History Main / NaturalDisasterCascade

* ''Film/FlashGordonSerial'' (1936) shows the worldwide panic as the planet Mongo is on an intercept course with the Earth--with Americans panicking, Europeans rioting, Chinese fleeing, Indians praying, and Africans...[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking doing a native dance?]]

** Child's global rampage to end all life on Earth in ''Phantoms'' has shades of this, alongside some even less earthly phenomena. Apart from the massive flash flood her land-reshaping battle with Klarion causes, after she's briefly gotten rid of him, she promptly creates a new ''active'' volcano in the middle of Sydney, creates onean underwater pillar of fire next to Atlantis which rapidly renders the ocean waters lethally toxic, causes Agra, India and everyone at the Taj Mahal to freeze seemingly instantly amidst a blizzard, creates a fire pillar in the middle of the Arctic to rapidly accelerate its melting, and finally causes it to rain fire at her final confrontation with Zatanna's team.

* Scientists predict that hundreds of millions of years in the future, increased solar radiation will elevate Earth's temperature. This will lead to evaporation of the oceans, filling the atmosphere with water vapor; as a potent greenhouse gas, this will accelerate global warming and further oceanic evaporation in a runaway greenhouse effect similar to what happened on Venus, ultimately leaving the planet bone-dry[[note]]And from there, either to a Venus-like state, with hellish surface temperatures and a crushing atmospheric pressure, or a much hotter and with a thicker atmosphere version of Mars[[/note]]. In addition, the increased temperature and radiation will shut down photosynthesis; once plants die, the complex lifeforms that feed on them will also die, leading first to the extinction of multicellular life and later on of unicellular life. Billions of years later, the sun's expansion into a red giant will lead to the complete sterilization of earth (if there's anything still alive), removing its atmosphere, and possibly causing its outright destruction by plasma immolation -- and even if Earth physically survives, the later collapse of the sun into a white dwarf will freeze what's left of the planet.

** Child's global rampage to end all life on Earth in ''Phantoms'' has shades of this, alongside some even less earthly phenomena. Apart from the massive flash flood her land-reshaping battle with Klarion causes, after she's briefly gotten rid of him, she promptly creates a new ''active'' volcano in the middle of Sydney, creates an underwater pillar of fire next to Atlantis which rapidly renders the ocean waters lethally toxic, causes Agra, India and everyone at the Taj Mahal to freeze seemingly instantly amidst a blizzard, creates a fire pillar in the middle of the Arctic to rapidly accelerate its melting, and finally causes it to rain fire at her final confrontation with Zatanna's team.

* The premise of ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'' is that the world of Pokémon is being ravaged by more natural disasters than usual. [[spoiler:It turns out the world's balance is being upset by an approaching meteor.]]

* VideoGame/PipeworksGodzillaTrilogy: In ''Godzilla Unleashed'' and ''Godzilla Unleashed Double Smash'', the radioactive {{Power Crystal}}s around the world effectively cause this, creating natural disasters in the various worldwide cities they've landed in, including: earthquakes and/or a volcanic eruption shattering San Francisco, a blizzard freezing Sydney, toxic chemical gas surrounding Osaka, a storm and massive tsunamis submerging Tokyo, Mt. Rainer in Seattle erupting and turning the city into a volcanic wasteland, and permanent thunderstorms enshrouding Bangkok.

* ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'': The MatterReplicator machine, once it malfunctions, begins causing a comedic variation, unleashing various entirely food-based forms of weather disasters (a spaghetti tornado, raining various giant foods, and forming a food-based hurricane). It then starts spreading around the globe, [[MonumentalDamage attacking the world's major monuments first]] (pies falling on Mount Rushmore, a giant sandwich speared on the Eiffel Tower, etc.).

->''"More than sixty volcanoes are erupting worldwide, and downtown Honolulu is under six inches of snow. Scientists continue to devise theories connecting these unprecedented natural disasters with the planetary alignment which- ''[[WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties SMPTE color bars]]''"''

* ''Film/FlashGordon1980'' opens with Ming causing disasters around the world, all part of the Moon starting to move in closer to the Earth and crash with it. He later explains it's a SecretTestOfCharacter to see if the Earthlings would know if it was an attack, rather than being unexplainable.

->''"More than sixty volcanoes are erupting worldwide, and downtown Honolulu is under six inches of snow. Scientists continue to devise theories connecting these unprecedented natural disasters with the planetary alignment which- ''[SMPTE color bars]''"''

* Scientists predict that hundreds of millions of years in the future, increased solar radiation will elevate Earth's temperature. This will lead to evaporation of the oceans, filling the atmosphere with water vapor; as a potent greenhouse gas, this will accelerate global warming and further oceanic evaporation in a runaway greenhouse effect similar to what happened on Venus ultimately leaving the planet bone-dry[[note]]And from there, either to a Venus-like state, with hellish surface temperatures and a crushing atmospheric pressure, or a much hotter and with a thicker atmosphere version of Mars[[/note]]. In addition, the increased temperature and radiation will shut down photosynthesis; once plants die, the complex lifeforms that feed on them will also die, leading first to the extinction of multicellular life and later on of unicellular one. Billions of years later, the sun's expansion into a red giant will lead to the complete sterilization of earth if there's something still alive, removing its atmosphere, if not its outright destruction -- and even if Earth physically survives, the later collapse of the sun into a white dwarf will freeze what's left of the planet.

* Scientists predict that hundreds of millions of years in the future, increased solar radiation will elevate Earth's temperature. This will lead to evaporation of the oceans, filling the atmosphere with water vapor; as a potent greenhouse gas, this will accelerate global warming and further oceanic evaporation in a runaway greenhouse effect similar to what happened on Venus. In addition, the increased temperature and radiation will shut down photosynthesis; once plants die, the complex lifeforms that feed on them will also die, leading to the extinction of multicellular life. Billions of years later, the sun's expansion into a red giant will lead to the complete sterilization of earth, if not its outright destruction -- and even if Earth physically survives, the later collapse of the sun into a white dwarf will freeze what's left of the planet.

* ''Fanfic/TheUltimateEvil'': In ''The Stronger Evil'', earthquakes, storms, volcanic activity and abnormal weather relating to the oceans are eventually revealed to be caused by [[spoiler:Shendu's mother, the Babylonian primordial goddess Tiamat, stirring in her sleep]]. It's also heavily implied by Shendu that [[spoiler:Tiamat has caused this kind of destruction to the world before with minimal effort, and he specifically states she was the engineer of every major extinction event in the planet's history]].

Note that the disaster chain doesn't have to be caused by GaiasVengeance (although that is one possible cause) -- on the contrary, the Natural Disaster Cascade can sometimes indicate the planet is sick or dying. The disaster chain can potentially be detrimental for just [[GreenAesop humanity]] or for all the planet's biosphere. Villains utilizing a WeatherControlMachine will probably unleash this on the world or at least threaten to do so in order to achieve their goals. Other potential causes are GlobalWarming, WeatherManipulation on a grander scale than standard, another DoomsdayDevice, or {{Terraform}}ing gone wrong.

* Scientists predict that hundreds of millions of years in the future, increased solar radiation will elevate Earth's temperature. This will lead to evaporation of the oceans, filling the atmosphere with water vapor; as a potent greenhouse gas, this will accelerate global warming and further oceanic evaporation in a runaway greenhouse effect similar to what happened on Venus. In addition, the increased temperature and radiation will shut down photosynthesis; once plants die, the complex lifeforms that feed on them will also die, leading to the extinction of multicellular life. Billions of years later, the sun's expansion into a red giant will lead to the complete sterilization of earth, if not its outright destruction.