Ice Age and the Global Flood
Abstract
It is likely there were no polar ice caps prior to
the global flood, but the earth instead
possessed somewhat globally uniform temperatures. During the flood
of Noah, the quantity of the earth's surface covered in water increased
dramatically. During the flood or as the waters began to evaporate and
recede, vast glaciers developed. The "ice age" probably began at the very
end of the Biblical flood. These frozen volumes of water lowered the ocean
levels relative to today allowing the animals that left Noah's ark to reach areas that are currently
inaccessible by land. The migration of the animals to continents such as
the Americas would not have been possible without the glacial bridge known
as the Bering Strait.
It is obvious there have been severe climatic fluctuations in earth's
history resulting in formation of vast glaciers. The global flood severely
compromised our ecosystem, and transformed the planet into a recovering
wasteland. The
geologic ages, and ice
ages that are believed to have occurred over vast periods of time
were actually formed rapidly as a result of the Biblical global flood.
What is an Ice Age?
An ice age is a period of time when the Earth's climate supports the global expansion of glacial ice. Glaciers develop as a result of long term snow fall or other forms of frozen precipitation resulting in compaction and expansion of the mass of ice. Evolutionary scientists believe there have been numerous ice ages that repeat approximately every 40,000 years. The most recent is believed to have ended about 10,000 years ago. However, the actual cause of these supposed ice ages is still somewhat of a mystery. Global cooling by itself would not produce an ice age. When temperatures are low, evaporation and subsequent precipitation is also reduced.
Thirty percent of the earth's surface was covered in ice at the peak of the ice age, but now there is only ten percent of the earth that is covered in glacial ice; which ice contains seventy-five percent of the world's fresh water supply. Glaciers cover over fifteen million square kilometers and they can be over four thousand two hundred meters thick in some places. Evolutionists believe that it takes millions of years to form glaciers and the creationists believe that the ice age glaciers were made within a few hundred years from the snow pouring down during and following the flood of Noah.
There is clear evidence for severe climatic fluctuations in earth's history resulting in the formation of vast glaciers. However, uniformitarian scientists have failed to recognize the occurrence of the global flood, and the effects of this event. The geologic ages and ice ages, which are believed by evolutionists to have occurred over vast periods of time were actually formed as a result of the Biblical flood.
CContents |
Noah's Flood /span>
Young earth Creationists such as Michael Oard and Larry Vardiman have proposed that an ice age formed as a consequence of the global flood of Noah. In the Creationist point-of-view, the Ice Age is generally dated between approximately 2300 BC and 1800 BC. Some believe that Job 37:10 and Job 38:22 might be references to the Ice Age.
They believe the ice age was caused primarily by the Flood catastrophe which had totally made the earth into a disaster area, by means of all the water as well as eruptions from volcanic activity. Volcanic eruptions injected a lot of ash and soot into the earth's atmosphere. This ash cloud caused the world to become colder because the sun's rays were no longer reaching the earth in quantities to maintain the oceans' warmth from the tropical climate that once existed before the Flood.
Even with the sun being blocked by volcanic particles the warm oceans would cause higher amounts of evaporation than in modern times, and so there was less heat at the surface of the earth. This turned the previous quiet, tropical climate into a climate with blizzards and other wild weather previously non-existent. The blizzards would have been huge, bigger than any recorded in the modern world, and would strike the extreme northern and southern parts of the continents as moisture transferred from the warm oceans to the colder continents. This heavy snowfall caused large amounts of ice to be formed.
The creationists estimate that it took about five hundred years for snow to accumulate to a depth of 2,300 feet in the northern hemisphere at it's deepest. Within two hundred years after the ice age peaked, the ice would have started melting at a rate of thirty-three feet a year along the rim of the glaciers, which is continuing today.
When the fountains of the great deep burst forth, hot water and lava poured out of the Earth directly into the oceans. This would have warmed the oceans, increasing evaporation in the years following the flood. Volcanic ash in the air would have blocked out sunlight, cooling the atmosphere, and producing the right conditions for a massive ice age.
The global flood severely compromised the Earth's original ecosystem, and transformed the planet into a recovering wasteland. It is in fact likely there were no polar ice caps prior to the global flood, but the earth instead possessed global uniform temperatures.
Impact
EExtinction of the Woolly Mammoth
The woolly mammoth/a> has been extinct since the ice age. They were hunted as prey for consumption by humans, but we were not the reason that they died. The real reason was the ice age that caused them to lose their food supply or froze them to death by the extremely harsh winter storms, that formed all the ice that we see today in glaciers, that have been receding at a constant rate.
The mammoth stood at an average fourteen feet high and had curved tusks that ranged up to eleven and a half-feet long. The male mammoth weighed about twelve tons. Mammoths lived in valleys full of grass and vegetation, contrary to popular belief that they lived on frozen tundras. The mammoth probably survived the Flood on Noah's Ark which was large enough for one pair of the mammoths (since they were considered unclean animals) and all of his cousins, such as the African elephant with his mate on the ark. They have found many bones of the woolly mammoth frozen in the ground in the tundras of the northern hemisphere. A few have been found frozen whole even with grass still in their stomach. This can be explained by the colder drier climate which caused horrible wind storms worse than the Dust Bowl. The mammoths were buried in the dust, which later froze, encasing them in their icy tombs. Another way they could of been preserved, without rot or decay, would be if sudden melting of the ice caused local catastrophes that would encase them in mud and then freeze them, keeping them from turning into another creature's dinner. Mammoths, according to evolution, lived from two million years ago to nine thousand years ago, which was the time that mammoths are believed to have become extinct.
Migration
During colder climatic periods more ice caps and glaciers form, and enough of the global water supply accumulates as ice to lessen the amounts in other parts of the water cycle. During the ice age glaciers covered almost one-third of Earth's land mass, with the result being that the oceans were about 400 feet (122 meters) lower than today.[1]
This provided land and ice bridges allowing the animals that left Noah's ark to reach areas that are currently inaccessible by land. The migration of the animals from the Middle East to continents such as the Americas would not have been possible without the glacial bridge known as the Bering Strait.
Old earth
Prior to 1970, scientists believed that there was four ice ages that took over millions of years to form and to melt away the ice in the process forming different geologic features that we know today are caused by glaciers. The first ice age, they believe happened in the early Proterozoic period that happened from 2.2 to 2.4 billion years ago, the second ice age was in the late Proterozoic period, happened from 52 to 95 million years ago, the third ice age late Ordovician period was from 42.9 to 44.5 million years ago. The last ice age happened in the late Paleozoic period 2.56 to 3.38 million years ago. After 1970 a new model of Earth history was put forth suggesting that there was approximately thirty ice ages that have occured over 4.6 billion years. Evolutionists believe that every ice age has occured about one hundred thousand years in the past eight hundred-thousand years. These ancient ice ages are claimed to be found in the oldest rock in the earth's crust and then dated for how old the rock is by radiocarbon dating or by some other method that evolutionists use for evidence for the age of the many different ice ages. Evolutionists believe that the ice ages happen every one hundred thousand years, but there is no way that all that ice and snow can cause an global ice age without a lot of very wild weather.
References
- ↑ Summary of the Water Cycle U.S. Geological Survey. Updated Apr 142010
- Setting the Stage for the Ice Age by Michael Oard. Answers Magazine April – June 2007.
- Where does the Ice Age Fit? by Michael Oard. The Answers Book Chapter 16. November 22, 2007
- Mammoth-riddle of the Ice Age by Jonathan Sarfati. Creation 22(2):10–15, March 2000.
- Out of Whose Womb Came the Ice? by Larry Vardiman, Acts & Facts Aug 1, 1994, Institute for Creation Research.
External links
- The Ice Age and the Genesis Flood by Michael Oard. Acts & Facts Jun 1, 1987.
- The Ice Age: Only the Bible Can Explain It by Michael Oard. Northwest Creation Network
- What about the Ice Age? by Don Batten (editor), Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland
- The extinction wars by Michael Oard. Frozen in Time, Chapter 5.
- A Faulty Climate Trigger by Larry Vardiman, Acts & Facts Mar 1, 1995, Institute for Creation Research.
SSee Also
- Frozen in Time by Michael Oard
- Life in the Great Ice Age by Michael Oard
- Milankovitch cycles
- Ice cores