101 Questions and Answers about Weather and the Bible

© 1992, 2014 by Donald B. DeYoung

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

BakerBooks.com

Ebook edition created 2014

Ebook corrections 02.12.2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-4627-1

Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

To Sally,

my wife and companion for 48 years.

She is a faithful partner

through all kinds of weather.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Figures and Tables

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: Weather Basics

    1. Should a Christian become a meteorologist?

    2. Is there a creationist view of the weather?

    3. How do weather and climate differ?

    4. Why are weather predictions uncertain?

    5. Are traditional weather sayings accurate?

    6. Do moon phases control our weather?

    7. What is the atmosphere?

    8. What is the composition of the air?

    9. Does the air have weight?

  10. How much sunlight reaches the earth?

  11. What is temperature?

  12. What is a temperature inversion?

  13. What are some weather extremes on Earth?

  14. What causes dew and frost?

  15. Does springtime drive the frost deeper?

  16. How is the first day of spring determined?

  17. Is the earth closest to the sun during summer?

  18. How is the weather different below the equator?

  19. What is seasonal affective disorder?

  20. What are the wind chill factor and comfort index?

  21. What is frostbite?

  22. Does cold weather give people colds?

  23. Why is the sky blue, sunsets red, and clouds white?

  24. What is the ozone layer?

  25. How does the air handle pollution?

  26. What makes a desert?

  27. How has the space program impacted our weather?

  28. How do weather satellites work?

  29. What is weather like on other planets?

  30. What is solar wind?

  31. What is evaporation?

Part 2: Water, Wind, and Clouds

  32. What is the water cycle?

  33. Why do lakes freeze from the surface downward?

  34. How does water moderate our weather?

  35. What causes the wind?

  36. What makes the sound of wind?

  37. How does wind picture the Holy Spirit?

  38. Why do weather systems have circular motion?

  39. What is the jet stream?

  40. What is a wind farm?

  41. What causes clouds?

  42. How are clouds named?

  43. What causes fog?

  44. Why do jet aircraft sometimes leave contrails?

  45. What are noctilucent clouds?

Part 3: Stormy Weather

  46. Is there a lull before a storm?

  47. Does Psalm 29 describe a storm?

  48. What causes rain and snow?

  49. What are biblical reasons for rain?

  50. Has it ever rained frogs or fish?

  51. What is acid rain?

  52. How does cloud seeding work?

  53. What gives a snowflake its shape?

  54. Is every snowflake different?

  55. What are some useful properties of snow?

  56. What causes lightning and thunder?

  57. Does lightning have a purpose?

  58. Can lightning strike the same place twice?

  59. Do certain trees tend to attract lightning?

  60. What is ball lightning?

  61. What is Saint Elmo’s fire?

  62. What happens to thunder?

  63. How do lightning rods work?

  64. What causes a rainbow?

  65. What makes a squall line?

  66. What causes Chinook and Santa Ana winds?

  67. Why does the Sea of Galilee have sudden storms?

  68. Are there storehouses for hail?

  69. Why is a downburst dangerous to aircraft?

  70. What causes tornadoes and hurricanes?

  71. What are El Niño and La Niña events?

  72. Does God send severe storms?

  73. Is it acceptable to pray for rain?

Part 4: Past Weather

  74. What was the preflood climate?

  75. What is the vapor canopy theory?

  76. Did it rain before the great flood?

  77. Where did the Genesis floodwaters come from?

  78. What was weather like during the flood?

  79. What happened to the floodwaters?

  80. What are the catastrophic plate tectonic and hydroplate theories?

  81. Was there an ice age?

  82. What froze the woolly mammoths?

  83. Did a climate change end the dinosaur era?

  84. What is the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction?

  85. Was Greenland once green?

  86. What was the New Testament climate?

  87. Has God controlled history with weather?

  88. What was the Little Ice Age?

  89. What caused the Dust Bowl of the 1930s?

  90. Has the sun’s heat changed in the past?

  91. Has our atmosphere evolved over time?

Part 5: Future Weather

  92. Is the climate changing?

  93. What are some results of a warmer or cooler earth?

  94. What is the greenhouse effect?

  95. How do rainforests impact the weather?

  96. Should Christians be concerned with the environment?

  97. How does feedback control the weather?

  98. What is the future weather on an evolutionary time scale?

  99. Do current weather changes predict the end of the world?

100. What weather events are predicted for the end times?

101. What will be the weather in the distant future?

Glossary

Scripture Index

Subject Index

About the Author

Back Ads

Back Cover

Figures and Tables

Figures

1. Moon phases (Q. 6)

2. Layers of the atmosphere (Q. 7)

3. Composition of the air (Q. 8)

4. Sunlight hitting the earth (Q. 10)

5. The sun’s annual path (Q. 16)

6. Earth’s orbit around the sun (Q. 17)

7. Weather satellites (Q. 28)

8. Structure of ice (Q. 53)

9. Meteor shower (Q. 100)

Tables

1. Wind chill and comfort index (Q. 20)

2. Floods and storms (Q. 99)

3. End-Time events (Q. 100)

Foreword

This book is a real treasure. It is packed with fascinating information, scientifically accurate, and completely true to Scripture, yet also easy and enjoyable to read. Weather and the Bible deals with a subject of universal interest in a uniquely refreshing manner, using a question-and-answer format that makes it difficult to put down, yet also nice just for browsing.

Donald DeYoung is a Christian physicist by profession and a Christian gentleman in character. He has already written several books relating science and Scripture, the most recent being Astronomy and the Bible (1989), a useful and well-received book of similar format to this present book. He knows science and can communicate it effectively; the same is true of his facility in the Bible.

He has been a respected member of the science faculty at Grace College in Indiana for many years, and is editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly. In addition, he is an adjunct professor at the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School of Science in San Diego. Thus Don DeYoung is both an honored colleague and a personal friend.

I am pleased to write a foreword for this fine new book. I commend it heartily to everyone—young and old alike—as a book both to be enjoyed and from which to learn.

Henry M. Morris

President, Institute for Creation Research 1992

Addendum

The preceding paragraphs were written by Dr. Henry Morris (1918–2006) for the previous edition of this book. Dr. Morris is known by many as the father of the modern creation science movement. His gracious defense of biblical creation over a lifetime continues to encourage many others to take up the cause of scientific research and study.

The astronomy book which Dr. Morris mentions has gone through three revisions, most recently in 2010. Instead of the Creation Research Society Quarterly editor, I am now honored to lead the Society as president. The Institute for Creation Research has relocated to Dallas, TX.

Donald B. DeYoung

2014

Introduction

Many of us keep a close watch on the weather. With each new day the weather helps determine what we will wear, the extent of outside activities, and perhaps our outlook for the day. This book is written to help readers notice and enjoy the major components of the weather. Instead of a comprehensive text on meteorology, the discussion gets quickly to the point, whether explaining why lightning strikes particular trees or how Greenland got its unusual name.

When appropriate I have interacted with biblical texts. Scripture provides us with a rich source for exploring the Creator’s provision of the earth’s weather system. Readers will notice that this book promotes a recent, supernatural view of origins. I find this to be an insightful and accurate approach to the study of nature. The global flood of Noah’s day is also taken as a major event in the history of the earth.

The book uses a question-and-answer format. Many of the 101 weather questions come from students in the college classroom. Other weather questions (the most difficult!) were asked by children in elementary school presentations.

Ongoing discussions and debates center on climate change, rising sea levels, ozone depletion, air pollution, and related troubling issues. Is there any positive weather news to report? The answer is a firm yes, but only in the light of God’s Word. The creation has been burdened by the Curse ever since Genesis 3, yet it still displays beauty, complexity, and wonder. The weather is no exception, and it has thus far frustrated our best efforts to control or make accurate predictions. Our precious atmosphere has the ability to purify itself as it adjusts to major environmental changes. Even with more than one billion vehicles and smokestacks emitting noxious gases, most locations across the earth still have clean, refreshing air to breathe daily. How is the world weather system designed to give us life? This book explores that and other questions from the refreshing perspective of biblical creation.

Donald B. DeYoung

Winona Lake, IN

1. Should a Christian become a meteorologist?

Many Christians have become suspicious of science and for good reason. Certainly we have benefited from major advances in medicine and technology. At the same time, however, there has been a loss of recognition of the Creator who makes these discoveries possible in the first place. Space probes explore the universe; however, man gets all the glory rather than God. For these reasons, if no other, Christians are indeed needed in science careers today. In laboratories everywhere there is a desperate need for the perspective that God designed this universe, that he owns it, and that we are accountable as stewards of the earth.

When God gives a person special talent and interest in weather studies or any other technical field, it should certainly be pursued as a basis for a possible career. The study of nature is highly recommended by Scripture:

The heavens declare the glory of God;

and the firmament shows His handiwork. (Ps. 19:1)

Go to the ant, you sluggard!

Consider her ways and be wise. (Prov. 6:6)

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,

But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. (Prov. 25:2)

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:

they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that

even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like

one of these. (Matt. 6:28–29)

The Christian scientist is in good company. Many of the greatest pioneer scientists gave testimonies of personally knowing their Creator. These include Caroline Herschel, Johann Kepler, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, and Michael Faraday.

Some skeptics claim that the Christian cannot really do real science because his or her mind is already made up concerning such things as origins and the truth of the Bible. Such skeptics have apparently forgotten that the entire foundation of modern science was laid down by godly men and women. The skeptics also fail to look inward to recognize their own particular presuppositions. No scientist enters the laboratory completely unbiased to all ideas. Particular worldviews will be reflected in the choice of experiment and also in the interpretation of results.

In past centuries, weather forecasting was viewed with suspicion. The practice of predicting future weather seemed to border on witchcraft or sorcery. However, meteorology, the study of weather, has today become a well-established application of science. Weather forecasting is complicated and