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Well, the movie is 'way overblown. But the point that the article makes (and which the movie makes in overly lurid fashion) is that changes in nature don't always occur slowly. If a mechanism like the Deep Ocean Current shuts down and stops shuttling heat northward, you could definitely have a very serious climate change in 5-10 years. And geologically, that's not slow.
So to me, the question is not, would all this happen if the deep current shuts down, but -- WILL the current shut down? Hey,I'm on the west coast of the U.S., I'd miss the worst of it. But it'd be a real catastrophe.
What I wonder is, would a mini-ice age caused by global warming cancel out sea-level rises caused by global warming? Or would we get the worst of both worlds? There's the making of a really interesting disaster novel here. Especially since we're now a much more mobile population, and there are areas in the southern hemisphere -- Australia, parts of southern Africa, Argentina and certain other parts of South America -- that could definitely accomodate some tens of millions of people should push come to shove. And there might definitely be some shoving.
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