The story follows Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), a paleoclimatologist. The movie opens with Jack in Antarctica with two colleagues, Frank and Jason, drilling for ice core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The ice shelf cracks and breaks off from the rest of the continent, nearly killing Jack who almost falls into the crevasse while saving the ice cores. The concentration of greenhouse gases contained in the cores is used in a presentation he makes to a United Nations conference held in New Delhi, India on global warming. The idea, however, resonates with Dr. Terry Rapson of the Hedland Climate Research Center in Scotland.
Shortly after Dr. Rapson arrives back in Scotland from the conference, two buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a large drop in water temperature. Rapson concludes that the melting of the polar ice has begun to disrupt the North Atlantic current and calls Jack to see if his paleoclimatological weather model could be used to predict what will happen. Jack is surprised at what Dr. Rapson is saying because he predicted that the events would not happen in his lifetime, but in a hundred or a thousand years.
Meanwhile, Jack's son, Sam Hall, is traveling to New York City for an academic competition, with his friends Brian and main protagonist Laura. After they reach Manhattan, a scene is shown where animals in the Central Park Zoo are behaving strangely and erratically, and the sky is covered by thick clouds.
A series of tornadoes strike Los Angeles, devastating the city, while severe turbulence causes the FAA to shut down all air traffic.
After the competition, Sam and his companions are stuck in New York, as the flight they were supposed to leave on was grounded due to the tornado in LA. Sam calls his father, promising Jack that he'll be on the next train to Washington, where they live. Sam and his friends, meanwhile, will stay with a new friend they had met, JD, and take a tour of New York, including visiting the Natural History Museum. After they arrive at JD's apartment that night, it is raining heavily and the doorman comments on the weather, and Brian also commenting that it had been raining like that for three days now. The next day, they learned through a TV news broadcast that Grand Central Station had been flooded by the heavy rainfall, so JD decides to give them a ride to Philadelphia, where they can continue to Washington by other means. They also learn that the east coast of Canada has also been affected by bad weather- the sea levels rose by over 20 feet.
JD's driver is stuck in traffic a ways from the apartment, so they decide to walk to the car. As they exit, the street is seen in ankle deep water. Laura makes the suggestion to stay put, but Sam insists that they get home. Meanwhile, sewers are backing up, and the water is starting to rise. Cars are still shown being able to drive, at least somewhat, and traffic is still more or less organized at this point. A scene showing water entering a subway station is shown to signify how bad it is.
As the four walk to JD's car, water continues to rise, now waist deep. At this point, the power is out in most of the city and all traffic is at a stand-still. Laura comments that they won't be able to drive anywhere in the chaos, and proposes to go back to the apartment. Sam, assessing the situation, states that they need to move to higher ground, and they decide to go to the Public Library.
A large wave is shown swamping the Statue of Liberty, and crashing into Manhattan. Many are killed, and Sam and his friends barely get into the library in time to escape the wave, being delayed by Laura using her knowledge of French to assist an African tourist.
In Scotland, the situation is increasingly worsening, and Rapson and his coworkers are trapped in their research lab. When asked to evacuate: Jack (over the phone): it's time you got out of there, professor." Rapson: "I'm afraid that time has come and gone, my friend." Jack: "What can we do?" Rapson: "Save as many as you can." (Static gets louder, phone disconnects). Later, Rapson's generator runs out of fuel, and his coworker takes out a bottle of scotch, proposing to run the generator for a little longer with the alcohol. Instead, Rapson, Simon, and Dennis each drink to mankind, England, and Manchester United respectively.
The remainder of the story concerns itself with the proof of Hall's theory and the beginning of a new ice age, one that is short but still devastating, resulting in millions of deaths. Survivors are forced to flee to the Southern and Southwestern United States and Mexico, where strained relations between the two nations lead to refugee problems.
A subplot is the Royal Family of Great Britain being evacuated by RAF helicopters (see below under the science logic of the movie). The air temperature is cold enough to freeze the fuel lines in the helicopters, causing them to crash. An injured RAF pilot tries to crawl out, but is quickly frozen solid.
Dr. Hall decides to make the dangerous journey to Manhattan to find his son, Sam, who becomes stranded when one of the Arctic storms settles over that area. Before he leaves, he briefs the president and they decide to evacuate all the southern states (it is too late for the north, Jack says). When he leaves in his pickup truck, accompanied by his coworkers Frank and Jason, snow is shown completely covering the streets of Washington. Sam is trapped with several survivors in a branch of the New York City Public library. Along the route, Dr. Hall hears a radio message warning all people in the northern states that going outside can be deadly, and to burn everything they can to stay warm, and that all highways are closed due to dangerous driving conditions. Jack's truck then gets stuck in a snowbank, just north of Philadelphia, prompting him and his coworkers to undertake the rest of the journey to New York on foot. Jack and his assistants must endure the deadly storm, without any shelter save for a small tent. Frank is dangling when he falls through the glass ceiling of a mall. Jason tries to pull him up, but their combined weight threatens to kill them both, so Frank cuts the rope, to his death, to save Jason.
Jack's wife, a doctor, is forced to stay behind in Washington because her patient can only be transported by an ambulance. A call is put to the county ambulance service, and one comes just in time to save her and the patient from the storm. They go south to Mexico. The president also decided to evacuate at the last minute, but he was less fortunate- his car got caught by the storm and he was killed.
Inside the library, Sam Hall and the other survivors use advice Sam got from his father to outlast the cold. At one point, Sam and his two friends, Brian and J.D., are forced to leave the library and enter a nearby ship when a companion, Laura, starts to suffer from blood poisoning because of a cut on her leg. They narrowly avoid being killed by wolves that escaped from the New York Zoo, and manage to reach the library safely with the medicine, just before the cold air from the upper troposphere made landfall, and managed to keep the fire going in their room, saving their lives. Jack and Jason manage to survive by taking shelter in a restaurant, and turning on the gas stove for heat.
At the end of the movie, Jack manages to find the library and signal for help. By then, the storms were already dissipating. Jack, Sam, and everyone inside the library are rescued in a helicopter. As they leave, they see other people leaving buildings, indicating that there were other survivors of the storm. The new president (formerly vice president) gives a televised speech, saying in a moral tone that for many years the world had ignored nature's destructive force, and that they "operated under the belief that (they) can continue to consume the world's resources without consequence." He admitted his fault, then went on to his gratitude over Mexico admitting the Americans in a time of need, and that there was cause for hope when Jack found his son alive in New York. The movie ends by showing the Earth from the International Space Station, the storms gone, and the astronauts commenting that the planet looks clearer than before.
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