Rain, Rain, Go Away

Interesting thing: In Genesis chapter 2:6, we are told that there was no rain, but that a mist came up from the earth and watered the plants. If I’m reading that right, that is basically saying that there was a humidity that you could feel; it would have had to have been absolutely palpable. Hopefully it wasn’t overly hot, that would have been pretty much unbearable.

Now, several generations later, in Genesis chapter 7, it finally rained. When it did rain, it rained for forty days and forty nights, and it took almost a year for the water to drain. Apparently God changed something in the earth’s environment, such that the atmosphere is now considerably more limited as to how much water vapor it can hold. Today, we have a condition that occurs occasionally that is called 100% relative humidity. This is when the air is holding as much vapor as the scientists figure it possible can at whatever temperature the air happens to be. 100% humidity usually means that it is raining. Every once in a while, we can have 100% humidity and it still isn’t raining, but the meteorologists know that it will start pouring down soon.

I have to wonder what it would have been like to have lived on the earth before there was rain, when the air was supersaturated. I have to believe that the sky was always overcast; imagine the most overcast day you have ever experienced, only many times worse. The good part about that is that, although one could never see the sunshine, at least the sun never caused one to break a sweat, because that sweat wouldn’t evaporate, so it wouldn’t do anything to cool off the individual doing the sweating (man or beast). Of course, if one was working, I would think that one could break a sweat, and then just feel sweaty and sticky… Considering the way our bodies are designed, it would seem that God never intended for the condition of the earth before Noah to be permanent (or else, he intended for us to live out our lives in leisure, eating fruit from plants that were watered by the air, and never needed to be planted or cultivated).

The heavy cloud cover would also help to block some forms of radiation. From what I understand, clouds don’t stop UV radiation, which is the type of radiation associated with skin cancer, but we aren’t talking about the sort of clouds that are in the sky now. Those clouds would have been much thicker, and possibly would have blocked some (or all) of the UV. On the other hand, water evaporates much easier when it absorbs UV radiation, so it may have been necessary for the UV to pass through the water vapor in order to facilitate the evaporation to keep the atmosphere supersaturated.

I guess what it really comes down to is that there may have been some advantages to living in the time between Adam and Noah, but I really don’t see too much; you didn’t ever have to water your plants, or build irrigation canals, but you also never saw the sun and if you did something to break a sweat, you just stayed sweaty. I’m glad that I am living in this time and not that time (not that I ever had any choice in the matter, of course).