4 Ways Global Warming Is Creating a Worldwide Horror Movie

4

It's Thawing Out Mummified Corpses from Past Wars

When you think about ice melting in relation to climate change, it probably brings to mind worries about rising ocean levels and transient polar bears. But it turns out you should maybe be just as concerned about what's lurking in the center of that slowly melting ice, like the horrifically chewy center of a Cenobite's Tootsie Pop.

As the Presena glacier north of the Italian Alps has gradually thawed over the past couple decades, it's puked out some unexpected items: diaries, letters, antique rifles. More recently, it's become terrifyingly apparent who owned said items -- because they're trapped in the ice, too.

Museo della Grande Guerra, Peio
Well, they were.

3

It's Bringing Killer Viruses Back to Life

When scientists recently chipped into a 30,000-year-old chunk of the Siberian permafrost, they found something fascinating. Or maybe not, if you find the concept of a zombie dino-virus mundane.

Julia Bartoli & Chantal Abergel; Information Genomique et Structurale, CNRS-AMU
Death finds a way.

Dubbed Pithovirus, because apparently the scientist who discovered it wet himself and also spoke with a lisp, it was the largest virus ever discovered. And no sooner had scientists given it a snappy name than it woke up and started hate-fucking some amoebas to death. Let's put that another way just to make sure it sinks in: This virus, which had been frozen solid since Neanderthals were loping around clubbing wooly mammoths, immediately woke up and started murdering stuff.

2

It's Allowing "Rock Snot" to Infiltrate Our Waterways

You know how sometimes horror movies use lighting (or lack thereof), pacing, and music to build a mounting sense of dread, while other times they jump straight to the gross-out? Well, that second technique must've been what climate change had in mind when it egged on the proliferation of "rock snot."

Michel Chouinard
Seriously, bare-handed and shorts is how you're tackling this?

A new study suggests that this supremely mucky species of algae, technically named didymo (although we have no idea why anyone would use that term after hearing "rock snot"), has enjoyed unprecedented expansion throughout the U.S., New Zealand, Europe, and Canada over the past couple decades thanks to climate change. Rock snot prefers to clog up rocky, fast-flowing waterways.

1

It's Creating Massive Swarms of Bloodsucking Insects

Back when people still said "global warming," Dr. Alison Blackwell, Scotland's foremost authority on midges, made a prediction: The warmer, wetter winters would bring about an explosion in the midge population. What the hell is a midge, you ask? Well, it's a tiny flying insect that "tear[s] the flesh with a set of mouthparts acting like shearing scissors, sucking blood from the skin and leaving a nasty, irritable red mark." Also, this is what a swarm of them looks like:

Xinhua/Photoshot
"Why are you kneeling?"
"I'm praying for a great white to eat me first."