Oxygen Level, Altitude, and the Ark

Posted by -

Stevia Dolce, lead baker at the Darwin Ranch near Deception Pass, is not a fan of evolution. But she needs her job and keeps mum about her doubts around the ranch hands. Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, she visited me with a question. And a cheese Danish.

"Sherwood Tellit was saying that if Noah's Ark was real, it would have gone up too high and everyone would have suffocated — why are you laughing? Don't choke on the Danish!" I swallowed, took a swig of coffee, and told her why.

Flood deniers have said the Ark would have gone up too high and everyone would die from lack of oxygen. Bad science and assumptions are refuted here.
AI-generated Noah's Ark image, Pixabay / dlsdkcgl
This is one of the "Gotcha!" arguments made by atheists and other believers in deep time. For them, it is a scientific absurdity that the Ark was raised above the highest mountain peaks. There are mountains existing today where the summits are in the "death zone" because oxygen needs to be brought along.

Flood deniers tend to ignore some basic science to make their accusations. They also ignore the text. There are three reasons that elevation is not a problem for the Ark, one of which is that according to the Bible and creation science Flood geology, the mountains at that time had not grown to the sizes they are now.
Have you ever climbed a mountain and found yourself gasping for air? As you ascend a mountain, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere decreases. At the top of the highest peaks, like Everest, oxygen bottles are required for climbers to reach the summit. In practice, humans cannot survive long at such high elevations. Yet we read this about the waters of Noah’s flood in Genesis 7:19–20:
And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
In other words, the floodwaters went 15 cubits (about 25.5 feet using a cubit of 20.4 inches) above the highest mountains. In the present, that would be 29,058.19 feet (Everest’s height of 29,032.69 feet + 25.5 ft). Oxygen assistance is necessary around 26,246 feet. So if the floodwaters covered Everest today, it would be almost 3,000 feet above the breathable limit. Basic logic seems to indicate that the flood should have pushed Noah above the breathable limit.

However, this simple bit of reasoning overlooks a couple of wrong assumptions.

Take a deep breath and continue reading at "Did Noah’s Ark Lack Oxygen at Such a High Altitude?"