Paul,
I thought this might help with the "how exactly" question regarding
Greenland ice cores and the Flood (tho I, like the others, am not a
climatologist).
> there was no global flood in the last few
> 1000 years. This is on top of other evidence. >>
>
>I would like to know exactly how ice cores show this.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Paul
There is a fascinating article in American Scientist (Jul-Aug 99, Rapid
Climate Change, Kendrick Taylor, p. 320-327) that discusses the utility of
the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps as well as some high-resolution ocean
sediment sites for reconstructing paleoclimatic records over as much as the
the last 500,000 years. The main focus of the article is on a sudden change
in climate about 11,700 ybp precipitated by a shift in the climatic dynamic
equalibrium to a new set point (ie, from cold to warm) in a period of 20
yrs.
To be fair, the author (chief scientist for NSF's WAISCORES program) does
not discuss the Flood, but then I suppose there would be no reason given
that all that ice is supposed to have formed SINCE the Flood. However, I'm
off track.
"How do the ice cores show this?"
"We can identify annual layers in the ice because the
concentration of sea salts, nitrate and mineral dust and the gas
content in winter snow are different than in summer snow." p.320
"General patterns of atmospheric circulation can be reconstructed
by using tracers such as soluble chemicals (for example, nitrate,
ammonium, sodium and calcium) and rare earth elements in insoluble dust
particles to determine how wind moved air and dust from the source
regions for these compounds to the drilling site." p. 320
One could argue that climatic reconstructions are bogus because based on an
_assumption_ that the origin of the layers is annular cycling. In
isolation, annular cycling can be shown to be a conclusion, rather than an
assumption, based upon observation. Its power comes about in the
corroborating lines of evidence which demonstrate that ice core sampling is
a reliable way to reconstruct paleoclimates.
By implication, the proposition of a global Flood is undermined by the
incontrovertable (for practical purposes) data showing yearly record of
climate for at least 100,000 ybp., given that most YEC "models" I am aware
of put the ice deposition of the ice within the last 1000 yrs.
But then I am, as some would say, just a brainwashed biologist. :)
Jeff Witters
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 15 2001 - 11:07:49 EST