclimate research focuses on determining if the unprecedented release of greenhouse gases by human activity will result in an abrupt climate change that would have major social implications. This may sound far fetched, but even a recent report from the Pentagon addressed the issue of how national security could be affected by abrupt climate change.”
McConnell also grapples with climate change, with NASA-funded work that is focused on ice sheet mass balance and the impact on global sea level in Greenland. Mass balance refers to whether an ice sheet is getting larger or smaller, that is, if its mass balance is positive or negative. In a large scale sense, mass balance determines whether there is more water being stored on Greenland causing the sea level to drop, or whether less water is being stored causing the sea level to rise.
McConnell has just returned from a three-week, 400 kilometer snowmobiling adventure across Greenland to gather more samples to add to a collection of some 80 shallow- and intermediate-depth ice cores retrieved since 1995. DRI scientists have developed a unique analytical system to use chemical and elemental tracers to determine what is happening with the atmospheric and oceanic circulation system that is affecting ice sheet sizes. Dragging a ground penetrating radar with a GPS system, McConnell’s team also took readings down to 50 meters.
McConnell and Taylor are available at the Desert Research Institute for media inquiries regarding rapid climate change, or visit http://waiscores.dri.edu/Amsci/coverstory.html to read more about Taylor’s work on rapid climate change and http://www.arcus.org/Witness_the_Arctic/ to read more about McConnell’s work on the Greenland ice sheet.
A nonprofit, statewide division of the University and Community College System of Nevada, DRI pursues a full-time program of basic and applied environmental research on a local, national, and international scale. Nearly 400 full- and part-time scientists, technicians, and support staff conduct some 150 research projects at DRI annually. More than 80 percent of DRI's annual $37 million operating budget consists of research grants and contracts obtained by its scientists. The balance is received from the state of Nevada for administrative costs.