From spectacle to disaster scenario: Reimaging fictional catastrophe in The Day After Tomorrow with the current physical, political and social science of Atlantic Ocean circulation collapse

Two decades after it was first released, the Hollywood blockbuster movie The Day After Tomorrow remains an iconic and genre-defining ‘climate disaster’ film that - apart from entertaining audiences - still functions as an illustrative anchor or prompt for imaging the catastrophic consequences for people and planet of Atlantic Ocean circulation collapse. Despite scientific inaccuracies, climate scientists still use the film informally and formally (at topical conferences, policy-engagement workshops and in higher education) to bring to life or teach the very real physical and security impacts of crossing this climate tipping point. However, advances in understanding of near-future tipping of Atlantic Ocean circulation and two further decades of social science work on climate emergencies and the political dynamics of social and world order have rendered it increasingly dated and further unmoored from reality. So, what would a more up-to-date and useful representation of the science, politics and governance of such an event look like? This essay explores plot changes that could be considered by a docudrama screenwriter, that are equally dramatic but that better consider current climate science and analysis of world politics. The suggested changes place particular focus on how security framings of climate change manifest within the film. As momentum has grown behind the idea of a link between non-linear climate change and security dynamics or ‘climate security’, The Day After Tomorrow reduces climate to an isolated cataclysmic event that is dealt with through securitisation and exceptional measures, rather than as an interlinked and chronic process of physical and societal breakdown that will permanently change the way environments and societies behave and are governed.