When Was the Ice Age?

The year of Noah's Flood and the years just after it were the wettest, warmest period in earth history. God’s Word doesn’t tell us the exact time things started chilling out, but that doesn’t mean we’re frozen in our tracks.

The Bible gives us some important clues. All the animals left the Ark and spread over the earth, but the people stayed in one place at the Tower of Babel. When God confused their language, the people finally scattered over the earth.

By studying the bones of Ice Age animals, Bible-loving scientists think the Big Chill started around the time humans spread from the Tower of Babel. (That’s over 2,200 years before Jesus was born.)

People moved from Babel into Africa and Asia about the same time that woolly mammoths, saber-tooth cats, and glaciers began spreading across the north. But the ice didn’t last long. As the ice melted, it raised the sea level and created new coasts. People then moved to these coasts and built cites like Ur, where Abraham was from.

Will There Be Another One?

No need to stock up on blankets. The global Flood created unique conditions for the one Ice Age, which will never happen again.

How do we know? God gave us His promise never again to send a worldwide Flood (Genesis 9:11).

To create enough snow you have to heat the ocean high enough so water can rise into the air and fall as snow. If the ocean is too cold, not enough water rises to become heavy snow.

The heat was supplied during the Flood when the ocean floor broke, causing volcanoes and hot magma to rise. The ocean remained very hot for many years, but it eventually cooled down. Without another worldwide Flood, it can never heat up again.