According to this BBC report, those of us that live in Western Europe are in no imminent danger of an Ice Age as predicted in the film "The Day After Tomorrow".
The movie is based on the assumption that if the Gulf Stream should fail (Due to climate change), the northern hemisphere would be plunged into an immediate Ice Age. Whilst there is a grain of truth in the 'science' used in the film, it is grossly over-exagerrated.
The Gulf Stream (a warm current that passes up from the Gulf of Mexico) is responsible for keeping the temperature in Western Europe up 6 degrees centigrade above what it would normally be. Some scientists say that the current could break down if the salinity of the North Atlantic were to decrease substantially. This may come about if, say, the Greenland Ice Sheet or the polar ice were to start melting at a faster rate.
However, even if it did fail, it would be unlikely to start a new Ice Age - we'd just end up with a climate more like Canada - and certainly not within days (As the film suggests), months or even a few years.
Anyway, the first signs of such a break down would be that the Gulf Stream would start slowing up. Thankfully, this study has seen no sign of this over the last 8 years. Oddly though, the speed of the current varies quite a bit (between 4 and 35 million tonnes of water per second), which may have given rise to the belief it may have been slowing.
Phew! That's a relief.
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