The movie "on the beach", that was released in 2000, is a story about
a future nuclear holocaust. I have read on a site though, that a basic
part of the movie is incorrect: ih the movie, a nuclear cloud from the
North hemisphere is descending to the South hemisphere, ending up in
killing everything alive on the planet. Is it true that this could not
happen because, according to some scientists, a cloud like that could
never change hemisphere because of the rotation of the earth? This
estimation is also made in the movie, but at the end it proves to be
wrong.

Hello anthe-ga,

It seems that Nevil Shute, when writing the novel "On the Beach", was
reacting to the false notion that a nuclear explosion in the Northern
Hemisphere would have no effect in the Southern Hemisphere.  Shute,
who was an aeronautical engineer as well as a writer, indicated in the
book that the cloud would eventually disperse fallout to the Southern
Hemisphere.

"On the Beach: Nevil Shute: Context"
SparkNotes
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/onthebeach/context.html

"On The Beach as Re: Clean nuclear war in U.S. movies" (June 25-30,
1997)
<alt.war.nuclear>
Google Groups
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=5oseig%24326%241%40halcyon.com

"Trade Winds" (May 14-16, 2000) [messages 7-11]
<alt.usage.english>
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=8flanh%246sp%241%40b5nntp2.channeli.net

The following interview with a Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry
explains, among other things, the effects that a nuclear blast or
similar explosion (such as a volcano) in one hemisphere will
eventually have in another.

"Effects of Nuclear Weapons on the Atmosphere - F. Sherwood Rowland"
(Interviewed by John M. Whiteley, Quest for Peace Video Series)
Russian-American Cyberlibrary
University of California, Irvine Libraries
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/racyberlib/Quest/interview-f_sherwood_rowland.html

I hope that this information is helpful.

- justaskscott-ga


Search terms used on Google and Google Groups:

shute "on the beach" nuclear
shute "on the beach" rotation hemispheres
shute "on the beach" "trade winds"
"nuclear winter" volcanic northern southern

[I tried other searches as well, but these resulted in the pages that
I have cited.]