Absence Of Clouds Caused Pre-human Supergreenhouse Periods

Posted in Genesis Flood on April 17th, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

ScienceDaily, Apr. 11, 2008 — “In a world without human-produced pollution, biological productivity controls cloud formation and may be the lever that caused supergreenhouse episodes during the Cetaceous [sic] and Eocene, according to Penn State paleoclimatologists.

Kump and David Pollard, senior research associate, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, looked for another way to create a world where mean annual temperatures in the tropics were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and polar temperatures were in the 50-degree Fahrenheit range. Changing the Earth’s albedo — the amount of sunlight reflected into space — by changing cloud cover will produce supergreenhouse events, the researchers report April 11 in the journal Science.

According to the researchers, changes in the production of cloud condensation nuclei, the tiny particles around which water condenses to form rain drops and cloud droplets, decreased Earth’s cloud cover and increase the sun’s warming effect during supergreenhouse events.

Normal cloud cover reflects about 30 percent of the sun’s energy back into space. Kump and Pollard were looking for a scenario that allowed in 6 to 10 percent more sunlight.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410140531.htm

This is interesting to me because of my familiarity with the Book of Genesis, where it says things like … Read more »

Lake Suigetsu: No Help for Old Earthers

Posted in Creation/Evolution, Genesis Flood on April 11th, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

Lake Suigetsu is a small lake in Japan which is often used by Old Earth believers to try to disprove the Young Earth timescale. They say that Lake Suigetsu has a continuous record of varves (fine laminations deposited annually) in the sediment below the lake for the last 100,000 years or so. Here’s Glenn Morton’s description of Lake Sugetsu. One person I debated recently claimed that Lake Suigetsu disproves the Book of Genesis as a historical record. But does it really? Or is this just one more false claim put forth by anti-creationists?

We cannot say for sure yet, but it’s looking like yet another false claim. I have now been investigating Lake Suigetsu off and on since June 2007 and I have discovered some very fascinating stuff. For instance …

1) INCREASING RECOGNITION THAT MANY “VARVES” ARE NOT ANNUAL LAMINATIONS AFTER ALL.

“It is very unfortunate from a sedimentological viewpoint that engineers describe any rhythmically laminated fine-grained sediment as ‘varved.’ There is increasing recognition that many sequences previously described as varves are multiple turbidite sequences of graded silt to clay units … without any obvious seasonal control on sedimentation.”
Quigley, R. M, Glaciolacustrine and glaciomarine clay deposition: a North American perspective; in: Eyles, N., editor, Glacial geology—an introduction for engineers and earth scientists, Pergamon Press, New York, p. 151, 1983.

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