How high would the water rise? What effects would it have on animal life?
Er… how much flooding are you talking about? A Biblical flood would involve drowning all land life under the sea, which would have the affect on animal life that it would die.
I was pondering this not long ago - if the north and south pole ice caps completely melted, would that even come close to flooding out major mountain ranges like the Rockies, Andes and Himalayas?
I figure it can’t, so the upshot would be that animals who live or can hastily migrate to these areas (including humans) will replenish the Earth and millions of years from now, some future biologist will compare mountain-survival traits that persist even among animals living in the lowlands and conclude there was a mass-die off.
As I recall, the answer is that all life on Earth dies from the frictional heating of that much rain, worldwide, for that long.
According to this,
the greatest rainfal rate is about 60 mm/h. That’s 2.4 inchers per hour. (Excuse me if that’s wrong, but I didn’t read the paper just googled it. In any case 2 inches per hour is a very hard rain from personal experience and I’ve never seen it last too long. 6 cms per hour is 144 cms per day or 5760 cms in 40 days. So the earth would be covered in roughly 60 meters of water.
Of course it would have to come from somewhere. Since water covers about 2/3 of the earths’ surface, the surface of oceans, etc, could have to drop 30 meters. this would primarily I’d think produce a huge current flattening everything.
The question doesn’t really make much sense. Th Biblical flood story specifies that the water came form the “springs of the deep” being opened not just from rain. So we really can’t speculate on how much water would flow from these supposed sub-marine geysers. They might have flow rates of million of gigalitres/second.
If you’re just asking how much rain could fall in that period, not very much. The Earth has an absolute amount of energy available to it for the sun and radioactive heating. Evaporation and cloud formation relies on that heat. You simply can’t produce much more rain than we are getting right now because the planet has a fixed energy budget.
Maybe you could clarify exactly what question you intend to ask?
If I understand the question I’ll add I seem to recall a discussion of this topic based on the Biblical story and one point that arose was that the influx of this much freash water would have change the saline content in the oceans to the point of killing all sea life with the possible exception of very deep dwelling marine life.
Additionally, once the Ark had set down with the two-of-each-kind thing there would not have been anything left to eat and would not return to normal for a very long time. Assuming that things like grains were stored onboard, it would be a long time before there was a yeild and most or all fruit bearing trees would be dead.
Is this kinda in line with your question?
If all the ice caps melted, including Antarctica and Greenland, global sea level would rise by no more than about 100 m (300 ft). We would lose Florida, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and some low-lying island groups, but most of the continents would scarcely be affected.
Apoligies, my reading of the Bible was not that detailed. I just assumed that it was only rain that caused it. My question, to clarify, was what would happen if there was sustained rain for forty days and forty nights, which, apparently, the bible does not say. I’m clearly somewhat muddled here.
Problems with the biblical flood, from Talk Origins:
Since the Egyptians merrily ignored the last biblical flood, The Flood was more likely a local event rather than a worldwide one if it did occur.
The big problem always remains where the water comes from, 40 days and 40 nights of rain one can expect flooding in the lowlands and erosion, but that is it. The water has to evaporate from the ocean and return to it, no chance for the water level to go over high ground.
From this table the maximum recorded rainfall for one minute is 38 mm, which is roughly 1.5 inches. In 40 days of 24 hours there are 57,600 minutes, so if it rained for 40 days and 40 nights at the maximum recorded rate we would have 86,400 inches of rain, or 7,200 ft. A good portion of the continents would be flooded, but the higher mountain ranges, including the Rockies, Andes, Alps, and much of the Tibetan plateau would remain above the water.
Of course, this ignores the fact that such an event would be physically impossible.
Remember, too, that rainfall does not always = runoff. The Antecedent Moisture Condition of the soils, crops, etc. which the rain falls upon dictates how much water is soaked up and how much runs off.
There are ways to compute the peak runoff from certain rain events; “sustained rain for 40 days and 40 nights” does not give enough data to predict flooding.
The Chinese also. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY there is a great case of Chinese artifacts stretching back past 3,000 BCE. The evolution of the style is apparent. Though not meant as a refutation of the flood story, it serves quite well.
As for the rainfall, it is fine to compute the amount based on recorded maximums, but this doesn’t answer where the water came from.
Oooo, I’m not certain about that one, Colibri. I seem to recall that Washington, DC averages less than 100 feet above sea level.
NYC: 0-410 feet above sea level
Philly: 0-441
Houston: 0-83
Washington DC: 1-410
Memphis: 195-335
Boston: 0-330
New Orleans (hah!): -8 - 25
Jacksonville: 0-40
Seattle: 0-520
Miami: 0-30
And that’s only in the US. A global rise in sea level of ~300 feet would have some serious impact on human events.
Mind you, I’m not saying Kevin Costner is going to grow gills here but I do believe the impact of such would be severe.
I wasn’t attempting to detail every single coastal area that would be flooded. A 300 foot rise would wipe out many of the major cities of the world, and displace hundreds of millions of people. My point was mainly that it would not affect the bulk of the continents.
Nice link. I haven’t had time to read all of it yet but it is well presented and well considered.
Thanks.
I was curious about the “springs of the Deep” phrase and found Bible Online were it says in similar words
And it goes on to say the rain was upon the earth for 40 days and nights and the water was upon the ground for
Interestingly though, it also says
Don’t I recall that a cubit is about eighten inches? That’s only 270 inches or 22.5 feet. Seems a bit shallow to cover all the high hills.
Maybe Genesis was written in Saskatchewan.
The standard creationist answer to this is that there were no mountains when it started raining, and that they somehow grew during the flood, emerging so that Noah could land on Ararat. Along with this, they say the animals could get to their dispersed locations because the continents separated after they walked there.
the number of absurdities in the flood story is nearly uncountable.
The standard response I’ve always heard is that “Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered” means that the waters the waters covered the mountains to a depth of fiftenn cubits. IOW the water depth was 18 inches higher than the summit of Everest.
That makes more sense… or something.