More on the Ice Age

Questions: I was curious as to whether the Bible mentions anything about a post-Flood Ice Age. Would people have been fighting the cold while constructing the Tower of Babel? Would the writer have thought it worth mentioning?

Answers: The Bible does not mention a post-Flood ice age, but it is the inevitable consequence of a global Flood. There are two main requirements for an ice age: cooler summers and much more snowfall. Since the Flood was a tectonic and volcanic event, it is expected that at the end of the Flood there would be a shroud of volcanic dust and aerosols remaining in the stratosphere. Also, since the crust and mantle probably did not reach an equilibrium state right after the Flood, much more volcanism would be expected for many years immediately after the Flood. Ice age sediments attest to this period of more vigorous volcanism. The significance of volcanic effluents in the stratosphere is that they would cool the lower troposphere by reflecting a portion of the sunlight back to space. This cooling effect has been observed after large historic eruptions. The cooling during the immediate post-Flood climate would mainly be on land during the summer.

The stronger of the two mechanisms for the Flood is the fountains of the great deep erupting forth. This is likely water added to the pre-Flood ocean from the crust. This water would be hot and, together with lava flows and tectonic events, would have resulted in a warm ocean after the Flood at mid and high latitudes. The significance of this warmer water is that much more water vapor would be evaporated into the air at mid and high latitudes, just where you need it.

Thus, both main mechanisms for an ice age are fulfilled by the climatic effects of the Genesis Flood.

Since volcanic dust and aerosols would have spread worldwide, it is expected that the Tigris-Euphrates region would have cooler summers. Winters probably would have remained the same temperature as today due to the added warmth of the warm ocean. The heat added to the atmosphere by contact with warmer water and latent heat would also be diffused over the land. Thus, the Middle East, which is blazing hot and dry today, would have had a more delightful climate with cooler summers and more precipitation during the ice age. This may explain why the people leaving the Ark chose to settle in this region rather than in other regions further north or higher altitude.

So the people would not have been fighting the cold while building the Tower of Babel and to them this climate would have been ïnormalÍ and not worth mentioning. I might add that these people would not have known about the ice age further north. They probably would have noticed more snow in the mountains and highlands during winter.

See also: Was There an Ice Age?