Difference between revisions of "Ice age"

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During an Ice Age, lowered sea levels due to the water being tied up in glaciers and ice caps would result in [[land bridge]]s in some places where there are now [[ocean]]s and [[strait]]s.
 
During an Ice Age, lowered sea levels due to the water being tied up in glaciers and ice caps would result in [[land bridge]]s in some places where there are now [[ocean]]s and [[strait]]s.
  
According to [[geology]], there have been many Ice Ages, the oldest hypothesized one being 2.3 [[billion]] years ago, and the most recent finishing around 11,500 years ago.<ref name="WBE" /><ref name="CAB">Batten, 2007</ref>
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According to secular [[geology]], there have been many Ice Ages, the oldest hypothesized one being 2.3 [[billion]] years ago, and the most recent finishing around 11,500 years ago.<ref name="WBE" /><ref name="CAB">Batten, 2007</ref>
  
 
If the Earth cools down, [[evaporation]] and therefore [[precipitation]] are reduced, so little [[snow]] will fall onto land to form ice sheets.  If the Earth heats up, evaporation and precipitation are increased, but the precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, or melts rather than forming ice sheets.<ref name="CAB" />
 
If the Earth cools down, [[evaporation]] and therefore [[precipitation]] are reduced, so little [[snow]] will fall onto land to form ice sheets.  If the Earth heats up, evaporation and precipitation are increased, but the precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, or melts rather than forming ice sheets.<ref name="CAB" />

Revision as of 01:30, February 27, 2009

An Ice Age is a period of Earth's history when ice sheets covered a much larger part of the planet than is currently the case. During an Ice Age, lowered sea levels due to the water being tied up in glaciers and ice caps would result in land bridges in some places where there are now oceans and straits.

According to secular geology, there have been many Ice Ages, the oldest hypothesized one being 2.3 billion years ago, and the most recent finishing around 11,500 years ago.[1][2]

If the Earth cools down, evaporation and therefore precipitation are reduced, so little snow will fall onto land to form ice sheets. If the Earth heats up, evaporation and precipitation are increased, but the precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, or melts rather than forming ice sheets.[2]

The theory was first proposed by Louis Agassiz to try to explain geologic features which until then had been explained by the great flood.[3][4]

Earth and rock worn and smoothed by ice sheets, along with U-shaped valleys and termination deposition debris, known as terminal moraine, are the main evidence for an Ice Age, and there is evidence of such glaciation covering northern Europe (including most of Britain), most of Canada, and into the northern parts of the eastern half of the United States.[1]

Creationary scientists believe that there was a single Ice Age that lasted around 700 years following Noah's Flood.[2]

Creationists argue that the post-Flood environment provides the best explanation for an Ice Age, with the oceans being warmed by the addition of hot subterranean water, but the land being kept cool by volcanic dust in the atmosphere reflecting much of the sun's heat back to space. Thus evaporation and precipitation would be high, without the snow melting because the land was cooler.[2][5]

The Bible perhaps mentions this Ice Age:

From whose womb comes the ice?
    Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
when the waters become hard as stone,
    when the surface of the deep is frozen?
Job 38:28-29 (NIV)

See Also

Date of creation

Bibliography

  • Batten, Don, et. al., 2007, What about the Ice Age?, The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 16
  • Oard, M.J., 1990. An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood, Technical Monograph, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA,

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Ice Age, World Book Encyclopedia 2000 CD ROM
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Batten, 2007
  3. Discovery of the Great Ice Age
  4. Aber, James S., Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz
  5. Wieland, Carl, Tackling the big freeze, Interview with weather scientist Michael Oard, Creation 19(1):42–43, December 1996.