| Chapter 7
Conclusions And Recommendations
Ice-core data can support only an undisputed chronology back several thousand years B.P. (Before Present). The standard long-age model calculates the age of the ice at the bottom of ice sheets to be 160,000 years old, by making uniformitarian assumptions about precipitation rates and other related variables. The standard model has been unable to explain several puzzling features in the data, such as: (1) dating problems with old ice near the bottom of the cores; (2) lack of correspondence between the Antarctic and Greenland records; and (3) sudden warming at the end of the Younger Dryas. By assuming the historicity of the worldwide Flood described in Genesis and other likely attendant geophysical processes, an alternative chronology has been developed, which is of the same order as the time frame derived from a literal interpretation of Scripture. The alternative model also has been able to explain some of the problems unsolved by the standard long-age model, and suggest plausible physical processes which produced the data. It is evident that this alternative "Biblical" model should be tested in greater detail, to demonstrate its validity and/or to modify its components. Probably the most fertile development should occur in the area of numerical modeling. The assumptions about increased precipitation rates near the bottom of the ice sheets need to be validated, if possible, by independent data from the ice cores. The long-age model has used a relationship between temperature and  to predict precipitation rates near the bottom. Since I have suggested that the is not dependent only on temperature, a much more complicated relationship ensues. Either such a relationship needs to be derived or another parameter needs to be identified from the ice core data which accurately predicts the precipitation rate. Another subject which needs exploration is the circulation model developed in Chapter 6. Although the circulation suggested is reasonable by current knowledge of the atmosphere, it is a projection to conditions not experienced on Earth today. In particular, the transition from a two-celled Hadley circulation to a three-celled Hadley circulation via a hurricane-like storm development is highly conjectural. Is it possible for the eye of this global storm to enlarge to the scale of a global circulation, with a warm, low-pressure center becoming a cold, high-pressure center? This question probably could be answered by experiments on a General Circulation Model (GCM). Plans have been laid to conduct such experiments in the next few years, if funds can be obtained to purchase the computer time. Although I have assumed the main driving force for the alternative model is the warmth of the oceans following the Flood, in agreement with Oard (1990), I have not discussed the ocean circulations. The adjustments of temperature in the oceans from a uniform distribution from top to bottom and equator to pole to today's configuration, is not a minor consideration. Because of the long time lag in the formation of cold bottom waters and saline layers, it may be possible to detect some latent information about the ocean's response to the post-Flood ice age, from the ocean itself. An examination of cold and saline layers in the ocean is well justified. It also would be valuable to use a coupled atmosphere/ocean GCM, when conducting the numerical experiments on circulation suggested earlier. Finally, the alternative model is strongly dependent upon evidence that ice shelves formed as far south as 45o latitude in the Atlantic Ocean. Some evidence, showing the formation of ice shelves northward from Antarctica to the tip of South America, and possibly close to Australia and South Africa is also available. A full exploration of the sea-floor sediment data recently made available from CLIMAP and other oceanic research projects, is mandatory. To this end, I plan to spend the next year or so studying these data, to reinterpret and possibly extend the current view of the "ice age" from sea-floor sediment. Nothing in the ice core data from either Greenland or Antarctica requires the earth to be tens of thousands of years old. In fact, there is good reason to believe that the ice cores are revealing important information about conditions following the Flood of Genesis and the recent formation of thick ice sheets. Reports of ice-core data containing records of climatic changes as far back as 160,000 years in the past are dependent upon interpretations of these data. Such interpretations could be seriously wrong, if the Genesis Flood occurred as described in the Bible. Further research on ice-core data should be a high priority for creationist researchers.
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