SanDiegoAtheist

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I'm not sure if you understand just how MUCH of a greenhouse effect you'd be talking about here, in addition to other problems with both the 'fountains of the deep' and a 'vapor canopy'.

First of all, you aren't talking about a trivial amount of water here. Even assuming as many YEC's assume that the mountains were much smaller pre-flood (and this has it's own problems, as mountain building itself releases a rather untrivial amount of energy, as would the breakup of continental plates), even adding enough water to the atmosphere to account for 2000ft of precipitation would result in a surface environment which would be completely unliveable.

The first problem is pressure. Even vaporised, enough water to precipitate to 2000ft of water over the entire surface adds it's own weight to the atmosphere. This means that the atmospheric pressure on the earth would be equivalent to the current atmospheric pressure (roughly 10lb/in^2) PLUS the amount of pressure added by being 2000 ft under water. Each 30ft of water adds roughly another atmosphere of pressure - 2000 ft would be roughly 60 atmospheres of pressure, which means that Noah and company would have had roughly 600 lbs of pressure pushing down on them over every square inch on their body. This is roughly the equivalent of wearing an SUV as a hat. BTW, pressure also is directly related to temperature, so it would also be quite hot. You mentioned a greenhouse effect, and you're quite right...but not a greenhouse effect similar to, say Hawaii's climate....more like Venus' climate (Venus, btw, owes its summery temperature of roughly 700 degrees to the greenhouse and pressure effects of its massive 'vapor canopy')

Next problem of course, which applies to all the above methods of generating precipitation (fountains of the deep, vapor canopy, etc), has to do with the vaporization energy of water. To turn water into a vapor to get it into the atmosphere so as to be able to fall as rain, energy must be put INTO the water, and that energy will return to the enviroment when the water precipitates as rain. This is no trivial amount of rain we're talking about, and its similarly, no trivial amount of energy. The amount of energy required, no matter whether it comes from the 'vapor canopy', or 'fountains of the deep', would be sufficient, especially when considering all the vaporization energy would be released over a period of only 40 days and nights, to parboil everything on the planet.

Now where did all the energy of this 'superheated steam' go? Energy just doesn't disappear, it goes into the environment. Every droplet that you propose entered the atmosphere had the energy equivalent of a temperature of at LEAST 220 degrees (more actually, since it also had kinetic energy sufficient to propel it high into the atmosphere...a LOT more).

You propose entire OCEANS of water that were boiling hot when sent into the atmosphere to rain down. That energy just doesn't go 'poof' and all of a sudden cool down.

Imagine the effects on the temperature of the earth if our oceans were heated to 220 degrees. The amount of water you propose is at LEAST several times this.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

Abacus

Thanks San Diego Atheist. This is the point I was going to make, but it seems you beat me to it. I don't think having an ocean's worth of superheated steam in the atmosphere would equate to a very comfortable environment. Can we say, broiler oven?

Then again, we're talking about God here. Maybe the ark was provisioned with a super-duper air-conditioning system.

Infinity Lover

(Hypnotized)
m-u-s-t
s-h-o-r-e
m-y-s-e-l-f
u-p
a-g-a-i-n-s-t
w-i-n-k-i-n-g
s-m-i-l-y

Okay, for some actual problems (besides the ark most probably being impossible to build without 'divine intervention')

A lot of animals are extremely sensitive to stress and prone to dying in captivity (especially in too small a space).

Some species have very specific diets.

Noah wasn't a biologist I wildly guess.

Marcel

Kosh

Perhaps, rather than point out the many problems that the flood story causes for physics and boat building logistics (which is really just physics again), and wait for Amiee to some back with "godidit", (besides, all this has been hashed out here before), we should focus on what we were promised.....

Evidence that the Flood occurred.

Amiee?

Bubba

She seems to have flown the coup...just when this was getting interesting.

Aime, since you said you'd answer specific questions, just what would it take in terms of evidence to make you stop believing in a worldwide flood?

Bubba

shinobi909

If someone has a literal belief in the Noas Ark story, it's pretty clear they don't want to worry about things like facts and common sense.

There are animals found in Australia only, how did Noah get them? Keep in mind that Australia was unknown to people in the middle east 2000 years ago, and the bible makes no mention of Australia.

I just thought of something else. Noah must have been pretty hard if he could take on a few lions, tigers, aligators, and other dangerous predators and put them in an ark.

Amie

Kosh: patience is a virtue, go get some.
Bubba: have that popcorn ready dear?
Hi Lone Wolf,
you were next I believe. Note that the bible tells us that only land dwelling, air breathing animals and birds were taken on the Ark. you asked a question about the fish. Now if the whole earth was covered by water there would have been a mixing of fresh and salt waters, however we do not know how salty the sea was prior to the flood, I expect they were much less salty than the oceans we know. The flood would have been associated with massive earth movements, due to the weight of the water, which would have resulted in volcanic activity. We know that volcanoes produce enormous amounts of steam and lava creates hot water and steam which disolves minerals adding salt to the water. Also the movement of the water off of the continents would have caused erosion adding more salt to the water. Now as far as fish coping with another environment we know that fresh water fish absorb the water because the saltiness of their body fluids draws in water and saltwater fish lose water from their bodies because the surrounding water is saltier than their bodies. Isn't osmosis a beautiful thing? now many of todays marine organisms are able to survive changes in salinity, starfish are a perfect example. And there are species of fish that travel between fresh and salt water. Salmon, striped bass and Atlantic spurgeon spawn in fresh water and mature in salt water. Eels reproduce in salt water and then grow to mature in fresh water lakes. So some of todays species are able to adapt to both environments and aside from that many families of fish contain both fresh and saltwater species such as the bowfin, sturgeon, herring/anchovy(blech), salmon/trout/pike, catfish, clingfish, scorpionfish, flatfish to name some. This may suggest the ability to tolerate large changes in salinity was poresent in the fish of Noah's days. Natural selection may have resulted in the loss of this ability in many species since then. There is also the possibility that fresh water and salt water layers developed, I am not inclined to take that position however we know that fresh water can sit on top of salt water for extended periods of time. Due to the high latitudes, turbulence of the flood may have been pretty low to allow some sort of layering to take place. who knows eh?...Lone Wolf if I am forgetting to answer something feel free to scmack meh

why do I have a feeling that my friend from Australia who's reading this is laughing right now
Amie~

Amie

no, I have to take my time. I work, go to school, do homework, grade papers, and I am in the faculty school music number at school so I am trying to learn the words from Xanadu, and sleep very occasionally. I won't evade however I will answer when i can. My time is limited on the internet.

Tristan Scott

Somehow, I just knew that!

Amie

I just have to add this really quickly...
First,
I am happy to play, yes I'll see what I can do
and Ach, aber wer kann zwischen Marchen, Metaphor, und Jeck sich unterscheiden?
Amie~