In the pre-Flood world these energy systems would have also manifested in the water vapor canopy, mirroring the energies below. The Genesis account is clear that the “windows” or lattice-work of the sky “opening”—becoming disturbed—was directly linked with the “fountains of the deep” being “broken up.” Here the “fountains of the deep” are equivalent to the Babylonian apsu, the waters beneath the earth or the subterranean water systems which are directly related to the earth energy currents.
Naturally, if the earth energy patterns were thrown askew in the Earth, this would also have created havoc in the atmospheric reflections of these patterns in the canopy, to the point of unbalancing the moisture equilibrium and causing the water canopy to collapse. But before this disaster occurred, what would have been the effect of a water canopy surrounding the planet?
Water molecules, first of all would have diffused heat, causing a greenhouse effect, but not like what we have today. More specifically, the water canopy would have allowed long-wave solar radiation through it, but not let it escape back into space, trapping the heat in the atmosphere.
The results would have made the Earth very different indeed. Heat would have been more evenly distributed so that there would be no great temperature differences with the entire Earth enjoying a more temperate, even semi-tropical to tropical climates. Even seasonal temperature changes would have been greatly minimized. Genesis 1:4 mentions the Elohim establishing the times for the seasons in the early world, but it is not until after the Flood--after the protecting water canopy had collapsed--that the extreme and harsh temperatures of the seasons first appear. At that time, in Genesis 8:22, God tells Noah, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”
Regarding the uniformity of climatic conditions in a canopied world, geologists have long been aware of the evidence in the rock record that at more often than not the entire Earth was uniformly tropical. This has been explained on the basis of an increase in solar radiation in the past. However, this is only one factor that controls climate to a world-wide extent. No evidence exists that changes have taken place in the radiation of the Sun, but it is not necessary that there had to have been a change in the Sun itself. If there was a change in the heat-absorbing capacity of the atmosphere, that would accomplish the same thing. The most likely means of accomplishing this would have been through the increase in water vapor in the upper atmosphere.
Not only would the canopy have affected climate, but the Earth’s weather system would have been radically different as well. With no temperature differences there would have been little or no wind. In fact the first time wind is mentioned in Genesis is during the Flood, after the water canopy had been precipitated:
“And God made a wind to blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.” Genesis 8:1.
With no wind, there would have also been no rain. Genesis 2:5-6 records:
“The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.”
Because the temperatures would have been generally higher than they are now, the atmosphere would have been able to hold moisture near what is called the dew point or saturation level. A temperature fall of only 2 or 3 degrees occurring in the evening would have allowed dew to form, and because of the high humidity could have created a “mist” or fog that hugged the ground and surrounded most vegetation. This phenomenon can be witnessed today in the tropics, or in specially built greenhouses and hothouses with controlled temperature variations. That this slight temperature drop did occur is attested to in Genesis 3:8, where God is described as “walking in the garden (Eden) in the cool of the day,” probably near dusk.
Rain did not make its first appearance in the pre-Flood world until the beginning of the Flood, Genesis 11:12. It was probably for this reason that Noah’s contemporaries scoffed at his predictions for rain (Genesis 7:4), for these people had never seen such an atmospheric event before. After the Flood, Noah and his family were given a unique sign in the heavens, in Genesis 9:13-16--a rainbow. The implications of these verses is that the survivors had never seen a rainbow before. And indeed, they had not, for rainbows are created by sunlight passing through water droplets of no less than 0.30 millimeters. These are the size of normal rainstorm droplets, which had not existed before the Flood, when the water canopy was in place.
To be continued-Research by [Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]


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