How Hard Was it Raining During the Flood? Could the Ark Survive?

I'd like to hear the story.

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But all based on sheer guesswork about how it happened.

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The calculations not guesswork. They are based on what actually happens when it actually rains.

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So the rains of the flood started with the removal of latent heat? And what would have removed the latent heat?

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I can't think of anything that would remove that amount of latent heat from water in the air all over the globe. This is not a real problem because there never was a global flood.Of course enough water vapor in the atmosphere to yield significant global rain would require temperatures and pressures that air breathing life could not survive. There is good reason that most YEC organizations gave up on the "vapor canopy" long ago.

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I didn't put the link up as an argument. I just ran across it trying to get some information about what causes cooling and heating in ocean weather patterns, and thought it mostly showed how hard it is to know much for sure about weather patterns, even when a lot is known. It wasn't meant to prove anything at all.

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The main factor here is a simple concept called the conservation of energy. In a local event there are places for the heat to go. In a global event there is no way to shed the latent heat.

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A whole planet covered with hurricanes isn't going to behave the way a few hurricanes here and there behave anyway.

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So how is the ark going to survive that?

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Things would probably have been so different I don't see the point in extrapolating anything that is known back to that event any more. The problem with all this is that nobody knows what would have happened. It's all guesswork based on the barest of hints in the Bible. I've had fun with the guessing at times but really it's futile. If I've learned one thing at EvC it's not to take anything anybody says about the supposed physics of the flood seriously any more.

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I suppose you have to believe that since it is so easy to use physics to show that a global flood is impossible.Randy

I assume it would probably get pretty rough, like the surface of Saturn. Supersonic winds and all that. If nobody explains the flood (and how Noah survived it), how will a skeptic ever believe it? Is it futile because it simply cannot be explained?Are you really going to throw in the towel? This is very interesting. In my mind, the flood is paramount to validity of creation story. Without the flood to explain the grand canyon, the alleged geologic column, etc, how can they be reconciled with what we know in the sciences today?Can you at least give us a guestimate at the highest mountain of Noah's time?

The calculations are not guesswork but the actual conditions of the time are guesswork. Things were certainly different in many ways than they are now. Even if something basically true about the conditions can be guessed, there are too many ways the scenario could have played out that probably escape our imaginations.I was thinking about all those hurricanes that they might actually cancel each other out.Your physics showing the flood is impossible is based on wild guesses about what happened.None of it tells me there was no flood. That is based on God's inerrant revelation, and that revelation also happens to be couched in details and facts, genealogies and so on, that ground it in reality.I don't know how it played out, of course, but the creationists have some very interesting ideas about it. And I do know that people who don't believe in God's revelation are not going to be looking for ways it could have happened but only for ways it couldn't. Makes the whole discussion futile finally.

It's a pretty simple story. heat is important to industry and has been studied extensively. There are three mechanisms by which heat can be transferred from one place to another. In order of decreasing average efficiency:

• Convection -- moving the hot solid/liquid/gas from one place to another and carrying the heat along with it
• Conduction -- heat transferred through a physical medium between the two places. Conduction through solids is generally more efficient than conduction through liquids, which is generally more efficient than conduction through gasses.
• Radiation -- photons given off by one body carry the heat to someplace else. When you feel heat as you stand in sunshine, that's radiation from the Sun.

There's no noticeable amount of stuff leaving the Earth, so there's no noticeable heat transferred away from the Earth by convection. There's no physical medium between the Earth and outer space to conduct heat, so there's no heat transferred away from the Earth by conduction. All physical bodies emit photons, so some heat is transferred away form the Earth by radiation (and some is also transferred to the Earth by radiation). The only heat loss process for the Earth as a whole is radiation.

We know that didn't happen because the ark survived. But this is a science forum so I guess I can't say that. People believe the revelation of God on other grounds, and then believe the flood knowing that the word of God is reliable. Of course the creationist effort to explain it is to try to answer the endless debunkery for the sake of some coming to belief, but I'm beginning to appreciate that that probably isn't ever going to happen. One doesn't believe in God because of the flood; one believes in the flood because one believes in the God of the Bible. God never said all will be saved. I'm still curious about some ideas that come up, but I no longer really care about it. If that answers your question. To my mind the flood explains the geologic column and the Grand Canyon beautifully, but the vehement opposition to that to-my-mind-obvious explanation, means there is no point to carrying on the dispute. Can't really. 1000 feet? Wild guess based on absolutely nothing. No real idea.

Things were certainly different in many ways than they are nowWhat things? what evidence do you have?

Assuming arguendo that the flood can explain how these things formed, we would still need to be able to explain the flood. Thank you!
This would give us a range of approximately 1-30 ft of rain/fountain from deep water per hour. That's great. Edited by Chief Infidel, : No reason given.

To be able to produce that much water and have it recede to present levels means things had to be very different. What things? Some have been speculated about on other threads. They would be off topic here.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

oh book of stories different rather than anything informed by science.

I am starting to understand. Let me see if I can sum it up.-The flood cannot be explained with conventional science (physics, geology, meterology, etc).
-The bible cannot be wrong.
-The flood happened.
Therefore science is wrong, or at least did not apply back then as it does now.So in order for me to believe, I'd have to trade reason for faith.

Oh theoretically it definitely could be. Just practically speaking it hasn't been. True. True. Of course it applied. But if we don't know what the conditions were it applied TO, all its speculations are useless. Way too many unknowns. It can be interesting to think about but as for coming to any certain conclusions, I give up. No, faith in the Biblical God definitely supports reason. What you have to trade is your certainty about scientific explanations of the unknowable distant past for a certainty about God's revelation, coupled with an attitude of faith toward things in that revelation we can't understand, or an agnosticism about how some things played out in the physical world.

But this is a science thread, and my beliefs are out of place here, so please carry on. If some of it intrigues me I'll ask a question or two.

Perhaps what you should have learned is not to take the supposed flood seriously any more.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

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The calculations are not guesswork but the actual conditions of the time are guesswork. Things were certainly different in many ways than they are now. Even if something basically true about the conditions can be guessed, there are too many ways the scenario could have played out that probably escape our imaginations.

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So what was different?Was the latent heat of vaporization of water greatly reduced 5,000 years ago?Was the heat capacity of atmospheric gases much higher 5,000 years ago?Was the saturation vapor pressure of water in air greatly different 5,000 years ago?Was the mass of water greatly different 5,000 years ago?Was the mass of the atmosphere greatly different 5,000 years ago?If these things weren't different my calculations are valid. (Unless you can show where I made a mistake)So what was so different 5,000 years ago that even 10 feet of global rain could fall, let alone thousands of feet?

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I was thinking about all those hurricanes that they might actually cancel each other out.

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Hurricanes wouldn't cancel each other out. Did you ever hear of the conservation of energy?

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Your physics showing the flood is impossible is based on wild guesses about what happened.

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The calculations are based on published numbers and well known principles of physics. Hurricanes canceling each other out is a wild guess. My calculations are not.

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None of it tells me there was no flood. That is based on God's inerrant revelation, and that revelation also happens to be couched in details and facts, genealogies and so on, that ground it in reality.

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There may have been a real flood but every aspect of science that can be applied to the problem shows that it was not global.

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I don't know how it played out, of course, but the creationists have some very interesting ideas about it.

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I think I am pretty up to date on all the YEC global flood models and they all have fatal flaws. I don't think either ICR or AiG actually accepts the idea of much of the water coming from rain from a vapor canopy. They tend to go for something like catastrophic plate tectonics which has its own falsifications, though for somewhat similar reasons having to do with heat.

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And I do know that people who don't believe in God's revelation are not going to be looking for ways it could have happened but only for ways it couldn't. Makes the whole discussion futile finally.

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The people who originally falsified the flood originally believed in it. There are people who believe so strongly in their interpretation of the Bible that they are willing to reject or greatly distort science to try to justify it. YECs keep looking for workable flood models but they have all totally failed so far.Randy