From: George Murphy
> As a Creationary Catastrophist I make no
> appeals to unknown physics or miracles concerning Noah's
> Flood catastrophe. You apparently missed previous posting
> which proposes that the catastrophe was caused by a series
> of asteroid impacts similar to comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on
> Jupiter. I'm not at this point going to reiterate what I
> said before. I believe that there are archives for that.
No, I read the previous posts & know your asteroid impact idea.
It attempts to make use of known natural processes but then tries to avoid
the difficulties that idea encounters by saying (to quote your previous post)
"their heat loss calculations are not going to be comparable to catastrophic
conditions" - which I take to mean that their heat loss calculations aren't
valid under catastrophic conditions. There is no reason to believe that our present
understanding of mechanics, thermodynamics, radiation transfer &c aren't valid
under the conditions which would obtain with an asteroid impact. If you think that
there _are_ such reasons, or that the known laws have been applied incorrectly, state
the reasons for such claims explicitly. Until you do you are appealing precisely to
"unknown physics."
AR: The "black body" radiation of planet earth is modified and tempered by the structure and make up of the atmosphere. The heat loss is modified by two factors, the layered structure of the atmosphere and certain molecules (H2O and CO2 primarily) contained in the atmosphere. As long as the atmospheric structure remains as it is, heat loss will remain the same over time. However, if a series of asteroid impacts were to strike, the atmospheric structure would be greatly disturbed. The distinction between Troposphere, Stratosphere and Mesosphere, etc. become no more (assuming that that was the same structure before hand) for a while. H2O and CO2 are primarily concentrated in the Troposphere. The mixing of the Troposphere with the rest of the atmosphere would dilute their concentration and allow for greater radiation. The lack of Tropopause, Stratopause, etc would result in much higher rise of warm air (closer to space) and result in greater facility to heat loss.
Dust that is injected into this highly disturbed atmosphere is less likely to be retained there than in the high atmosphere of a stable atmosphere. But such dust will seriously reduce, for a while, the amount of light coming through the atmosphere and cause a serious drop in global temperature (the process known as impact-winter). Water and water vapor also injected into a disturbed atmosphere would not remain as long as otherwise in the high elevations of a disturbed atmosphere either. Thus the threat of the greenhouse effect is reduced. And, condensation of water vapor is most likely to occur in the high elevations of a disturbed atmosphere where the dust is. The generated latent heat will find easy release to space because of it's proximity to space rather than if in a layered, stable atmosphere.
There is no appeal to 'unknown physics' here. I find it odd that some think one must appeal to 'unknown physics,' just because they are unable to think outside of the box they have closed around their minds.
Allen
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 16 2000 - 19:44:13 EDT