I'm making a new short film and I would like to pick a few brains.

If the Sun shut down... how long would Earth have until the temperature became uninhabitable for life as we know it.

From what I've read... we would have a few weeks.

Just go with the the question, don't debate over how the Sun died.

Opinions needed!

Thanks,

Mike

I suggest you to switch to more realistic and more frightening issues like global warming, from which we will die much sooner. Don't you worry about the Sun.

I suggest you to switch to more realistic and more frightening issues like global warming, from which we will die much sooner. Don't you worry about the Sun.

Please, just try to offer opinions based on the question asked. I'm not acting like this will actually happen. It is a short film based on an old Bible revelation.

So... any opinions on a time-line?

Thanks,

Mike

I would think we would have more than a few weeks. We can generate power without it, we could burn wood for heat, granted it would get too cold to survive but with what we have I would guess we could survive more than a few weeks.
SO for a time line i would say 6 months for all of us to perish, reason being besides the cold factor, you need the sunlight to grow food. The harsh conditions wouldn't allow us to do that.

the problem is more who will die and who will survive.
with nuclear power, probably few thousand people could live on earth for years.
imagine . no problem with nuclear waste, petrol at will.
the only problem will be with oxygen, while you can extract it from solidified ocean.

I would think we would have more than a few weeks. We can generate power without it, we could burn wood for heat, granted it would get too cold to survive but with what we have I would guess we could survive more than a few weeks.
SO for a time line i would say 6 months for all of us to perish, reason being besides the cold factor, you need the sunlight to grow food. The harsh conditions wouldn't allow us to do that.

Yes, but we're talking about temperatures that would drop below anything that we're used to. From what I've read the mean temperature of the Earth is 300 Kelvin (K). The freezing point of water is around 273K. In just a couple of months it has been predicted that the temperature would drop to 150K.

So... that's why the prediction of Humans lasting only a few weeks has been put forth. Unless we headed deep underground.

I'm looking for opinions for and against this theory.

Mike

the problem is more who will die and who will survive.
with nuclear power, probably few thousand people could live on earth for years.
imagine . no problem with nuclear waste, petrol at will.
the only problem will be with oxygen, while you can extract it from solidified ocean.
What would these thousands of people live in?

Thanks,


Mike

Define "stopped shining"...

If you mean the thermonuclear reactions at the sun's core stopped today then we wouldn't know about it for a few million years. A photon born inside the sun takes an estimated 6 million years to reach the sun's surface!

If you mean that all radiation coming from the sun's surface ceased today then that's a different story. Even overnight, the typical temperature decrease is 15 to 20degC. Imagine a l-o-n-g neverending night. Just a few "days" and it will be positively polar in temperate climes. A few weeks - maybe months - and the earth will reach a new thermal equilibrium between its mantle/core and the vacuum of space. The surface temperature will be somewhat below 200K - very, very cold.

The other way the sun could stop shining is in its own death throes - it rapidly expands to a red giant, engulfing us - complete annihilation....

We'd better hope for the red giant option (which will happen anyway in about 5 billion years).

nope we would en up into the Tom Cruise's bunker, watching MI for ever on a giant screen.
there are some noth pole base working all year in very low temperature, they would probably not even notice the sun is missing.
in fact all depends how much time you would know it before.

If you mean that all radiation coming from the sun's surface ceased today then that's a different story. Even overnight, the typical temperature decrease is 15 to 20degC. Imagine a l-o-n-g neverending night. Just a few "days" and it will be positively polar in temperate climes. A few weeks - maybe months - and the earth will reach a new thermal equilibrium between its mantle/core and the vacuum of space. The surface temperature will be somewhat below 200K - very, very cold.
This is what I'm going for, yes. Let's say that one was to stay in his/her gas heated standard home. How long would it take before the cold becomes unbearable in such conditions?

Would the house literally freeze? How long would it take?

Thanks guys!

Mike

Try http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11287 a short article on nuclear winter on estimates of effects of just shading out the sun for a bit.

nope we would en up into the Tom Cruise's bunker, watching MI for ever on a giant screen.
there are some noth pole base working all year in very low temperature, they would probably not even notice the sun is missing.
in fact all depends how much time you would know it before.

Oh dear. The notion of the sun going out is bad enough, ending up reminded forever of Tom Cruise is worse. I would definitely be the one saying "I am just going outside, and I may be some time".

BTW, the temperature at the south pole typically ranges -21C to -78C (summer to winter). The temperature after the sun goes out would be another 100C cooler. I think you are being very optimistic about our survival (rather than a select few)....Thankfully, it's just a mind game.

we can survive in outer space as long as we wish, so if you are prepared, i think there is no limit (except you brain will break before )
but for the average american, few hours is the limit i think.

we can survive in outer space as long as we wish, so if you are prepared, i think there is no limit (except you brain will break before )
but for the average american, few hours is the limit i think.Who's we? And "as long as we wish" is a bit of a stretch. We do have to eat.

In all seriousness, most of the world would die off in a very short time. Not all of us are prepared to the point that we could survive in outer space.

we can survive in outer space as long as we wish, so if you are prepared, i think there is no limit (except you brain will break before )
but for the average american, few hours is the limit i think.

Look at the amount of energy required just to get about a dozen people in low earth orbit and keep them there for a few days.

Try doing that with 6.5 billion people in the space (no pun intended) of a few weeks at most. And provide all the infrastructure, food, energy etc for those 6.5 billion to actually live.

(Strange but related fact: all of the earth's human population could be squeezed onto the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England.)

hey, who said that 6.5 bilion of people are concerned.
as far as i know, probably only few rich or clever people would do that.
as i said already, if it must stay only a bunch of us, there is a lot of ressource on earth for a thousand of people.
if you except lawyers, politician, nerds, criminals, gays, muslim, photographers, jews, cops, poors, car seller, all non-white people etc...
remains... you ... and me ... and a bunch of swedish blondes ?
That is the plan. Big consortium (Balckstone ?) are flooding the world with hi-tech goods.
So if something happens and there will be only a few people left, imagine the number of car, flat screen, computer, whashing machine, sex toy left all around in the world. you would never bother for anything. you just need to take it. and the huge internet bandwith (no more spam !) would be enough to transmit 4k resolution picture anywhere in the world using the 500 first RED camera ever produced.

So back on topic...

How long until the average person freezes in their home?

Thanks,

Mike

I can't imagine it would be more than a week. Imagine the coldest winter that is always the dead of night and getting colder. Hypothermia would set in pretty quickly. Water would become unavailable - pipes would burst, wells and lakes would start to freeze.

Frozen water = no hydroelectric power, no watercooling for nuclear power, no transportation of oil (seas frozen over). Oil reserves would dwindle very fast. No-one able to travel to/from power plants. Only frozen food to eat.

Panic would ensue on the first day, ensuring rapid decline in social infrastructure.....

Yikes!

In case someone didn't already say it, consider that stars don't typically just "shut down" -- they undergo cataclysmic failure which would probably result in some form of immediate destruction. But supposing the sun did just switch off, I suppose we could assume some period of time for the atmosphere to cool - a day or two to reach freezing temperatures at various latitudes and deteriorating rapidly from there. You could also postulate wildly unpredictable weather patterns including vicious winds, rain, hail, etc. And it would be really dark, especially since the moon wouldn't be visible...

The amount of solar energy striking the earth's surface at any given moment is roughly 50-100 times the total energy usage of all of modern civilization. Turn that off and something very bad would happen rather quickly.

Great info guys! So why are so many sites that I'm reading predicting a longer range of a few weeks survival? I want to be scientifically accurate, but I also don't want everyone watching to say... "What the hell? They're still alive after 9 days?"

It seems that most people think that the general populous would be history after a week.

Mike

It seems that most people think that the general populous would be history after a week.

Human beings are pretty tenacious, but 1-2 weeks sounds like a plausible limit for most of the population. Consider that roughly half of humanity has few modern amenities and would freeze to death pretty quickly, while many of the rest would have their infrastructure collapse and/or fall prey to the social chaos which would probably occur. A handful might survive for a few weeks in underground bunkers or what-not, but that would be grim at best. Any equipment not protected from surface temperatures would freeze up and stop functioning, so there'd be little left to do but huddle together and eat cold food to survive.

For the scientific advice, since it considered that you cannot survive without water more than 3 days, imagine than nobody will survive more than 3 days after all the water of the world is frozen.

but if you are writing a story for a movie or a book, it has also worked like this.
big problem- almost everybody die except a small team of tenacious smart people. and the rest of the story just shows the quest for them to survive , die or find other survivors.
there are already several movies with such a big deep freeze.
if you do not do so, your story is just two sentences.
"The sun goes down. evereybody died".

and nobody would really care how long it takes.
So you need to take a balance between reality (a deep winter in NY will give you the taste, with all this poor old guys dying in the streets or their appartments) and fantasy (whatever happens, there is always some of us to survive)
if you are looking for the truth, it is impossible since
- nobody knows (it never happened before)
- i doubt that the Area51 of a video forum is the best place to get scientific opinion.
- the start of your story is pretty impossible , the sun would not switch off simply like this.

In filmic terms, you shouldn't really need to worry about exactly how long someone takes to die in your scenario, as, firstly, you won't be shooting in real time, so unless one of your characters leaps up and says "We're going to die in exactly 7 days", then your audience will just accept the fact that the character is slowly dying, without needing to know a timeframe.

Secondly, you'll find it difficult to show the passage of time anyway, as there will be no day and night, only perpetual night, so unless you're always cutting away to a clock, or a subtitle "Day 2, 7 am" etc.

Also, if your character really is in an average suburban house, their only source of information would be TV or Radio, which would stop working quite soon anyway, and I doubt the TV reporters would be giving out accurate information anyway, because they would know as little about whats going on as anyone...

Just my 2 cents worth...

Also, if your character really is in an average suburban house, their only source of information would be TV or Radio, which would stop working quite soon anyway, and I doubt the TV reporters would be giving out accurate information anyway, because they would know as little about whats going on as anyone...

Just my 2 cents worth...

This is very interesting. My film takes place just as you have guessed. A lonely man isolated in his home, getting his news from a radio broadcast.

This is why I need a bit of a time-line. The radio announcer lets the audience know how many days have passed without the Sun, the current temperature, and how many days that are estimated to be left before the cold reaches a point where life can no longer exist.

The broadcast will end before things get too bad.

Mike

if you are looking for the truth, it is impossible since
- nobody knows (it never happened before)
- i doubt that the Area51 of a video forum is the best place to get scientific opinion.
- the start of your story is pretty impossible , the sun would not switch off simply like this.

I'm looking for a rough guess from some pretty intelligent people who also like movies. :)

As for... "the sun would not switch off simply like this."
Well, I think I stated that I'm using a religious revelation as the reason for the Sun's failure. Think of it as... when religion and science collide.

JOEL 315 (http://www.morecowbellpictures.com/downloads/Joel_315_poster.jpg)

Mike

Think of it as... when religion and science collide.


Ah! So *that's* why the sun suddenly stops - the mutual annihilation of religion and science, as when matter and anti-matter collide :-)

Interesting reason for the sun to stop shining. Most wouldn't think of using that for a movie, they would go the scientific route. Most would probably die off quickly. Off topic a bit, but we have hurricanes down here in S. Florida and no one prepares until the last possible second. Same could be said for the sun.

Ah! So *that's* why the sun suddenly stops - the mutual annihilation of religion and science, as when matter and anti-matter collide :-)
LOL! :)

Mike

Interesting reason for the sun to stop shining. Most wouldn't think of using that for a movie, they would go the scientific route. Most would probably die off quickly. Off topic a bit, but we have hurricanes down here in S. Florida and no one prepares until the last possible second. Same could be said for the sun.

I'm not saying that is the reason, just one suggested reason. ;)

Yeah but it's a good one. Should be at the top of your list for reasons. You don't want to go to "Day after tomorrow" Too Predictable. I've been waiting for someone to do a movie about this. I would like to see what you come up with.

My film takes place just as you have guessed. A lonely man isolated in his home, getting his news from a radio broadcast.

In that scenario it probably wouldn't be more than a few days before the radio transmitter and power to the man's house quit because the power grid fails, after which the temperature in his house would drop to unliveable levels. As an alternative, what about some soldier stationed in an underground military bunker with decent backup power?

Yeah but it's a good one. Should be at the top of your list for reasons. You don't want to go to "Day after tomorrow" Too Predictable. I've been waiting for someone to do a movie about this. I would like to see what you come up with.
Thanks! It will definitely be put out there. Some will believe, some won't.
The end result will be the same.

Cheers,

Mike

In that scenario it probably wouldn't be more than a few days before the radio transmitter and power to the man's house quit because the power grid fails, after which the temperature in his house would drop to unliveable levels. As an alternative, what about some soldier stationed in an underground military bunker with decent backup power?You see, that's where some scientists disagree. Most seem to predict that man could survive a good few weeks. So would it really get that cold after just a few days?

The predictions go on to say that to last longer than that we would need to go into deep mine shafts or bunkers like what you have described.

I'm guessing that we would have at least a full week before things got really ugly.

Mike

Would those who live closer to the equator last longer? Or would it be an instant freeze?

I found this... If the Sun stopped shining, how long would the Earth cool to Absolute Zero, in a few days? (http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2895.html)

Here is a quote from the answer...
If the Sun went away, this would change only a slight amount as the Earth re-adjusts to a heat flow where the outer surface is no longer warmed by the Sun. My guess is that this heat flow is not enough to keep the earth above the freezing point of water, and that after perhaps a month or so, the latent solar heat stored in the oceans and crust would be exhausted.

Do you agree or disagree?

So would it really get that cold after just a few days?

That would depend on your latitude and the time of year, but without any solar energy input worldwide temperatures would surely drop quickly. Where I live the nighttime lows are currently in the high 40s to low 50s (Farenheit), which I would expect to drop below freezing within 24-48 hours and continue down from there. Maybe at the equator near an ocean you'd get a few more days above freezing, but not many.

How about this then: researchers at the South Pole receive a radio broadcast informing them that the sun has gone out and then sit in isolation (prepared for the cold) waiting for a spring thaw which never comes...

That would depend on your latitude and the time of year, but without any solar energy input worldwide temperatures would surely drop quickly. Where I live the nighttime lows are currently in the high 40s to low 50s (Farenheit), which I would expect to drop below freezing within 24-48 hours and continue down from there. Maybe at the equator near an ocean you'd get a few more days above freezing, but not many.

How about this then: researchers at the South Pole receive a radio broadcast informing them that the sun has gone out and then sit in isolation (prepared for the cold) waiting for a spring thaw which never comes...That's a good idea... but I already have the story written and getting that location would be murder! :)

I just need to get the time-line down so that people believe what they are seeing/hearing. It will happen in the Summer.

My original plan is to have Fall like temperatures after a few days, Winter after a few more days, then absolute cold.

Sound plausible?

Mike

My original plan is to have Fall like temperatures after a few days, Winter after a few more days, then absolute cold.

Sound plausible?

Mike

I think the air temperatures would drop much faster than that. Consider that the typical day-to-night temperature drop in temperate climes is 20 to 30 degF, you'd probably lose twice that per 24 hours (perpetual night).

I'd expect that any significant levels of water vapor in the atmosphere would quickly precipitate as the temperature cools, leaving cold and dry air, possibly leading to even faster drops (no clouds to retain the heat etc).

But, I don't think most audiences would consider the veracity of the timeline - more far-fetched timelines have proven to be very succe$$ful at the box office....

Residual heat from the oceans would quickly disappear, too. Compared to the immense depths of the oceans, only a very, very (almost insignificant) amount is above room temperature.

So the Doctors estimation that I linked a few posts up is way off base?

I know we have no experience with this sort of thing so it really is guess work.
It just seems that most scientists are estimating that we'll have more time.

Mike

My original plan is to have Fall like temperatures after a few days, Winter after a few more days, then absolute cold. Sound plausible?

Again that depends on where they're located, but I can't see staying above freezing for more than 2-3 days tops, then dropping quickly from there. We're not talking about a change of seasons here, we're talking about the entire planet being plunged into conditions similar to being at one of the poles in winter (and then some).

There's an online sci-fi story on this (which I can't find). In the story, the author made the point that much of the oxygen would eventually turn liquid/solid due to the extreme cold. It lay on the ground in puddles or like ice. Those who survived had to wear suits. They would heat up the liquid oxygen in a pail (I forget the exact method) to fill their living quarters so they could take off their helmets.

I also half-heartedly started a similar story with the Sun mysteriously going out. The first problem seemed to be "how" do people survive. My main plot device was to have them live in a valley or location on Earth where the Earth's heat was already venting through. Like Hawaii or Yellowstone National Park.

Danny Boyle's Sunshine is a sci-fi movie based on the same premise. (http://www.sunshinedna.com/film)

Again that depends on where they're located, but I can't see staying above freezing for more than 2-3 days tops, then dropping quickly from there. We're not talking about a change of seasons here, we're talking about the entire planet being plunged into conditions similar to being at one of the poles in winter (and then some).Hmm... so how long before things get so cold that everything shuts down. A week maybe?

I don't want to push it but I do need at least a week or so.

I know that the seasons won't change, I was just using the seasonal terms as a reference for how drastically the weather temperature was changing. In layman's terms for the audience really.

Mike

Maybe that's just it, no one can survive...just who lasts the longest?

So the Doctors estimation that I linked a few posts up is way off base?

I know we have no experience with this sort of thing so it really is guess work.
It just seems that most scientists are estimating that we'll have more time.

Mike

I ought to reveal my nerdy alter ego. For my sins, I have a PhD in physical chemistry - heavily laced with some thermodynamics. This is a very interesting thread!

The link you provided is reasonable esp regarding the comment about the temperature being warmer as you go deeper into the crust. I think the pivotal part of the equation is the about of heat tied up by the oceans. Water can absorb a lot of energy. The ocean temperature as a function of depth needs to be taken into account when determining just how much residual heat there will be in the atmosphere after the sun has set for the last time.

There are some interesting numbers in this article (try to ignore the political spin on some of it!):

http://www.oco.noaa.gov/index.jsp?show_page=page_roc.jsp&nav=universal

and this one:

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Water/temp.html&edu=high

Maybe that's just it, no one can survive...just who lasts the longest?I agree completely.

Mike

I ought to reveal my nerdy alter ego. For my sins, I have a PhD in physical chemistry - heavily laced with some thermodynamics. This is a very interesting thread!

The link you provided is reasonable esp regarding the comment about the temperature being warmer as you go deeper into the crust. I think the pivotal part of the equation is the about of heat tied up by the oceans. Water can absorb a lot of energy. The ocean temperature as a function of depth needs to be taken into account when determining just how much residual heat there will be in the atmosphere after the sun has set for the last time.

There are some interesting numbers in this article (try to ignore the political spin on some of it!):

http://www.oco.noaa.gov/index.jsp?show_page=page_roc.jsp&nav=universal

and this one:

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Water/temp.html&edu=high

Quite the read, I'll have a look at it soon.

So do you think the time frame should be longer... not just a few days?

Sorry if I'm misreading your post.

Mike

Hmm... so how long before things get so cold that everything shuts down. A week maybe?

I thought about this again and looked up the weather averages for Honolulu, which has about as mild a climate as you could hope for given the latitude and being surrounded by water. In their hottest month the average high is 89 degrees F and the average low is 75, with a record low of 63. So let's say the temp drops to 75 in the first 12 hours and ~60 after 24 hours, then another 10 degrees every 12 hours would put them close to freezing within three days. For dramatic effect let's say 10 degrees every 24 hours gives them several days of above-freezing temperatures, and then the weather becomes more like that of Anchorage, Alaska, which has an average low in the dead of winter of 9 degrees F. Now say they get a few days like that before slipping into polar conditions which cause most infrastructure to shut down, putting an end to the radio broadcasts and any supply of heat to your star character. As a viewer I might believe a few weeks of survivability under such a scenario, so there you go.

P.S. Enjoy filming in Honolulu... :-)

P.S. Enjoy filming in Honolulu... :-)

LOL! Thanks.

That actually sounds pretty good. I'm going to go with a base of 9 days before the basic infrastructures start to fail. A few days more and most people will be dead. I'm hoping that sounds plausible? I know, I may be stretching things a tad.

The way I look at it... the environment will gradually start to get colder, then once it gets to a certain point and the heat from the worlds natural resources has declined it will accelerate dramatically.

A least, that's what I'm probably going to run with.

I want to thank everyone for all of their help.

Mike

Kevin's scenario is definitely plausible - and prolongs the agony (good for a movie!)

It assumes that there are fuel sources to generate some heat otherwise I suspect most would perish within the first week (just think of the elderly people who die in their homes during the winter because they cannot afford the heating bills).

Now, being Hawaii, there's an extra twist - volcanoes. Talk about a good source of geothermal energy! That could make things drag on even longer. Hot spring water, hot rocks to cook the meat of the frozen carcasses of livestock and other animals...All the dead and frozen animals on the island could provide food for quite some time.

And what if the inhabitants didn't know what had happened. i.e., they all went to bed one night and the sun never came back up.....

That actually sounds pretty good. I'm going to go with a base of 9 days before the basic infrastructures start to fail. A few days more and most people will be dead. I'm hoping that sounds plausible? I know, I may be stretching things a tad.

The more I think about it the more I can see it being plausible, considering that people and cities survive weeks of bleak conditions near the arctic circle in winter. Things would be bad in your scenario, but it's conceivable for the infrastructure to survive several days at least.