The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

is documented in Schmidt et al. (2014). The model consists of an atmospheric model with a horizontal grid of 144 by 90 (2.5˚ longitude by 2˚ latitude; this corresponds to a distance of 278 km by 222 km at the equator) and 40 vertical layers extending through the tropopause and stratosphere to a pressure level of 0.1 mb. This is coupled with a dynamic ocean model as described in Russell, Miller and Rind (1995). The ocean model has the same horizontal resolution as the atmospheric model and consists of 32 layers extending to a depth of 5 km. Not only does the ModelE2 take into account atmosphere/ocean interactions, but also interactions with land surfaces, land ice and sea ice. When possible, microphysics are incorporated in the calculations, otherwise physical effects are parameterized and then validated through control runs. When exploring conditions for ice sheet formation, albedo is an important factor. This factor depends on land vegetation, snow cover and the presence of ice on both land and sea. Snow depth and age are accounted for based on surface type and vegetation. Although the elevation of ice sheets in some of the reported simulations are changed, the vegetation type is not. Therefore, bare land after the flood is not taken into consideration and may be a focus of a future study. A variety of simulations were performed to study the impact of initial and boundary conditions on the location of precipitation and wind patterns needed to initiate ice sheets over the North American continent. Each of these simulations were restricted to six years in order to observe the impact of each change. Although the following discussion and figures are restricted to January values, the model was run and data collected for all seasons and months. The ocean temperatures and circulations were allowed to develop over the six years of simulation. There is some cooling of the Arctic Ocean; however, a more extended run is needed to observe the impact of that change. With this and additional studies it is anticipated that the appropriate conditions needed for ice sheet growth will be determined. At that time a multi-century simulation will be performed to study the rate of growth, areal extent and dynamics of the ice sheet. In contrast to Gollmer (2013) the ocean temperatures are initialized to a uniform temperature of 24 ˚C rather than 30 ˚C. Although it is found in this study that 24 ˚C is still too high, this temperatures was chosen for the following reasons. Ocean temperatures must stay in a range viable for life. At the higher temperature model simulations generated equatorial temperatures reaching 40 ˚C. Using a marine sediment core Sluijs et al. (2006) reports sea surface temperatures in the arctic of over 23 ˚C during the Palaeocene. In contrast to this Gollmer ◀ Post-Flood Ice Age precipitation ▶ 2018 ICC 700 Figure 5. A global climate model simulates weather over large periods of time in order to generate relevant climate statistics. The atmosphere is divided into a grid of cells that cover the earth’s surface and extend through the relevant portions of the atmosphere. Equations representing the physical interactions between temperature, pressure, wind, humidity, energy sources and sinks are used to simulate possible outcomes based on initial conditions and boundary conditions. The same process is used to simulate circulations within the ocean (Image is courtesy of NOAA).