They were weather buoys, which showed a thirteen degree drop in the ocean's temperature, indicating the severity of the disaster.

According to David Axe, a tech writer with Wired.co.uk, the buoys might symbolize the fight against climate change. He says that public attention being focused on carbon emissions from vehicles and power plants is futile--because global warming is the bigger threat.

Though the effects of cars and factories can certainly be measured, they are miniscule in comparison.

In fact, Axe says, there is a "carbon warehouse" deep in the ocean, within a layer of water that normally doesn't reach the surface.

"It was a sudden shift in this global pattern that inspired the plot of the 2004 disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, in which the resulting overnight transformation of the world's weather led to a cascade of lethal storms," Axe says.

"While hugely exaggerated, the movie got the basic science right," says Dr Augustus Vogel, an American researcher.

Best way to find out would be to take a look at the movie again, but the way I remember it, it was abnormal low sea water temperatures in selected areas of the northern atlantic ocean. I think that the idea is that if global warming causes the arctic ice to melt, all that fresh water will get dumped into the ocean. Because fresh water is less dense than salt water (even if it is colder), it will sit on top of the warmer salt water, and in some cases the buoys will measure the temperature of that fresh water, which is much colder than the salt water that the buoys are used to seeing. Putting it all together, abnormal low temperature readings in buoys that are close to the arctic can mean just one thing - the arctic ice is melting and the day after tomorrow is coming, just one day after tomorrow!!