02. Cause of the Ice Age
CHAPTER 2
Cause of the Ice Age
Obviously, the Bible is not a textbook of science, at least as currently understood. The Bible was not meant to be taken that way. It is a book about God, man, their relationship, and truth. Truth covers religious truth and the history of God’s more important interactions with man. It is in the context of this history that the Bible describes how the universe, the world, man, and everything in the world came into existence. The Bible tells how evil arose in mankind and how the great worldwide Flood was needed to destroy a hopelessly wayward generation. These events have something to say to science, just as an ancient city in Israel buried below the sand has something to say to archeology. The reader must be aware that events which occurred in prehistory cannot be verified by science. Scientific verification requires observations, whether directly, by the five senses, or with the aid of an instrument such as a telescope or microscope. Observational verification cannot be applied to the so-called historical sciences. This has been admitted by several evolutionary scientists (Birch and Ehrlich, 1967, p. 352; Peters, 1976). Consequently origins, whether by evolution, creation, or abrupt appearance, really is not a scientific subject, according to several definitions of science. It mainly comes under the classification of history, philosophy, or theology, although it can be included under some definitions of science (Bird, 1989). What one believes about origins will depend mostly on what one believes about life, God, and other ultimate considerations. If a person does not believe in God, he surely will not believe the events recorded in Genesis. Information obtained from observational science will only be interpreted in terms of one’s belief. One’s reconstruction of the past will be based on the foundation of his view of origins. Does this mean that events which happened in the past cannot be studied by science? Plausible scenarios or hypotheses concerning prehistory can be studied by science-but they cannot be absolutely verified. Such study is in the domain of historical science, or origin science. The possibility of Creation or any extraordinary manifestation of God, is appropriate for intellectual treatment (Thaxton et al., 1984, pp. 6-9, 204-206; Bird, 1989). The ice age is thus categorized as historical or origin science, since this event is outside modern observations. An hypothesis in historical or origin science is plausible in proportion to its ability to reasonably account for mysteries of the past, with the minimum of assumptions and additional hypotheses. I shall focus attention on this aspect of plausibility.
Evolutionary scientists hold a position of authority in this country, and in most other countries. They can be expected to make every effort to defend this position. They discount the historical reality or even possibility of Creation and the Genesis Flood as a valid starting point for answering questions concerning origins. Biblical considerations are excluded from their thought system by their initial premises. They have not realized that their own evolutionary/uniformitarian assumptions are of the same presuppositional character as belief in the Bible. No matter what scientific information is discovered that may appear contrary to their foundational assumptions, those assumptions are never seriously challenged by adherents. For some individuals, these foundational assumptions are considered as basic “facts.” Yet, as we have seen, these assumptions do not work well when considering the ice age. In view of these considerations, it is intellectually valid to use the foundational principles of Creation and the Genesis Flood, in combination with modern scientific observations, in an effort to reconstruct a more reasonable history and solve more mysteries of the past than can be achieved otherwise. It is the purpose of this book to construct a model of the ice age on the basis of what can be inferred from the Bible, combined with what evidence can be garnered from science. The Biblical considerations are the subject of this chapter. The Flood Catastrophe At this point, some readers may object to the Genesis Flood as a starting point for an ice-age theory. One may think that although the current paradigm of historical science is seriously flawed, the old theory of the Genesis Flood need not be revived. After all, haven’t scientists proved long ago that a flood of this magnitude did not occur? Not only that, couldn’t the Flood in the Bible have been just a local event? The principle of uniformitarianism is one of the key assumptions of the current paradigm in historical sciences. This was not always so. More than 150 years ago, many scientists believed the rocks on the earth’s surface were laid down and fashioned by the Genesis Flood. The geological evidence that overthrew the Biblical explanation was not well developed at that time. Geological data, alone, did not usher in the current paradigm. The main force behind the rise of uniformitarianism was the desire to eliminate God as Creator and as Initiator of the Flood (Gould, 1965, 1987). In general, the 1800s were a period of revolt against religious authority and the Bible. The Bible was attacked as full of errors, and of limited value for an enlightened, modern age.
Since then, archaeology has demonstrated many historical details in the Bible to be accurate. For example, in the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel, the writing-on-the-wall incident describes Belshazzar as the last king of Babylon. Archaeology, in the 1800s, had a record that Nabonidus was the last king. Skeptics claimed the Bible contained an unresolvable error. With the discovery of the Nabonidus Chronicle and other day tablets, it became apparent that Belshazzar was the oldest son of Nabonidus, and co-ruler of the empire. Belshazzar was left in charge of the empire, while Nabonidus was attending other business. According to Dan 5:1-31, Belshazzar was so shaken by the writing on the wall, he promised the translator the position of third ruler in the kingdom. Why third? Archaeology tells us the answer-Belshazzar was already the second ruler. Would this detail have been mentioned in the Bible if the book of Daniel was written hundreds of years after the event, as skeptics claim? The historical accuracy of the Bible is amazingly verified by this incident. This is not to say that all Biblical questions have been answered, but that many have. We should at least be open to the possibility that the Bible is historically true, including the first 11 chapters of Genesis.
Scientists, in the 1800s, deliberately chose to exclude the Genesis Flood by substituting uniformitarianism at a time when the science of geology was in its infancy. The Genesis Flood, consequently, was never proved wrong-just denied. Since the current uniformitarian paradigm has not solved the mystery of the ice age, the time is ripe to reevaluate the Genesis Flood as a basic foundational assumption for earth history. Bringing back a once-discarded theory is not particularly unusual in geology. Charlesworth (1957, p. viii) states: “...one cannot be sure that any hypothesis has been finally relegated to the geological dustbin.... Even exploded theories have a habit of being resurrected.” I must add that this is especially true when the theory is rejected for other than scientific reasons.
It should not escape our notice that strict uniformitarianism has been in decline for more than a decade. Many of the leading geologic thinkers now call themselves “neo-catastrophists,” espousing local and even regional catastrophism to explain geologic deposits of the past. Leading the way in this shift was the acceptance of a catastrophic origin for the channeled scablands of the northwestern United States, as well as a study of the rapid geologic processes present in recent local catastrophes such as the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. A similar shift can be seen in the biological sciences also, for slow and gradual neo-Darwinism has been substantially replaced by the punctuated equilibrium model. Of course, scientists who held to a belief in Biblical creation have long pointed to the weaknesses in uniformitarian thinking, and the necessity of past processes operating at rates, scales and intensities far greater than those in operation today, to account for most of the world’s geologic deposits. The Flood of Noah’s day provided the framework for geologic interpretation.
Some believe the Genesis Flood was just a local, or regional event. However, the language of Genesis strongly states the Flood covered the entire world (Gen 7:19-23). The purpose was to kill all mankind because of the extreme depravity which had developed. All but eight people and representative pairs of landbased animals perished. How could all the people in the world at that time be killed in a local, or regional flood? Why would a representative of each kind of animal need to be on the Ark, if the Flood was not worldwide? In fact, why would God send the animals to the Ark in the first place, if the Flood was local? The animals, as well as man, could flee to higher ground. The covenant of the rainbow makes no sense if Noah’s Flood was only local, since many local floods have occurred since then. Thus, under the circumstances of God’s wish to destroy a hopelessly evil generation, a worldwide flood is the most reasonable interpretation of Gen 6:1-22; Gen 7:1-24; Gen 8:1-22.
Over 100 traditions of a large or worldwide flood from tribes and ancient peoples across the earth imply a gigantic flood early in history. Not surprisingly, many of these stories are far-fetched, and incorporate polytheism and nature worship. For instance, the proportions of the boat in the Bible, are very close to modern-day ships, but the closest non-Biblical version, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, has a cube-shaped boat. A cube would be toppled many times in rough seas, from a catastrophic, global flood. However, taken as a whole, these traditions likely reflect a true event that became distorted with time. But since the Biblical version is the most reasonable, it must be the original, testifying either to Moses’ direct revelation from God, or his access to records previously written by the patriarchs, or other reliable eye-witnesses. The Vapor Canopy A world-wide Flood has important implications for the field of historical geology. Unfortunately, the Bible tells us very little about the Flood. We must piece together a reasonable model, from the limited information at hand. Most of this information is recorded in the early chapters of Genesis, but some is added at other locations in the Bible, such as in Psa 104:5-9. Before describing the events of the Genesis Flood that relate to the subsequent climate, the climate before the Flood will be postulated, since that climate may relate to the initial conditions for a post-Flood ice age.
Genesis implies that the pre-Flood climate was likely much different than is that of today. Gen 1:7 is best interpreted to indicate that water was placed above the atmosphere on the second day of creation. Gen 2:5-6 seems to show, although vaguely, that the pre-Flood world possessed a different hydrological system. The verses seem to say that at one time there was no rain on the earth, and that a mist, together with a system of underground streams, watered the surface.
One of the mechanisms of the Flood, described in Gen 6:1-22; Gen 7:1-24; Gen 8:1-22, is the 40 days and nights of rain, or the opening of the “floodgates of the heavens.” This implies heavy rain, presumably of worldwide extent. Within the field of atmospheric science, it is well known that an average of about two inches of precipitable water exists in the atmosphere, and the atmosphere cannot hold significantly more, at saturation. Two inches would be depleted in a matter of hours in such a catastrophe. Consequently, some other source for the rain must have existed. Many creationists believe the additional rain came from water that was placed above the atmosphere, according to the interpretation of Gen 1:7. This water is called the vapor canopy, since it would most likely be in a gaseous state. The vapor canopy must not have contained too much water vapor, or the light of the stars would have been blocked out (Gen 1:14-19 indicates that the stars could be seen).
Another source of Biblical evidence comes from Gen 9:8-17, the covenant of the rainbow. God promised not to send another flood like the one experienced by Noah. Since a rainbow needs rain, many believe the reason a rainbow wasn’t seen until this time was because there was no liquid water droplets in the atmosphere before the Flood. Adding up all these pieces of circumstantial information leads to the theory of the vapor canopy. From a meteorological point of view, a vapor canopy likely would cause a generally uniform climate at the surface (Vardiman, 1986). Water vapor strongly absorbs solar and infrared radiation and would be very warm. The downward, re-radiated infrared radiation would keep the surface of the earth warm, even at high latitudes, like a blanket warms a person while sleeping. Small latitudinal and diurnal difference in temperature would undoubtedly exist, due to differences in solar radiation. The lower atmosphere, with a high relative humidity, warms and cools slowly. An atmosphere with a weak latitudinal temperature change would have a weak north-south pressure difference, and hence produce weak winds. As a consequence, no large-scale synoptic storms could generate because they need substantial horizontal temperature differences to develop. Since the vapor canopy would be very warm, likely even hot, a strong temperature inversion would exist in the atmosphere below. This inversion would suppress all small-scale or convective precipitation mechanisms, and could prevent the development of conditions that would produce rain. These considerations begin to make sense of Gen 2:5-6, as descriptive of a continuing phenomenon until the Flood. An interesting model of the vapor canopy, how it could maintain itself, and some of its climatic implications, has been constructed by Joseph Dillow (1981). As is understandable for such a large, complex project, this model needs further development (Oard, 1982). Dillow’s model has a vapor canopy with the equivalent of 40 feet of precipitable water (Dillow, 1981, p. 137). This corresponds to 40 days of rainfall at the rate of half an inch per hour, which is classified as heavy rain, by National Weather Service definition.
Some creationists do not hold the theory that the pre-Flood earth had a vapor canopy, since there are a number of scientific problems with the theory (Morton, 1986, pp. 37-44). For instance, the latent heat released by the condensing water vapor, in Dillow’s model, would have been too hot for Noah and his crew. It remains to be seen whether this problem can be solved. The fossil record shows a large amount of supporting evidence for a much more uniform climate in the past. Palm-tree fossils have been found in Alaska, and coal in Antarctica. Fossils of reptiles, for instance dinosaurs, that cannot live in a very cold climate, have been found in today’s polar regions. These fossils would be a result of the Flood, and they probably represent animals that lived in areas near their present location.
Consequently, whether polar warmth was caused by a vapor canopy or by some other mechanism, the pre-Flood ocean must have been significantly warmer than today. The deep ocean today is cooled, at higher latitudes, by the cold atmosphere. The water in contact with the cold atmosphere cools and becomes more dense. It sinks and maintains cold water in the deep ocean, even to the tropics, up to 100 meters or so below the surface. If the higher latitudes were relatively warm before the Flood, the deep ocean would not have cooled as much as it does now. Therefore, the average temperature of the oceans before the Flood most probably was warmer than today. (Even if there was no vapor canopy, the temperature of the pre-Flood deep ocean could have been higher than it is today. Relatively more ocean at higher latitudes, and relatively more land at lower latitudes, would reduce temperature extremes and produce a warmer deep ocean than at present.) The vapor canopy model specifies destruction of the canopy during the Flood. As previously stated, this vapor would be very warm. The water would condense out of the canopy and end up in the oceans, adding to the average temperature of the post-Flood ocean. Compared to the heat already stored in the oceans, this would only be a minor addition, because of the small amount of water held in the canopy.
Fountains of the Great Deep The second mechanism of the Flood which has post-Flood climatic consequences is the fountains of the great deep specified in Gen 7:11. There is little information in the Bible as to what these were. The Bible says all of them burst open on the first day of the Flood, and that enough water was available to cover all the mountains all over the earth (Gen 7:19). Since the amount of water in the vapor canopy was too small for a global flood, the water from the fountains, which would be part of the ocean today, would need to be considerable. However, this water did not have to cover the high mountains of today because the mountains before the Flood were lower (Psa 104:5-9), which will be discussed later. A recent uplift of the mountains is supported by geological evidence which shows that practically all the mountain on the earth today are sedimentary rocks, and are fresh looking. The sediments in the high mountains contain marine fossils, which indicate they were below sea level at one time, and were thrust up thousands to tens of thousands of feet, and not too long ago!
Although the actual height of the pre-Flood mountains was probably low in comparison with the modern situation, the amount of water needed to cover them would have been substantial. Where could this water have come from but below the ground or ocean? (Whitcomb and Morris, 1961, p. 9). Any water erupting from this source (the deep) would move out, under pressure from the crust, and hence would shoot up into the air. The ejected water would produce fountains. In order to release the necessary amount of water, many holes and cracks in the earth would have opened. A worldwide eruption of the fountain of the great deep would be expected to be accompanied by extensive tectonic and volcanic activity. The tectonic activity would cause immense tidal waves and churning of the water, as the ocean level rose above the mountains. The 50,000 or more volcanoes and seamounts, on the earth, are likely relics of the tectonic activity during and after the Flood. The large amount of water coming from the fountains of the great deep originated from “deep” within the earth. How deep, no one knows. This water would have been very warm, because the interior of the earth is hot, and the temperature increases downward through the crust at an average of about 30°C per kilometer (Cook, 1973, pp. 163-171). When this water was added to the pre-Flood ocean, the net result was an even warmer ocean at the end of the Flood. Even if there was no vapor canopy, as some creationists believe, and the pre-Flood ocean was not warm, this added water from the deep would be sufficient to raise the temperature of the ocean much higher than the present average of 4°C.
Draining of the Flood Waters The Flood waters drained from the earth in about 150 days. Many creationists believe Psa 104:5-9 is a description of this process. In the New American Standard translation of the Bible, verse eight describes this event as the mountains rising and the valleys sinking down. Anybody in a boat during such an event would see the land rise out of the water. However, there is controversy over the exact meaning of these verses. Some believe they refer to the third day of creation when God caused the dry land to appear out of the water that surrounded the earth, since verse five refers to the creation. There is good evidence on both sides (Raaflaub, 1984; Lang, 1984). The Flood interpretation of verse eight is favored for the following reasons. Verse six describes the water as standing above the mountains. If those verses described events on the third day, why even mention the water covering the mountains? They could not be seen if they were there in the first place. The mountains would likely have developed on the third day, when God caused the dry land to appear. More persuasive evidence comes from verse nine, when God set a boundary for the waters so that they may never return to cover the earth. Thus, the previous verses surely must refer to the Genesis Flood. As the water receded steadily from off the earth, God caused a wind to pass over the earth, according to Gen 8:1. The meaning of this verse is obscure, but from a meteorological point of view, as the water drained and more and more land became exposed, the wind would increase. The atmosphere would respond quickly to the increasing area of land and height of the mountains. With no protective vapor canopy, the surface in mid and high latitudes and the atmosphere would cool quickly, due to the loss of infrared radiation. Horizontal temperature differences would cause the wind to increase at the surface and aloft. In an atmospheric simulation experiment which began with conditions similar to those which probably prevailed before the Flood waters were drained, the model atmosphere changed from a uniform temperature to nearly the present temperature distribution in only forty simulation days after the many heating and cooling processes in the present atmosphere were introduced (Mintz, 1968). At the end of the Flood, Noah and his family would find themselves at a higher elevation above sea level, assuming the Ark grounded near the top of the present mountains of Ararat (modern-day Mt. Ararat is composed of two peaks). Since Mt. Ararat is in the mid latitudes, the wind increases with elevation. The current average wind velocity at 14,000 feet at the latitude of Mt. Ararat is about 15 mph in summer and 30 mph in winter (Lorenz, 1967, pp. 34-37). God would still be the cause of the wind (Gen 8:1), by letting nature take its course.
Whether Psa 104:8 refers to the Flood or not, the Flood water must have drained by the mechanism described there. In order to drain a worldwide flood, sections of the earth would have to move up, while others moved down. The water could not go back into the earth, because it would move against the pressure difference that brought it out. The pre-Flood subterranean water storage areas, whether caverns, voids in the rocks, or in minerals, would have disappeared or changed during the Flood. The elevation of the present-day, fresh-looking mountains indicates that great vertical changes occurred not too long ago. The general lack of sediments on the ocean bottom are likely evidence for the recent drop in the ocean basins. These vertical changes would cause further tectonic activity, volcanism, erosion, and sedimentation. An important point with regard to post-Flood climate change is that the ocean water would have been well mixed from this radical change in geography, as well as from the previous tectonic activity during the Flood. The bottom of the oceans and the surface layer of the polar seas would have been relatively warm, and, as a result, the ocean would have been almost uniformly warm from top to bottom and from pole to pole. This condition would have a dramatic climatic consequence following the Flood.
Summary The picture that emerges at the end of the Flood catastrophe is a barren world with no trees, plants, animals, or birds (except in the Ark). All air-breathing, land-based animals had died and were fossilized, or were in the process of being fossilized, in the sediments of the Flood. The oceans would be about 40 meters higher than today, because the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets had not yet developed. The newly-formed stratosphere would contain a thick shroud of volcanic dust and aerosols, due to the extensive volcanic and tectonic activity during the Flood. It probably was a dark, depressing world. The oceans would be uniformly warm. The initial conditions would be established for a second, much-lesser catastrophe-a post-Flood transition to the present-day climate. This would be a post-Flood ice age.