Loren Pechtel

Not enough to matter.

BioBeing

Lets play bounce that thread...

Flood stuff usually goes to E/C, 'cos they love it so much there.

BioBeing,
S&S Moderator

blueshuttle

It makes no sense to create a miracle of rain all over the earth, have it written about in the Bible, and then use ones Godly powers to cover up all evidence for it and make all geologists and biologists find evidence against it. Why not just skip to the part where you kill a bunch of humans? Why didnt God, instead of covering the Earth with water then hiding the evidence, simply throw all humans into the ocean?

Here is the reality of the atmosphere issue raised in the OP:

Mount Everest extends through 2/3 of the Earth's atmosphere. Since two forms of matter can't occupy the same space, we have an additional problem with the atmosphere. Its current boundary marks the point at which gasses of the atmosphere can escape the Earth's gravitational field. Even allowing for partial dissolving of the atmosphere into our huge ocean, we'd lose the vast majority of our atmosphere as it is raised some 5.155 km higher by the rising flood waters; and it boils off into space. (approx 2/3 worth)

Yet, we still have a quite thick and nicely breathable atmosphere. In fact, ice cores from Antarctica (as well as deep-sea sediment cores) which can be geochemically tested for paleoatmospheric constituents and relative gas ratios; and these records extend well back into the Pleistocene, far more than the supposed 4,000 YBP flood event. Strange that this major loss of atmosphere, atmospheric fractionation (lighter gasses (oxygen, nitrogen, fluorine, neon, etc.) would have boiled off first in the flood-water rising scenario, enriching what remained with heavier gasses (argon, krypton, xenon, radon, etc.)), and massive extinctions from such global upheavals are totally unevidenced in these cores.

Furthermore, in order to flood the Earth to the Genesis requisite depth of 10 cubits (~15' or 5 m.) above the summit of Mt. Ararat (16,900' or 5,151 m AMSL), it would obviously require a water depth of 16,915' (5,155.7 m), or over three miles above mean sea level. In order to accomplish this little task, it would require the previously noted additional 4.525 x 109 km3 of water to flood the Earth to this depth. The Earth's present hydrosphere (the sum total of all waters in, on and above the Earth) totals only 1.37 x 109 km3. Where would this additional 4.525 x 109 km3 of water come from? It cannot come from water vapour (i.e., clouds) because the atmospheric pressure would be 840 times greater than standard pressure of the atmosphere today. Further, the latent heat released when the vapour condenses into liquid water would be enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere to approximately 3,570 C (6,460 F).

Someone suggested that all the water needed to flood the Earth existed as liquid water surrounding the globe (i.e., a "vapour canopy"). This, of course, it staggeringly stupid. What is keeping that much water from falling to the Earth? There is a little property called gravity that would cause it to fall.
Let's look into that from a physical standpoint. To flood the Earth, we have already seen that it would require 4.252 x 109 km3 of water with a mass of 4.525 x 1021 kg. When this amount of water is floating about the Earth's surface, it stored an enormous amount of potential energy, which is converted to kinetic energy when it falls, which, in turn, is converted to heat upon impact with the Earth. The amount of heat released is immense:

Potential energy: E=M*g*H, where
M = mass of water,
g = gravitational constant and,
H = height of water above surface.

Now, going with the Genesis version of the Noachian Deluge as lasting 40 days and nights, the amount of mass falling to Earth each day is 4.525 x 1021 kg/40 24 hr. periods. This equals 1.10675 x 1020 kilograms daily. Using H as 10 miles (16,000 meters), the energy released each day is 1.73584 x 1025 joules. The amount of energy the Earth would have to radiate per m2/sec is energy divided by surface area of the Earth times number of seconds in one day. That is: e = 1.735384 x 1025/(4*3.14159* ((6386)2*86,400)) = 391,935.0958 j/m2/s.

Currently, the Earth radiates energy at the rate of approximately 215 joules/m2/sec and the average temperature is 280 K. Using the Stefan- Boltzman 4'th power law to calculate the increase in temperature:
E (increase)/E (normal) = T (increase)/T4 (normal)

E (normal) = 215
E (increase) = 391,935.0958
T (normal) = 280.

Turn the crank, and T (increase) equals 1800 K.

The temperature would thusly rise 1800 K, or 1,526.84 C (that's 2,780.33 F...lead melts at 880 F...ed note). It would be highly unlikely that anything short of fused quartz would survive such an onslaught. Also, the water level would have to rise at an average rate of 5.5 inches/min; and in 13 minutes would be in excess of 6' deep.

Finally, at 1800 K water would not exist as liquid.

blueshuttle

Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall. The diameter of the earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth + Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved.

So, here are the calculations:

First, Everest

V= 4/3 * pi * r cubed
= 4/3 * pi * 6387.248 km cubed
= 1.09151 x 10 to the 12 cubic kilometres (1.09151x102 km3)

Now, the Earth at sea level

V = 4/3 * pi * r cubed
= 4/3 * pi * 6378.4 km cubed
= 1.08698 x 10 to the 12 cubic kilometres (1.08698x1012 km3)

The difference between these two figures is the amount of water needed to just cover the Earth:

4.525 x 10 to the ninth cubic kilometres (4.525x1009 km3) Or, to put into a more sensible number, 4,525,000,000,000 cubic kilometres

For those who think it might come from the polar ice caps, please don't forget that water is more dense than ice, and thus that the volume of ice present in those ice caps would have to be more than the volume of water necessary. (it’s a 9/10th ratio of ice vs. water mass in a given volume. Not to mention, both poles would still not have enough because the amount of water needed to cover the earth would envelop both polar ice caps completely)

Some interesting physical effects of all that water, too. How much weight do you think that is? Well, water at STP weighs in at 1 gram/cubic centimetre (by definition)...so,

4.252x1009 km3 of water,
X 106 (= cubic meters),
X 106 (= cubic centimetres),
X 1 g/cm3 (= grams),
X 10-3 (= kilograms),
(turn the crank)

equals 4.525E+21 kg.

Ever wonder what the effects of that much weight would be? Well, many times in the near past (i.e., the Pleistocene), continental ice sheets covered many of the northern states and most all of Canada. For the sake of argument, let's call the area covered by the Wisconsinian advance (the latest and greatest) was 10,000,000,000 (ten million) km2, by an average thickness of 1 km of ice (a good estimate...it was thicker in some areas [the zones of accumulation] and much thinner elsewhere [at the ablating edges]). Now, 1.00x1007 km2 X 1 km thickness equals 1.00E+07 km3 of ice.

Now, remember earlier that we noted that it would take 4.525x1009 km3 of water for the flood? Well, looking at the Wisconsinian glaciation, all that ice (which is frozen water, remember?) would be precisely 0.222% [...do the math](that's zero, decimal point, two hundred twenty two thousandths) percent of the water needed for the flood.

Well, the Wisconsinian glacial state ended about 25,000 YBP (years before present), as compared for the approximately supposedly 4,000 YBP flood event.

Due to these late Pleistocene glaciations (some 21,000 years preceding the supposed flood), the mass of the ice has actually depressed the crust of the Earth. That crust, now that the ice is gone, is slowly rising (called glacial rebound); and this rebound can be measured, in places (like northern Wisconsin), in centimetres/year. Sea level was also lowered some 10's of meters due to the very finite amount of water in the Earth's hydrosphere being locked up in glacial ice sheets (geologists call this glacioeustacy).

Now, glacial rebound can only be measured, obviously, in glaciated terranes, i.e., the Sahara is not rebounding as it was not glaciated during the Pleistocene. This lack of rebound is noted by laser ranged interferometery and satellite geodesy [so there], as well as by geomorphology. Glacial striae on bedrock, eskers, tills, moraines, rouche moutenees, drumlins, kame and kettle topography, fjords, deranged fluvial drainage and erratic blocks all betray a glacier's passage. Needless to say, these geomorphological expressions are not found everywhere on Earth (for instance, like the Sahara). Therefore, although extensive, the glaciers were a local (not global) is scale. Yet, at only 0.222% the size of the supposed flood, they have had a PROFOUND and EASILY recognizable and measurable effects on the lands.

Yet, the supposed flood of Noah, supposedly global in extent, supposedly much more recent, and supposedly orders of magnitude larger in scale; has exactly zero measurable effects and zero evidence for it's occurrence.

Loren Pechtel

Major objection here. Pushing the atmosphere up 5km wouldn't appreciably effect the Earth's ability to retain it.

blueshuttle

Incorrect. If gravitational pull was constant regardless of altitude/distance, then we would be able to orbit satellites (or even the moon) a foot off the ground, as long as it doesnt hit anything.

The reason the atmosphere stops where it does is because the Earth only has so much gravity and that gravity only holds down a given mass with a given density at a given altitude. A lightweight gas such as our atmosphere will simply float away above a certain altitude. It gradually thins the higher you go until its gone.

That is why being on Earth is called "macrogravity" and orbiting Earth at a safe distance (like the ISS) is "microgravity". That is also the reason that the atmosphere used to be a different density and height back when the Earth was smaller. Its also why small places like the moon have no atmosphere; they cant hold one down.

That is also the reason that the atmosphere can be found to be at a different pressure and density at a different altitude. If distance did not effect pull, then the atmosphere would have the same pressure from top to bottom.

Granted, if the ocean was increased to the height of Mt. Everest, the extra mass would hold down a bit more air. But still there would be a huge amount of air that would float off into space.

Shameless Hussy

Wait... what? I thought Ziusudra was the hero/king of an older Sumerian legend which PRECEDED the Gilgamesh narrative (in which Ziusudra is featured), which in turn preceded the Noah narrative. No? Where's Jaan Puhvel when we need him?

Jack the Bodiless

Gravity does decrease with altitude, but not very quickly. Gravity decreases according to an "inverse square law": doubling the separation reduces the gravity to one-quarter, tripling the separation reduces the gravity to one-ninth, and so forth. For a sphere, gravity acts as if the mass was concentrated at the centre, and the radius is your separation from it: thus, being 4000 miles from an Earth-mass black hole would be equivalent to standing on the Earth.

This means that even if you went 4000 miles out into space, Earth's gravity would still be one-quarter of what it is on the surface. Astronauts in low-Earth orbit experience "weightlessness" because they're in orbit: being "flung outward" by the centrifugal effect in a manner that cancels out gravity.

The Earth probably could retain a thicker atmosphere than it does now. Venus has a surface atmospheric pressure about 90 times that of Earth, despite being a slightly smaller and much hotter planet. CO2 molecules are nearly 50% heavier than Earth's nitrogen/oxygen molecules, though.

Asha'man

Your general understanding of the principles is ok, but you don’t seem to have grasped the scale of the numbers. The Force applied by gravity is (g * m1 * m2) / (r^2). If everything but radius remains constant, all you have to do is look at (r1 ^ 2) / (r2 ^ 2)

For objects on the surface of the earth (r=6378.4), this is 1 G.
For objects at the altitude of Everest (r=6387.248), this is 0.9972 G
For object orbiting 300km up (r=6678.4), this is 0.9122 G

So, by raising the lower limit of the atmosphere to the altitude of Everest, you will get a reduction in the amount of air pressure, but gravity is only 0.3% weaker so the reduction will hardly be noticeable. I get a greater reduction in air pressure just by living in Atlanta (altitude around 1000’). Nobody is starving for air pressure here (though air quality leaves a bit to be desired).

Even low earth orbit experiences more than 90% of the gravity we get at the surface. Microgravity is so named because you are in free fall, with the acceleration of gravity being matched by your orbit, not because the strength of the gravity pull is significantly lower.

wonkothesane

I don't know enough about thermodynamics and chemistry and atmospheric science to answer your question scientifically, or even begin to figure out a remotely plausable way that Noah & company could breathe *if* the air was thin...

But really, once your invoke "God", you don't need a scientifically plausable answer...you don't even really need to ask the question to begin with...

How could Noah fit all the animals on the Ark? As a fundie I know says, "I don't really know. But He *did*, because He's God. It was a miracle."

So, a fundie would probably answer your question by simply saying "God made him able to breathe the thin air."..."Or God magically thickened the air."...or whatever...

Or simply "Who cares about _how_...the Bible says that it happened, so it must have somehow."

- wonko