What About the Ice Age? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=1932

What About the Ice Age?

by	Eric Lyons, M.Min.

Q.

My child has become very inquisitive about the Ice Age since recently watching the new Ice Agecartoon movies. From a Christian’s perspective, what can I tell him about the Ice Age?

A.

Although the Bible does not specifically reveal the cause of the millions of cubic miles of ice on the Earth today (such as that which covers Antarctica and Greenland), and even though the Bible does not reveal specific information about a time when ice apparently covered much of northern Europe, northwest Asia, and North America, these ice sheets likely formed as a result of the Noahic Flood.

Two factors logically explain the build up of ice sheets: (1) increased snowfall; and (2) cooler summers. With more snowfall in the winter, and less snow melting in the summer due to cooler temperatures, snow could build up rapidly and turn into ice. But what could cause more snowfall and cooler summers? From whence did the trillions of gallons of water come, which were needed to make snow that formed the massive ice sheets? What catastrophic event could have changed the weather so drastically that this water turned into snow, and eventually into millions of cubic miles of ice? One event comes to mind that could adequately account for such a phenomenon: the Global Flood of Noah’s day.

The Flood would have changed the weather on Earth drastically. Reduced summer temperatures could have been caused by volcanic dust (produced during the upheavals of the Flood—Genesis 7:11,17-24), or by increased cloud cover that shielded the planet from some of the Sun’s radiation. A reduction in solar radiation, in turn, could have caused a rapid cooling of certain landmasses, which allowed snow to remain during the summer months in certain areas of the world where it currently thaws. Over time, this snow would compact and form huge sheets of ice that would remain until the weather patterns on Earth changed.

While we cannot be sure about all of the causes of the Ice Age, we can offer possible explanations that would not require millions of years, and would take into account the biblical record of the Flood. Remember, true science never contradicts the Bible.