On Thursday 05 December 2002 04:01 am, The Fool wrote:
> Suppose you wanted to calculate the time it would take an even consistent
> rainfall over the entire surface of the earth to raise the sea level
> above the level of Mt. Everest (+5 miles or so), what would you need to
> know about rainfall, volume of the earth, topography of the earth, etc.
> to make a good first order approximation?
Trent Shipley replied:
For a first order approximation you would throw away topography asOr perhaps one can assume that flood stories actually refer to widescale local or regional flooding, but not global. Under those circumstances, what would be required for a first-order approximation, other than the land area affected?
"irrelevant" (after all, it starts at only 30% and gets smaller as you add
water) and you would treat the Earth as a proper sphere using distance from
the center of the "sphere" to mean sea level as diameter.
Assume a constant rainfall, not adujsted for the increasing size of the sphere
as the ocean gets deeper. Say, 1 inch per hour, that's a nice hard rain so 2
feet a day. It'll take a while to reach 5 miles.
However, if you say wanted to know if it would fit into, say 40 days and 40
nights, you would just assume that it rained 5 miles/40 days, that is
1mile/8days, or 1/8 mile per day. It would, indeed, require a miracle.
However, the miracle needed to produce such a global deluge would pale beside
the erosive effects of so much precipitation. Where *DID* all that topsoil
come from?
Reggie Bautista
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