Question: Shouldn't cold air which was severe enough to kill a person upon exposure, have been cold enough to freeze the liquid in an LCD display?
Question: Why was the ship that stopped in the front of the library empty? Did the crew abandon ship? Or was there something more sinister?
Chosen answer: Hard to tell why, it was not depicted. During heavy storms, most people would be on call, attending watches in the engine room and bridges. They probably died during the storm (several causes, as such heavy trashing, being swept away, the cold) etc., but their bodies were not shown, as it was irrelevant to the plot.
Question: What is ironic about the people crossing the Rio Grande River at the border of Texas, USA and Mexico?
Answer: It's far more common for people from Mexico to seek a better life by crossing into the United States, rather than the other way around.
Question: In the beginning, the parents are on the phone and the wife is asking her husband to take their son to the airport. They live in separate houses in the same city yet it seems like they are still married. Are they divorced? Or are they married but live in separate houses?
Answer: They are estranged (possibly divorced) and living apart. As they have a son together, they would still maintain a relationship as co-parents. It should be noted that a cliched trope often seen in disaster movies (i.e. Twister, Independence Day, Outbreak, Jurassic Park 3, etc.) is to have a high-powered married couple who have either separated or divorced. They still love each other but have split due to professional conflicts. Usually some extreme crisis eventually brings them together, causing them to reaffirm their feelings for each other and they reunite.
Question: Did the Professor and the other 2 guys working with him in Scotland survive?
Answer: It's highly implied they did not.
Question: How fast do the satellite readings say the temperature is dropping?
Answer: I think the question is asking how fast is the temperature dropping as reported by the satellites. I did not review the data from the computer screens shown in the various scenes, but the dialog indicates that the temperature was dropping unusually fast and at a rate without historical precedent.
Answer: Most weather satellites are in geosynchronous orbits, about 25,000 miles above the earth and use infrared cameras to detect temperature changes. The satellite detects these changes almost instantaneously, but then has to transmit this information to the ground. Taking into account receiver, processor, and transmission delays, the satellite would report that the temperature is dropping in about a quarter second.
Question: Would a fire even keep burning if the temperature was -150'f or lower?
Answer: Fire is a chemical reaction, so regardless of how cold it is as long as the fire has fuel and oxygen it will burn. The real question is how long would that fuel stay viable in that temperature.
Question: If Laura was unconscious from blood poisoning, how did they introduce penicillin?
Answer: When they went to the abandoned ship, outside the library, to retrieved penicillin from the infirmary, they must have also gotten a medical kit with supplies.
Question: Is there actually space enough for a ship of that size to make its way as far into the city as it did?
Answer: Yes, well if it stayed on a straight course.
Question: What did the girl cut her leg on when she was squeezing between the two taxis? It looked like it was cut on the edge of a license plate, but that would have made a horizontal cut, not a vertical one.
Answer: From what I saw the license plate rim was broken, exposing a sharp end. It looks like the moved her leg forward, the sharp peice cut into her leg and she moved her leg up which would create a near vertical wound.
Question: Why was only the Northern Hemisphere covered in ice? We see in the first scene of the film that Antarctica was affected too, so why didn't the Southern Hemisphere enter a new ice age too?
Answer: Unlike the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere is mostly covered by ocean. Large water masses have a moderating influence on temperature, and are less prone to freezing.
Question: In the part where Frank falls through the glass roof, you see Jack use his pick to stop them.where does he stick his pick into if it is all glass? He couldn't have stuck it into ice because you see him wipe away just snow to see Frank.
Answer: The roof isn't one continuous piece of glass, it's many pieces fit together and separated by metal framing. The flat end of the pick can fit into the crack in the frame between two pieces of glass.
Question: Why did Sam not just walk from the library to an apartment building for food and shelter if he was able to walk to the ship? The Public Library is surrounded by apartment buildings.
Answer: How would he know which buildings were apartments and which are businesses? Even if he knew, he and his friends were not properly dressed in Arctic gear. It was below freezing outside, and they knew the ship would have a galley. They also knew the Arctic freeze blast would be coming soon and didn't have the time to wander all over the city searching for food.
Answer: It should. But perhaps Dr Hall carrys it close to himself, warming it with his own body heat, and only takes it out briefly to look at it.