Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
Scientific Arguments Opposing a Canopy
The Pressure Problem. A canopy holding only 40 feet of liquid water, or its equivalent weight of vapor (steam) or ice, would double the Earth’s atmospheric pressure—making oxygen and nitrogen toxic to many animals, including humans.6 This is why most vapor canopy theories limit the thickness of water in their canopy to less than 40 feet.
For a vapor canopy holding this amount of water, the high pressure at the canopy’s base would require that the temperature at the base exceed a scorching 220°F. Otherwise, the vapor would condense into a liquid. A vapor canopy whose base had that temperature would radiate large amounts of heat to the Earth’s solid surface. People, plants, and animals would absorb so much heat from all directions above that life might not survive.7 Those who believe that a vapor canopy would produce a globally mild climate have overlooked this detail.
Maintaining a canopy’s 220°F temperature at night, or worse yet, at the poles during the coolest season, adds a further difficulty. Yes, there were seasons before the flood. [See Genesis 1:14.]8
The Heat Problem. All canopy theories9 have another major heat problem. The larger the canopy, the greater the heat problem.
A Vapor Canopy. Each gram of water vapor (steam) that condenses to a liquid releases about 539 calories of heat. If 6.22 × 1021 grams of water fell from a vapor canopy (enough to form a layer of water only 40 feet thick around the world), the temperature of the water and atmosphere would, as a first approximation, rise 810°F (or 450°C).
where 5.1 × 1021 grams is the mass of the atmosphere, and 0.242 and 1.0 are the calories needed to raise one gram of air and one gram of liquid water 1°C (respectively). Unbearable temperatures remain even after we expand this analysis to include every scientifically conceivable way to remove this heat.10 Also, 40 feet of rain would not produce a global flood, whose waters cover all of Earth’s mountains.
A Liquid or Ice Canopy. For liquid or ice particles to remain in space above the Earth’s atmosphere, they must orbit the Earth. Anything in a near-Earth orbit must travel about 17,000 miles per hour (760,000 cm/sec). (As stated earlier, a layer of water only 40 feet thick contains 6.22 × 1021 grams of water.) Just as a spacecraft generates great heat as it reenters the atmosphere, orbiting liquid or ice particles would release all their kinetic energy as heat as they reenter the atmosphere. That amount of heat is 
where 2.39 × 10-8 converts the units to calories. This heat would raise the atmosphere’s temperature
Even if a canopy began with the coldest ice possible (absolute zero) or if some heat were transferred elsewhere, insufferable heat would remain.11
A similar problem exists if this ice were part of a spinning shell surrounding the Earth. A rapidly-spinning shell, providing enough centrifugal force to balance the gravitational force as much as possible, would still have too much kinetic energy. Once the shell collapsed, that energy would become scalding heat, enough to “roast” all life on Earth.
The Light Problem. A canopy having only 40 feet of water—in any form—would reflect, refract, absorb, or scatter most light trying to pass through it.
Starlight. People living under a 40-foot-thick canopy could see stars only if they were directly overhead, so their light had the shortest path through a canopy. Before the flood, people presumably could see stars, because stars were created for a purpose: “for signs, and for seasons, for days and years ” (Genesis 1:14). Stars would achieve their purpose only if enough stars could be seen to identify seasonal variations. Therefore, one needs to see large star patterns, such as constellations—not just a few stars directly overhead. By looking through a “keyhole” into the night sky, it is questionable whether one could have seen, recalled, and distinguished seasonally shifting star patterns through the filter of a 40-foot-thick canopy, even on a moonless night.
Sunlight. A canopy would also reflect and absorb considerable sunlight. How then could many tropical plants that require much sunlight today, have survived for centuries under a preflood canopy?
The Nucleation Problem. To form raindrops, microscopic particles, called condensation nuclei, must be present to initiate condensation. However, falling rain sweeps away these nuclei and cleans the atmosphere. This reduces further condensation. The initial rain from a vapor canopy would actually “choke off” further rain production.
Some claim that during the flood, volcanic eruptions ejected condensation nuclei into the upper atmosphere. Never explained is why volcanic eruptions suddenly began globally, then distributed nuclei throughout the atmosphere for about 40 days. Volcanic eruptions, instead of contributing to the flood, require special conditions that seem to be a consequence of the flood. [For an explanation, see pages 117 and 133.]
The nucleation and heat problems greatly limit the rate and amount of rain that can form by condensation. It seems more likely that “geshem rain” and a global flood was produced by the powerful jetting of the “fountains of the great deep,” which caused torrential rain for “40 days and 40 nights.”12
The Greenhouse Problem. While sunlight can pass through glass into a greenhouse, heat in a greenhouse has more difficulty radiating back out through the glass. This greenhouse effect traps heat inside the greenhouse, raising its temperature. All canopy theories have a huge greenhouse problem.
Also, as temperatures under a canopy rose, more water would evaporate from the Earth’s surface, especially its oceans. More water vapor in the air means a greater greenhouse effect, a warmer atmosphere, and even more evaporation. This cycle would feed on itself, producing “a runaway greenhouse effect.” For example, Venus’ atmosphere has experienced a runaway greenhouse effect. Venus is about 700°F hotter than one would expect based on its distance from the Sun. The greenhouse effect increases Earth’s average temperature by about 60°F.
For 36 years, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) was the strongest advocate of a vapor canopy. But in 1998, ICR wrote that a strong greenhouse effect would exist under a vapor canopy, raising “surface temperatures as high as 400°F.” However, if many variables were chosen in the most favorable way for a vapor canopy, “the water content of a canopy could be as much as [no more than] three feet of liquid water without the surface temperature reaching temperatures which would destroy life on the Earth.”13 Actually, their study shows that surface temperatures would be unbearable if a canopy were only 4 inches thick.
The Support Problem. What supported the canopy?
A Vapor or Liquid Canopy. A vapor canopy would rapidly mix with the atmosphere, just as steam above a kitchen stove quickly mixes with air. Once the water vapor contacted the Earth’s surface, it would condense. A liquid canopy would quickly evaporate and then diffuse through the atmosphere. Neither type of canopy could have survived for the many centuries before the flood.
An Ice Canopy. A pure ice canopy would vaporize into the vacuum of space, just as dry ice vaporizes at atmospheric temperature and pressure. Furthermore, ice is structurally weak. An ice shell could not withstand tidal stresses or meteoritic, cometary, or asteroidal impacts. A spinning ice shell could not withstand the powerful centrifugal forces at its equator and the crushing gravitational forces along its spin axis.
The Ultraviolet Problem. Ozone in Earth’s upper atmosphere blocks the Sun’s destructive ultraviolet light, but a canopy surrounding the atmosphere would be exposed to ultraviolet light. Therefore, water in a canopy would dissociate into hydrogen and oxygen, effectively destroying the canopy.
Final Thoughts. Could there have been a canopy? Perhaps, in one of two ways. First, one could minimize most of these scientific problems by assuming the canopy was thin, maybe inches thick. The thinner the canopy, the less severe most problems become. (Notice, the support and ultraviolet problems remain.) But what function would the canopy perform, and what hard, scientific evidence—not speculation—is there for claiming that a thin canopy could perform that function? Certainly, a thin canopy would not contribute to a global flood—the reason most people accepted the canopy in the first place.
Second, one could also dismiss each of these scientific problems by saying that God performed a miracle. That may be true. Certainly, He can; He has; and He sometimes does. However, miracles should not be proposed to “prop up” a scientific theory. (Some evolutionists mistakenly believe that this is how creation science works.) As one sees more and more “miracles” required by canopy theories, their plausibility decreases, and the need for an alternate explanation increases.