Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
1. This estimate involves many complex factors. Water levels do not change if floating ice melts. About 7% of earth’s grounded ice is below sea level. Its melting will lower sea level slightly. Even if no ice melts, sea level rises primarily as the oceans warm and thermally expand.
u A 10-meter (33-foot) rise in sea level would displace 10% of the world’s population and submerge New Orleans, New York City, London, much of Florida, and small islands. Major parts of North America’s east coast, northern Europe, Bangladesh, Siberia, and China, would also be flooded. [See Gordon McGranahan et al., “The Rising Tide: Assessing the Risks of Climate Change and Human Settlements in Low Elevation Coastal Zones,” Environment & Urbanization, Vol. 19, April 2007.] A 200-foot rise in sea level would displace 20% of the world’s population.
2. Dry snow reflects 70–90% of the Sun’s radiation; open water reflects only 7–10%.
3. Current increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are trivial compared to the amount spilled out during the flood. [See "The Origin of Limestone" on pages 244–249.] Carbon dioxide is food for plants, and provides almost every carbon atom in every living thing. The release of CO2 during the flood helped reestablish earth’s forests that had been destroyed by the flood.
Experiments conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have shown that if the atmosphere’s CO2 is increased by a given percentage, plant growth increases by a much greater percentage. [See Sherwood B. Idso, CO2-Climate Dialogue (Tempe, Arizona: Laboratory of Climatology, 1987).] Certainly, increases in atmospheric CO2 have negative consequences, but the above experiments show positive aspects as well. (A related fact: The main heat-producing, greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is water vapor, not carbon dioxide or other gases produced by man.)
u “While CO2 has increased substantially [in recent decades], its [direct] effect on temperature has been so slight that it has not been experimentally detected.” Arthur B. Robinson et al., “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons,” Vol. 12, Fall 2007, p. 85.
Indirect effects would be larger. A slight warming of earth’s surface (by CO2, or any other means) raises ocean temperatures. Warmer oceans then release some of their immense amounts of dissolved CO2—and, more importantly, increase water vapor in the atmosphere. Water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas.
4. Since 1841, increasingly accurate estimates have been made of the volume of ice on the earth at the peak of the Ice Age. Knowing that volume, one can approximate how far sea level was lowered. [For details, see Richard Foster Flint, Glacial and Quaternary Geology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1971), pp. 84, 315–342.]
5. Some experts are predicting sea level rises of 4–17 inches by 2100 and about 1 foot each subsequent century.
6. Robin E. Bell et al., “Tectonically Controlled Subglacial Lakes on the Flanks of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, East Antarctica,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, 28 January 2006, pp. L02504–L02507.
u Sid Perkins, “Cold and Deep,” Science News, Vol. 169, 4 February 2006, pp. 69–70.
7. “The idea that there was water underneath either of Antarctica’s ice sheets (there is an eastern and western one) seemed preposterous.” Mariana Gosnell, “The Last Hidden Place on Earth,” Discover, November 2007, p. 46.
8. Peter T. Doran et al., “Formation and Character of an Ancient 19-Meter Ice Cover and Underlying Trapped Brine in an ‘Ice-Sealed’ East Antarctic Lake,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 100, 7 January 2003, pp. 26–31.
9. Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (New York: Chilton Books, 1966; reprint, Kempton, Illinois: Adventures Unlimited Press, 1996).
On 6 July 1960, the commander of the 8th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, U.S. Air Force, wrote the following letter to Charles Hapgood. [Ibid., p. 243.]
Dear Professor Hapgood:
Your request for evaluation of certain unusual features of the Piri Reis World Map of 1513 by this organization has been reviewed.
The claim that the lower part of the map portrays the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land Antarctica, and the Palmer Peninsula is reasonable. We find this is the most logical and in all probability the correct interpretation of the map.
The geographical detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice cap by the Swedish-British-Norwegian Antarctic Expedition of 1949. This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice cap.
The ice cap in the region is now about a mile thick. We have no idea how the data on this map can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographical knowledge in 1513.
Lt. Colonel Harold Z. Ohlmeyer
10. Other maps of this period show continents joined. [See Gregory C. McIntosh, The Piri Reis Map of 1513 (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000), p. 52.] If today’s sea level were lowered by only 300 feet, all continents would be joined, except for narrow channels between Australia and Asia and between Europe and North America.
11. Using questionable assumptions, evolutionists claim that the ice sheets began building up at least a million years ago. Why then, have scientists, using corings down through 12,000 feet of antarctic ice, discovered frozen bacteria—with their cell walls intact—directly above Lake Vostok? Obviously, those bacteria were not frozen millions of years ago.
“Both [scientists] detected hundreds, in some cases thousands, of bacterial cells per milliliter of [12,000-foot-deep] ice. Some of the bacteria had intact membranes, so ‘they were alive fairly recently.’” Gosnell, p. 48.
12. Researcher Bill Cooper discovered, in a few European libraries, ancient genealogies and histories that go back to Noah and his descendants mentioned in Genesis 10. Those records, written before Europe was introduced to Christianity, were often a basis for ancient rulers establishing their authority. Some of these scrupulously preserved genealogies can be “cross verified.” They show remarkably rapid migrations and explorations after the flood by our rugged, resourceful ancestors. These histories also describe an ice age. [See Bill Cooper, After the Flood: The Early Post-Flood History of Europe Traced Back to Noah (West Sussex, England: New Wine Press, 1995). See also Endnote 5 on page 458.]
Genesis 10, called the “Table of Nations,” names the lands that Noah’s early descendants (including Noah’s great-great-great grandsons) colonized. Some of these individuals appear to match names in Cooper’s historical genealogies and many of these distant lands are identifiable today. All this shows travel across continental distances within a few generations of the flood. This implies navigational abilities similar to the abilities of those who made the source maps used by Piri Re’is and other medieval map makers.