Physical Effects Of The Flood

A catastrophic event such as a flood causes tremendous changes in th area affected, and the Flood in Noah’s day affected the entire world.  Prior to the flood it had never rained.   Genesis 2:5-6 tells us, “...for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.  But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”   This clearly indicates a very high level of humidity in the air and fairly warm temperatures as compared to the present time, resulting is very heavy fog and dew.   

Genesis 1:6-7 clearly indicate that originally there was a much larger amount of water in the upper atmosphere than there is today.  “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.”  Just a s thick clouds today tend to hold in the heat at night while limiting the heat from the sun in the day, such a layer of water in the atmosphere would tend to moderate the temperature changes here on earth, providing conditions such that plants would be able to survive without rain, and plants requiring a warm climate could survive over much larger areas.  Fossils of giant ferns and Palm trees in northern Russia and Canada support this conclusion. 

During the Flood, Genesis 7:11-12 tells us, “…and the windows of heaven were opened.  And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”  After the flood, only the water that evaporated and was held suspended in the air went back into the sky.  A rainbow is the result of sunlight being diffracted by droplets of water.  Before the flood, that layer of water would have prevented the sun from shining through so that the rainbow could be seen.  After the flood, the loss of most of the cloud canopy resulted in much lower humidity over much of the earth, and far larger temperature variations, so that the climate zones became much more distinct. 

At the same time, Genesis 7:11 tells us, “…the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up…”  This indicates fracturing the earth’s crust and shifting of the tectonic plates, squeezing out the water from huge underground reservoirs.  Such shifting would cause earthquakes and volcanoes, and result in some areas being up-thrust and others subsiding, creating new mountains and valleys.  In addition, the shifting of the tectonic plates would affect the balance of the earth, causing it to periodically wobble on its axis like a toy top.  Such wobbles change the angle at which the sun strikes the earth, affecting weather patterns so that throughout history there have been times of global warming and times of global cooling. 

The wobbles are very small, only a few seconds of arc, and are hardly noticed over most of the earth, but near the north and south poles where even a slight change makes a significant difference in the angle at which the sunlight strikes the earth and ho long their days are.  Several years ago the Inuit people of northern Canada and Alaska observed a slight change in the angle at which the sunlight struck the earth.  Subsequently they noticed that the permafrost was melting back far deeper during the summer than in years past, and that the glaciers melted more.  Learning of the increased rate of melt, alarmists such as Al Gore began warning people that the earth was getting warmer, and blaming it on commercial release of greenhouse gases.  They warned that at the perceived rate of warming, the entire polar ice caps would melt by 2013 and most of our arctic plants and animals would disappear.   Political leaders around the world began pushing for limits on greenhouse gas production.

Since a single eruption of a volcano releases a thousand or more times as much greenhouse gas as humans have produced in their entire existence on earth, most climate scientists doubted those claims.  Today, the polar ice packs are approximately the same size as at any time in recorded history, and the ocean level has not risen significantly.  While the global weather patterns have been extreme, they have been exactly in line with what is to be expected as a result of a slight shift in the angle the sunlight strikes the earth, with weather patterns being more extreme than normal. 

Scientists have recently confirmed the Inuit people’s conclusions, and thousands of working scientists challenge the political demands for restrictions on greenhouse gases as being nothing more than political fearmongering in an attempt to increase political power.  The flood resulted in dramatic changes in earth that we still experience effects from today.  Fortunately, in Genesis 8:22, God promised, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”  We don’t have to worry about those effects.   God is still in control.