How the Ice age occurred step-by-step
How the Earth looked, one year after the flood ended
Continents cooled at the middle and high latitudes enhanced by thick hovering clouds containing volcanic particles. Warm oceanic air begins to drop snow over cooling, dry land. This formed the first ice sheets on earth.
A cool, low pressure area developed over the middle and high-latitude continents. Newly formed seasonal wind patterns developed with the creation of the jet stream and Pacific Ocean trade winds. High mountain chains also created new wind flows somewhat like those found today. Storms would develop and track off the east coast of North America and Asia, then weaken as they moved to higher latitudes. Rainfall was about three times today’s normal except in glaciated areas. Steam or sea smoke hovered over the ocean reducing visibility at times to nearly zero.
The volcanic dust and aerosols in the air began to lessen. A high level of volcanism, large earthquakes and aftershocks occurred for years after the flood ended as the ground settled and continental plates tried to stabilize. High volcanism blocked sunlight and quickened the earth’s cooling. It would take centuries after the Flood for the land to stop shaking as we find today.
Polar oceans during the ice age
The polar areas now have the lowest pressure on Earth. As the continents become colder each year during winter, precipitation from a cooling ocean changes to snow. This began in the first several years after the flood ended. Currents formed from descending colder water and warm upper layers of water combined with cooling polar waters mixing with warm equatorial waters. Examples are the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream, the Kuroshio Current off the east coast of Asia, and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
Polar land areas during the ice age
The temperatures of interior lands fell below freezing. Snow covered the barren land which cooled the atmosphere. Ice developed in the far north of North America and Russia. The early ice sheets that formed are heavy and wet. The climate of Siberia and Alaska, because of their proximity to the warm Arctic and North Pacific Oceans, would have been much warmer and wetter than today. The winters would have been cold but having temperatures resembling those in the central plains of the United States today.
As a large amount of evaporation over a warm, ice free Arctic Ocean and the northwestern Atlantic Ocean precipitation fell over inner cooling northern lands. This created snow in parts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Siberia in the first few years. Vegetation of grasses and trees easily grew in this moist climate where snow did not fall especially near the still warm ocean. Animal life could have migrated there within twenty to fifty years after the flood. Animals found abundant food to eat which supported large animal populations such as mammoths as found in the fossil record.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the continent cooled and abundant snow fell. Storms formed from a very warm ocean and cooling interior lands. Snow fell first in the mountainous East Antarctica area.
50 years after the Flood
Land
By now, floodwaters had receded and drained into the ocean. Some water remained as lakes filling depressions in places throughout the world. Volcanoes blocked sunlight is some regions as they continued to erupt throughout the world helping the earth to cool.
Humans, having just gone through the flood and now embarking on a barren land shaking at times during the month would be alert and sensitive to geological and atmosphere disturbances. To be prepared some would look for weather and animal signs of another Flood as learned from those practicing the worship of angelic gods before the Flood.
Air masses
Warm air circulating from a warm but cooling ocean in polar areas flowed northward and westerly over the land and began dropping snow in the higher latitudes over inner continents and in the southern hemisphere over the mountainous part of Antarctica. Cooling in the upper northern and lower southern hemisphere enhanced the formation of huge nor’easter storms along with heavy snow fall and gale force winds. They were more frequent then than they are today.
The ice-accumulation rate diminished slowly in areas near the initial storm tracks such as over the eastern Laurentide ice sheet as the air dried. The shifting storm tracks began the formation of snowfields on Greenland, the British Isles and Scandinavia.
North and South America
Storms often developed near the southeastern coast of the United States and moved northeastward. As rain cooled it created blizzards over the northeastern part of North America and Canada. These intense snows carried more water vapor, were more frequent and extended over a larger area than in present times. Over decades of time snow stopped melting during the summer months as volcanic debris kept the atmosphere cooler creating deeper and deeper ice layers.
High and middle latitude continents close to the storm track began glaciating at this time. Eastern Canada received the most snow, but the interior of Canada would develop a permanent but thinner snow cover. The ice sheets grew southward into the north-central United States down to 37 degrees latitude at glacial maximum. Although diminishing each year in number, volcanic activity enhancing cooling and snow cover continued especially in the Sierra and Cascade mountains of western North America, the Canadian and Rocky Mountains and the southern Andes. The high tropical mountains of the Andes became glaciated at lower altitudes than at present due to cooler tropical temperatures from volcanic dust and aerosols.
South of developing ice sheets, heavy rain occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. Wet climates remained in regions that are now desert or semi-arid. Draining flood waters collected and remained in depressions throughout the world. Large lakes like Lake Bonneville, the Salton Sea and Owens Lake filled basins in the arid southwest. Geologic evidence is visible along ancient shorelines found in high hills and mountains surrounding each lake. Lake Bonneville was about 800 feet deep and 17 times larger at maximum extent. Layers of fauna and flora show a cool, wet environment occurring in the past. Flora such as pigmy conifers and woodland vegetation grew in the lower deserts as far south as Northern Mexico. Douglas fir remains show they once inhabited the higher deserts.
Europe
Because of warm, westerly winds the lowlands in the British Isles and northwestern Europe stayed glacier free. Most of the mountainous areas in Scandinavia and the Alps were developing icecaps.
Asia and Southern Alaska
For Alaska and eastern Asia, the main storms tracked further off the east coast of Asia. Mild temperatures remained from warm Pacific Ocean water mixing with the cold, continental air in northeastern Asia. The heaviest rains fell in the ocean. Warm, dry winds forced air down from Himalayan Mountains to the warm and dry lands in India and Pakistan.
As the continental plates moved volcanic eruptions and earthquakes continued. They would be more frequent in number than today spreading layers of ash and lava over the land at times. Examples are the Deccan lava flows in India and on the Columbian Plateau.
Africa
Regular rain storms watered the eastern Sahara Desert which is today dry. Evidence of old drainage channels as wide as the Nile River Valley existed. This is an area today with less than one inch of rainfall in thirty to fifty years. Buffalo, giraffe, hippopotamus, crocodile, elephant, antelope, and rhinoceros fossils are found here. Crocodiles are seen today in isolated western Sahara lakes.
Polar areas
The warm but cooling Arctic Ocean caused surrounding lands such as Greenland to be warmer and wetter than at present. But when rain traveled over these large, cold continental areas, snow and ice pellets fell. One example is the Keewatin area in Canada that is normally dry.
Lukewarm oceans surrounding West Antarctica kept the lowlands rainy. Therefore, glaciers formed in only the mountainous areas for the first one-hundred years after the flood. East Antarctica lands rapidly developed an ice sheet due to cold rains becoming snow as they moved large inland area.
About 4 to 4 ½ feet of snow accumulated each year in both polar regions. Due to the high amount of volcanic ash still falling, ice layers intermixed with ash show more particles of gray than collected in the recent centuries. The amount of ash falling each year can be seen in dark and lighter bands from drill samples taken in glaciers.
Ocean
Cooling of internal continents circulated cold air over warm oceans creating downpours speeding up the cooling of the oceans. Storm tracks carried this cooler rain back over the continents. As the air cooled in the middle and upper latitudes the ocean’s surface cooled. This colder, dense water would sink and be replaced by lighter, warm water from below. The deep warmer water below circulated up and cooled to a lower temperature. This cycle eventually lowered all the oceans temperature to an average of 50 degrees Fahrenheit. With warm water in the tropics latitudes and colder water in polar areas, ocean currents formed flowing clockwise or counterclockwise.
The warm, water temperature remained in the Arctic Ocean at the end of the Flood. Because of its polar location it quickly lost large amounts of its tropical heat and moisture into the cooling Arctic atmosphere. Abundant precipitation fell over the cold inner lands. As decades continued only the saltiness of seawater, cloudy skies and the ocean absorbing solar radiation delayed sea ice forming. This stored heat took time with most being released in the cooler fall and winter months. When the Polar surface temperature cooled to the freezing point its cold, dense water sunk mixing with warmer water below. This warm water, being at considerable depths in the bottom of ocean basins, took much mixing before the surface could freeze.
100 to 500 years after the flood ended
Huge volcanic eruptions during the ice age
Volcanoes erupting during the first five hundred years after the flood leave sixty-eight enormous deposits of ash. Some has been found to be so large each eruption created what resembles a nuclear winter where much of the sunlight in the area is blocked from volcanic dust and sulfuric acid haze. This aides in the decrease of the summer temperatures in the middle to high latitudes. Examples of volcanic eruptions and basaltic lava flows are seen in the Columbia Plateau in the Pacific Northwest and the eruption of Mt. Mazama in the Crater Lake area of Oregon. The Mt. Mazama blast was 42 times greater than Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980. The largest known eruption found is the huge Deccan lava flow in west-central India. It is the size of France, over 2,000 feet thick and covers over 200,000 square miles. This volcanic eruption would provide a haze in the sky of centuries.
North America
Mountain glaciers built up in the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Ranges descending each year to lower altitudes. In the north central part of the United States glaciers melted somewhat in the summer months and built up during the winter. Musk oxen and reindeer are some of the types of animals that migrated to colder areas like Alaska and Siberia in the first few hundred centuries are able to leave those areas as ice sheets increase in size. Nearby, ice covered mountains on Greenland rapidly descend to lower elevations.
Europe
In Europe, the higher latitude ocean surfaces cooled. In the south, warm onshore winds blew for many years after the flood. Cold rain then blizzards of snow fell in the Scandinavia region. The Baltic Sea began to freeze over. The Alps ice cap expanded rapidly. Ice in Northern Germany and Poland began to develop after several centuries and merged with the Scandinavian ice sheet. Due to the warm Atlantic Ocean, the British Isles slowly formed an ice sheet in the highlands and northern part about 250 years after the Flood ended.
Hippopotamus and other warm loving animals are found in England, France and western Germany.
Land bridges
Land bridges formed several hundred centuries after the Flood. As ocean water froze, water levels decreased 150 to 180 feet. As the shallow Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, and East Siberian Sea level lowered the Bering land bridge connected Russia to Alaska. The Bearing Strait separating Alaska and Russia is fifty feet deep at the narrowest point.
Land bridges allowed animals to cross into the Americas from Russia from about 350 to 600 years after the flood. Once glacier melt was underway sea level rose and land bridges disappeared. Mammoth remains are found on the New Siberian Islands, on Pribilof and Unalaska Island, along the southwestern edge of the Bering Sea and on the continental shelf surrounding Alaska.
Underwater research found permafrost and peat on the Arctic Ocean’s shallow part of the continental shelf between Alaska and Russia. This shows water levels were lower at one time allowing both to be formed above water. Permafrost has also been found in the English Channel, between England and France, where widespread peat indicates decomposed plants. Other land bridges are found across the Sunda Shelf connecting the Malay Peninsula to Borneo as the seal level dropped to about 160 feet. Mammoths bones and teeth are evidence found on the bottom of the channel and nearby sea floor. Land bridges allowed migration across the English Channel, the Irish Channel and a little into the North Sea. Even though the sea level did not drop far enough to create a land bridge between southeast Asia and Australia, the seas became relatively shallow making crossing easier.
Major volcanoes and lava flows in the world
The Land
By now, floodwaters had receded and drained into the ocean. Some water remained as lakes filling depressions in places throughout the world. Volcanoes blocked sunlight is some regions as they continued to erupt throughout the world helping the earth to cool.
Humans, having just gone through the flood and now embarking on a barren land shaking at times during the month would be alert and sensitive to geological and atmosphere disturbances. To be prepared some would look for weather and animal signs of another Flood as learned from those practicing the worship of angelic gods before the Flood.
Air masses
Warm air circulating from a warm but cooling ocean in polar areas flowed northward and westerly over the land and began dropping snow in the higher latitudes over inner continents and in the southern hemisphere over the mountainous part of Antarctica. Cooling in the upper northern and lower southern hemisphere enhanced the formation of huge nor’easter storms along with heavy snow fall and gale force winds. They were more frequent then than they are today.
The ice-accumulation rate diminished slowly in areas near the initial storm tracks such as over the eastern Laurentide ice sheet as the air dried. The shifting storm tracks began the formation of snowfields on Greenland, the British Isles and Scandinavia.
North and South America
Storms often developed near the southeastern coast of the United States and moved northeastward. As rain cooled it created blizzards over the northeastern part of North America and Canada. These intense snows carried more water vapor, were more frequent and extended over a larger area than in present times. Over decades of time snow stopped melting during the summer months as volcanic debris kept the atmosphere cooler creating deeper and deeper ice layers.
High and middle latitude continents close to the storm track began glaciating at this time. Eastern Canada received the most snow, but the interior of Canada would develop a permanent but thinner snow cover. The ice sheets grew southward into the north-central United States down to 37 degrees latitude at glacial maximum. Although diminishing each year in number, volcanic activity enhancing cooling and snow cover continued especially in the Sierra and Cascade mountains of western North America, the Canadian and Rocky Mountains and the southern Andes. The high tropical mountains of the Andes became glaciated at lower altitudes than at present due to cooler tropical temperatures from volcanic dust and aerosols.
South of developing ice sheets, heavy rain occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. Wet climates remained in regions that are now desert or semi-arid. Draining flood waters collected and remained in depressions throughout the world. Large lakes like Lake Bonneville, the Salton Sea and Owens Lake filled basins in the arid southwest. Geologic evidence is visible along ancient shorelines found in high hills and mountains surrounding each lake. Lake Bonneville was about 800 feet deep and 17 times larger at maximum extent. Layers of fauna and flora show a cool, wet environment occurring in the past. Flora such as pigmy conifers and woodland vegetation grew in the lower deserts as far south as Northern Mexico. Douglas fir remains show they once inhabited the higher deserts.
Europe
Because of warm, westerly winds the lowlands in the British Isles and northwestern Europe stayed glacier free. Most of the mountainous areas in Scandinavia and the Alps were developing icecaps.
Asia and Southern Alaska
For Alaska and eastern Asia, the main storms tracked further off the east coast of Asia. Mild temperatures remained from warm Pacific Ocean water mixing with the cold, continental air in northeastern Asia. The heaviest rains fell in the ocean. Warm, dry winds forced air down from Himalayan Mountains to the warm and dry lands in India and Pakistan.
As the continental plates moved volcanic eruptions and earthquakes continued. They would be more frequent in number than today spreading layers of ash and lava over the land at times. Examples are the Deccan lava flows in India and on the Columbian Plateau.
Africa
Regular rain storms watered the eastern Sahara Desert which is today dry. Evidence of old drainage channels as wide as the Nile River Valley existed. This is an area today with less than one inch of rainfall in thirty to fifty years. Buffalo, giraffe, hippopotamus, crocodile, elephant, antelope, and rhinoceros fossils are found here. Crocodiles are seen today in isolated western Sahara lakes.
Polar areas
The warm but cooling Arctic Ocean caused surrounding lands such as Greenland to be warmer and wetter than at present. But when rain traveled over these large, cold continental areas, snow and ice pellets fell. One example is the Keewatin area in Canada that is normally dry.
Lukewarm oceans surrounding West Antarctica kept the lowlands rainy. Therefore, glaciers formed in only the mountainous areas for the first one-hundred years after the flood. East Antarctica lands rapidly developed an ice sheet due to cold rains becoming snow as they moved large inland area.
About 4 to 4 ½ feet of snow accumulated each year in both polar regions. Due to the high amount of volcanic ash still falling, ice layers intermixed with ash show more particles of gray than collected in the recent centuries. The amount of ash falling each year can be seen in dark and lighter bands from drill samples taken in glaciers.
Bering Sea ocean depths now allowing land bridge to form during the Ice Age between Russia and Alaska
Ocean
Cooling of internal continents circulated cold air over warm oceans creating downpours speeding up the cooling of the oceans. Storm tracks carried this cooler rain back over the continents. As the air cooled in the middle and upper latitudes the ocean’s surface cooled. This colder, dense water would sink and be replaced by lighter, warm water from below. The deep warmer water below circulated up and cooled to a lower temperature. This cycle eventually lowered all the oceans temperature to an average of 50 degrees Fahrenheit. With warm water in the tropics latitudes and colder water in polar areas, ocean currents formed flowing clockwise or counterclockwise.
The warm, water temperature remained in the Arctic Ocean at the end of the Flood. Because of its polar location it quickly lost large amounts of its tropical heat and moisture into the cooling Arctic atmosphere. Abundant precipitation fell over the cold inner lands. As decades continued only the saltiness of seawater, cloudy skies and the ocean absorbing solar radiation delayed sea ice forming. This stored heat took time with most being released in the cooler fall and winter months. When the Polar surface temperature cooled to the freezing point its cold, dense water sunk mixing with warmer water below. This warm water, being at considerable depths in the bottom of ocean basins, took much mixing before the surface could freeze.
Cooling oceans create less rainfall and more sunny days as the ice age approaches five hundred years. Groups of large icebergs fill the Artic and northern Atlantic Ocean.
Polar Oceans
Thermoclines of upper warm water and cold deeper water became the norm except off the coast of Antarctica and in the seas around Norway and Greenland. Salty seas delayed thermoclines from developing in the North Atlantic Ocean. Frigid Antarctic water kept the deep-Pacific water cold. Sea level would have decreased slowly as ice built up on the land.
The North Pacific Ocean cooled slower than the Atlantic because of its large size. Ninety percent of the ice in the Northern Hemisphere accumulated around higher latitudes in the North Atlantic. A still warm ocean allowed the atmosphere to stay warm. Winter temperatures over the ice sheets would not be extremely cold and areas south of the ice sheets would have been rather mild, mostly cloudy and wet in winter. Summers south of the ice sheets cooled due to volcanic dust, greater cloudiness and closeness to ice sheets.
As the post-flood climate cooled, the Arctic Ocean eventually froze over. Sea ice spread over the northern North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans, becoming more extensive than in today’s winters. Although the islands in the tropics cooled slightly during the ice age, once ice-age volcanism diminished the lands warmed.
Atmosphere
Due to the loss of plants dying from snow cover, carbon dioxide decreases rapidly in the atmosphere. This aides summer cooling over the continents. As the atmosphere cooled due less moisture and cooling air, it enhances the drying trend over the inner continents. Strong winds frequently blow off the ice sheet margins so oceans keep cooling. High pressure areas form over glaciated areas.
Northern and polar lands
Ice is building up, miles in thickness, in Antarctica, and the northern parts of Canada, Europe and Russia. Alpine glaciers have advanced across the Chilean Andes Mountains and the Southern Alps of New Zealand. With less water vapor in the air, temperatures over the earth became colder.
Larger amounts of snow fell in the Polar regions. Some people at this time are still able to migrate north along the Atlantic in Europe and North America and by the Pacific Ocean coastal areas as sea level decreases. As snow and ice sheets increase in size humans in that area have to retreat southward. Some find safe haven in caves hoping the developing ice fields will be temporary. During glaciation, the mid-latitude continents stayed cold, as the adjacent oceans remained warm, though gradually cooling. For the full-blown ice age, cooler summers and much higher snowfall are needed. This occurred about 400- 500 years after the flood.
Cave men and women
Several hundred years after the flood and about the time of the Tower of Babel, some families of similar tongues migrated northward above the Middle East. Some went northeast toward China and Russia and others northwest toward Germany and Poland. As snow and frigid weather descended southward, people migrating north choose to seek the protection in caves with the hope that the snow would subside after a while. Unfortunately, they did not know that the ice age would go on for hundreds of years. Those that chose to wait it out probably starved running out of food. Others not prepared for such frigid temperatures died in caves near the newly developed icefields. Others fleeing descending masses of volcanic ash may have sought durable shelter too. Noah’s family lived in a time of violent, strange and terrible weather at times. Cave people, who some call prehistoric people, depict Woolly mammoths and other hunted animals in cave-wall drawings.
Land bridge in Southeast Asia connecting to Australia during the Ice Age
Migration of Animals all over the world
By this time humans and animals had spread out over the earth. Each animal only needed to travel 80 miles a year for 100 years to get to Australia and the Bering Strait. One hazard going north is to get trapped and buried by excessive snowfall and a swelling ice mass. Even if that did not happen, less abundant plant life would be found. On top of that, unsettled crustal plates increased the chance being affected by the eruption of volcanoes or rock fall from earthquakes. Fossil remains show some animals were killed and buried by rock, ash or poisonous fumes similar to when the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried the Roman city of Pompeii. But most animals were buried in snowstorms during the middle of the ice age. If animals remained near the still warm, polar oceans abundant plant life in this temperate environment remained. Trouble came when they migrated inland.
With the release of wild mammals from the ark in eastern Turkey, their internal instincts would cause some to migrate northward in search for abundant food. For the first few centuries mammals traveled north on a terrain of lukewarm to cool temperatures. We would expect some mammals to eventually arrive in the northern parts of Russia, cool lands south of the Arctic Circle and cross over the land bridge to North America. And this is just what we find. In the Wrangle Islands located in the Arctic Ocean above Russia rhinoceroses have been recovered. Saber-tooth tigers, ninety-foot plum trees with green leaves and ripe fruit are found in the New Siberian Islands on Barn Toll and in the northern Artic areas. Palm trees, mangroves, Burmese lacquer trees and foliage that can be ground into nutmeg has also been found. By the Ob River in Russia, wooly rhinos and prehistoric deer are infrequently found buried with stone weapons.
An interesting animal that lived during this time is the Woolly mammoth. Post flood man drew pictures of them on cave walls. Some have spear points still lodged in their body. Some made it to South America. Estimates find that over a million mammoths lived at one time. Musk ox, saber-toothed tigers, reindeer, cave lions and bison are also found in the same burial grounds. All tended to migrate northward to milder and cooler areas reaching Alaska, the Scandinavian area and Siberia in the early to middle stages of the ice age before glacial maximum. Instincts and discomfort in hot weather probably lead them there. On arrival, they feasted on a variety of grasses and berries. After they had been there a while, heavy snow fell. Some mammals went south to survive. Others got trapped and buried by sudden and intense snow falls. In northern Russia and North America, rock formations containing over 100 million fossils have been dug and recorded. There are thousands of different species. Ancient river beds from the Bering Strait in Russia to the Scandinavian countries, including the Bear and Bennet Islands, contain mammoths.
An estimated four to five million mammoths and other large animals were killed then immediately frozen at one time in polar regions. Many of their intestines and mouth cavities still have contents of their latest meal. Some are still standing. Bird Eye Pea company estimated temperatures in the range of minus 137 degrees Fahrenheit would be needed to freeze mammals of this size and keep their bodies from decaying to skeletons. This is strange and cannot be answered by evolutionists. If all things happen gradually how can a huge animal be frozen without it’s body first decaying, as normally happens? An evolutionists view is even more difficult due to the large numbers found, especially mammoths. One other interesting fact about mammoths is they don’t have oil glands or erector muscles that all other arctic animals have to help them survive in frigid weather.
