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Claim CH310:

In the pre-Flood earth, the vapor canopy, a translucent layer of water vapor above the atmosphere, caused a greenhouse effect that kept the climate moderate all over the planet, minimized winds and storms, and prevented rainfall.


Vail, Isaac Newton, 1912. The Earth's Annular System, 4th ed. Pasadena: The Annular World Co.
Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 210-211.


  1. A vapor canopy with more than twelve inches of precipitable water would raise the temperature of the earth above boiling (Morton 1979). A vapor canopy of only four inches of water would raise the temperature of the earth to 144 degrees F. It is worth noting that several prominent creationists agree with this conclusion, yet their close colleagues continue to teach that there was a vapor canopy (Morton 2000).

  2. A vapor canopy capable of producing the global flood would have increased earth's atmospheric pressure from 15 PSI to 970 PSI.

  3. Some creationists try to solve the vapor canopy problems by moving the canopy out of the earth's atmosphere and into orbit. A canopy of orbiting ice would have been unstable (it could only exist in a ring much like Saturn's). It would have cooled the climate (probably just slightly) until it somehow collapsed to cause the flood. Then the release of its gravitational potential energy would have converted all the ice into superheated steam, not into a flood.


Farrar, Paul, and Bill Hyde, n.d. The vapor canopy hypothesis holds no water.

Matson, Dave, 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? Water and vapor and Noah's flood. or

Morton, Glenn R., 2000. The demise and fall of the water vapor canopy: A fallen creationist idea.


  1. Matson, Dave, 1994. (see above).
  2. Morton, Glenn R., 1979. Can the canopy hold water? Creation Research Society Quarterly 16(3): 164-169.
  3. Morton, 2000. (see above).


created 2003-6-29