Science Article

January 2000

Comments on a Vapor Canopy
by Edmond W. Holroyd, III, Ph.D.

Having a B.S. in astrophysics and a Ph.D. in atmospheric science, I am somewhat qualified to comment on the idea of the possible existence of a vapor canopy before the Flood. The classic book, "The Genesis Flood", by Whitcomb and Morris, describes the canopy in terms of an upper atmosphere made up of water vapor, the amount of which supposedly contributed greatly to the Flood. They attributed a different climate and possible biological effects to its presence between Adam and Noah.

The idea came from the Second Day account in Genesis 1:6-8.

"And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.' So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse 'sky'. " (NIV)
"And God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament 'Heaven'. " (KJV)

We also have the Flood narrative in Genesis 7:11 and 8:2.

"…on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." "Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky." (NIV)
"…the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." "The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." (KJV)

There is a verse about the initial lack of rain in Genesis 2:5,6 that may relate to the question:

"…for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams [or mist] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground…" (NIV)
"…for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." (KJV)

In addition, the use of the rainbow as a symbol of a new covenant in Genesis 9:11-17 is often used as justification for a declaration of no rain on the earth before the Flood.

Initial Comments

There is very little in the Bible on which to base a detailed description of the atmosphere and its processes as they existed between the creation of man and the beginning of the Flood. It is a very large leap of logic to declare that the lack of rain before the creation of Adam applied thereafter, and to outside of Eden to the whole earth, and for fifteen hundred years or so. There are many areas of the earth that today rarely, if ever, receive rain; yet it rains elsewhere. Furthermore, God has at other times taken a common substance and given it new meaning under a new covenant (like bread and wine). The new use does not deny the existence of the substance before the new covenant was instituted. Therefore it is also risky to declare on the basis of the rainbow covenant that there was no rain before the Flood.

It is often declared that the climate before the Flood was much warmer than after. This may be true; however, it is based upon some observations and reasoning that could be faulty. The supposed vapor canopy is thought to have generated a stronger greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth. Water vapor in today's atmosphere certainly helps keep the earth many tens of degrees warmer than if the atmosphere completely lacked water. Most people do not realize that water vapor is perhaps ten times as strong a greenhouse gas as is carbon dioxide. It has numerous absorption bands in the infrared wavelengths while carbon dioxide has few.

The justification for a warmer pre-Flood climate is usually the fossil record: there are many deposits of tropical plants and coal in the polar regions. The uniformitarian assumption is that the plants actually grew there. However, global Flood scenarios can easily transport tropical plant debris to anywhere on the earth during the chaos of the oceans during the Flood. We cannot safely declare anything about climate based upon the presence of plant fossils that were likely grown elsewhere.

These objections seem to leave us with nothing safe to declare about the weather or climate between Creation and the Flood. Looking back at the above verses carefully, there is nothing there to establish a doctrine about a vapor canopy. It has all been from human reasoning and logic stretching.

Canopy Models

Joseph Dillow seems to be the first to have attempted a numerical model describing a vapor canopy. It was published in his book, "The Waters Above" in 1981. I reviewed his early versions of the manuscript and offered constructive criticisms. The computer hardware, software and water vapor spectra available at the time were inferior by today's standards. Dillow hypothesized an amount of water in the canopy that would approximately double the surface atmospheric pressure by its weight. The water, if condensed, would form a depth of over thirty feet of liquid. That may seem small compared to the many miles of ocean depths and mountain heights today. It is large compared to the precipitable water in today's atmosphere, which is hardly more than a few inches in the tropics and nearly nothing in the Polar Regions. But it was a start.

Running the computer model of the vapor canopy involved careful accounting for incoming and outgoing radiation. The sun provides the incoming energy in the form of light, most of which peaks in the visible wavelengths, though there is much in the ultraviolet and infrared parts of the spectrum. The earth also emits radiation, but in the thermal infrared bands that are invisible to our eyes. Clouds and greenhouse gasses hinder the escape of the earth's radiation to space, thus helping to keep the earth warm. Dillow's model, when it reached radiative equilibrium, gave as output the temperatures within the canopy as a function of pressure (height). Water vapor has a well-defined set of temperatures (versus pressure) at which it evaporates or condenses. When I examined his numbers I found that his temperatures were too cold to sustain so much water in vapor form. The canopy would have collapsed long before the Flood because it could not stay warm enough to remain vapor rather than cloud or snow.

The next efforts were by David Rush and Larry Vardiman and by Greg Jorgensen as published in the Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, 1990. Jorgensen's model was inadequately developed. That by Rush and Vardiman had hardware, software, and spectral bands that were superior to those used by Dillow. For their initial effort they started with a clear atmosphere. Their results were too hot. Having only one twentieth the amount of water as in Dillow's model, the surface air temperature of the earth rose from a model temperature of 300 K (80 F; compared to 288 K, 50 F actual) to 409 K (277 F, well above the boiling point of water). Life could not exist on earth under a canopy having only a foot or so of condensable water.

The latest results were presented by Larry Vardiman and Karen Bousselot in the Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, 1998. They added clouds and changed the brightness of the earth's surface, varied the incidence angle of the sun and the solar brightness itself in an attempt to see what might adequately cool the earth's surface under a vapor canopy. They were able to reduce surface temperatures to livable conditions, but only at the expense of a darkened sun (with no Biblical indications that the sun itself was darker before the Flood). In addition, the model required clouds so thick that photosynthesis might be hindered, and a canopy so thin that only a few feet of water could condense from it. They did not simulate reflectance of incoming solar radiation by bright cirrus cloud decks, giving a little hope for future experiments with the model, but they were otherwise disappointed that a significant vapor canopy cannot be supported by today's physical laws.

Source of Flood Waters

It appears, based on the above results, that any vapor canopy could not contribute significantly to the Flood. So, where did the Flood waters come from? There are several sources available. The Bible certainly speaks of water coming out of the earth. That can be from major geyser activity and from volcanic venting. The thermal expansion of the ocean floor mentioned in "The Genesis Flood" will displace ocean water onto the continents, probably accounting for so much marine sediments in the geologic record on the continents. If there was much continental drift, rifting, and subduction occurring at the time of the Flood (such as in the Baumgardner et al. model), then hot basalt rock was coming in contact with the bottom of the ocean, locally boiling the water into steam and heating the water elsewhere. Hot oceans evaporate much water into the atmosphere to form clouds and much precipitation. This is seen in the El Niño effect today, but it was much more powerful during the Flood because of the energies involved. Most likely the atmosphere was filled with thick clouds, thereby shielding the lower atmosphere and the earth's surface from the heat of the sun. Temperature contrasts between warm oceans and cold dark continents probably produced a very strong jet stream and super storms and hurricanes, with deluges of precipitation. With so much energy, heat, and water coming from the earth, there was little need for solar heating or for the relatively insignificant waters from any vapor canopy.

Once the earth and oceans cooled enough, the Ice Age set in after the Flood. With further cooling of the oceans, the atmosphere started to clear towards today's degree of cloudiness, and solar heating could warm the earth and finish the Ice Age.

Recommendations

There have been other nice ideas, helpful to the creationist position, that have been abandoned or shelved upon further examination and are no longer used by most creationists today (such as lunar dust, shrinking sun, and Paluxy footprints). The vapor canopy idea appears to be another destined for abandonment. If there were such a different atmosphere before the Flood, the amount of extra water that it held would not have contributed significantly to the Flood. Instead the waters of the rain came from the oceans and geothermal sources and were constantly recycled, releasing heat energy to space in the process. Our research efforts and Flood justifications need to be redirected to other scenarios.