"Ice cores have been drilled deep into both the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets. These cores represent snowfall that has turned to ice. During snowfall on top of the ice sheets, dust, air, acids, etc. are added and eventually incorporated into the ice. Some of these parameters oscillate during the seasons and can be a signature for an annual layer of snowfall. The annual snowfall over Antarctica is normally too small to resolve annual layers down an ice core. It is the Greenland Ice Sheet that exhibits annual cycles of one or more of the variables down an ice core.
One of the most used annual variables in Greenland ice cores is the oxygen isotope ratio in the ice.
Oxygen comes in three isotopes, depending on the number of neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. For practical purposes, the ratio between oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 is the variable used, oxygen-17 being too small to be useful. Oxygen-18 has two more neutrons than oxygen-16 and has a higher mass. Because of the different mass, the ratio of these isotopes will vary during evaporation and condensation cycles, which are correlated with temperature. So during summer, warmer temperatures result in a higher oxygen-18/oxygen-16 ratio of the snowfall, while in winter the ratio is lower. This seasonal oscillation can be measured down Greenland ice cores.
Glaciologists claim that they can count 110,000 annual layers downward from the top to near the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet (Meese et al., 1997). This analysis was performed on the American GISP2 core drilled between 1989 to 1993 from the top of the ice in central Greenland to bedrock at about 10,000 feet deep (Oard, 1995). The GRIP core was drilled nearby at the same time by a European team. It is further claimed that the very basal ice is 250,000 years old (Dansgaard et al., 1993), or possibly 2.4 million years, back to the time of the original buildup of the ice sheet (Souchez, 1997).
The reason for this is because uniformitarian scientists view the ice sheet as maintaining equilibrium, about the same height and shape, for a few million years. Thus they view each annual layer as becoming greatly compressed the deeper in the ice sheet. The number of annual layers is simply an outgrowth of their extended time scale.
On the other hand, creationists view both the Greenland and Antarctica Ice Sheets as products of a post-Flood rapid Ice Age, plus additional ice added after the Ice Age (Oard, 1990).
Since the Ice Age ended about 4000 years ago, the compression of the ice sheet has been much less than uniformitarian scientists believe, but still substantial (Vardiman, 1993). So, one annual layer deep in the ice sheet may represent 100 or even 1000 uniformitarian ‘annual cycles.’
Furthermore, the ice sheet during the Ice Age would have been lower and warmer at the time the snow was building. This would have resulted in more melt or hoar frost layers (cloudy bands), which is one of the variables used for annual layer determinations. Therefore the uniformitarian scientists are claiming as annual variations oscillations that occur within the year.
The variables used to determine annual layers can be produced many times during a year in the creationist model. Very short term oscillations representing as little as a day or two show up in the variables (Grootes and Stuiver, 1997). A storm has a warm and cold sector with different measurements of the variables. These storm oscillations may be on the order of several days. These storms can produce problems in annual counting, even in the uniformitarian paradigm, as Alley et al. (1997, p. 26,378) state:
“Fundamentally, in counting any annual marker, we must ask whether it is absolutely unequivocal, or whether nonannual events could mimic or obscure a year. For the visible strata (and, we believe, for any other annual indicator at accumulation rates representative of central Greenland), it is almost certain that variability exists at the subseasonal or storm level, at the annual level, and for various longer periodicities (2-year, sunspot, etc.). We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year or missing a weak indication of a summer and thus picking a 2-year interval as 1 year.”
The uniformitarian scientists do not believe these subannual cycles exist because of their assumed great compression of the ice sheet based on their old-Earth time scale. This is how they manage to ‘squeak out’ 110,000 years." CMI
One of the most used annual variables in Greenland ice cores is the oxygen isotope ratio in the ice.
Glaciologists claim that they can count 110,000 annual layers downward from the top to near the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet (Meese et al., 1997). This analysis was performed on the American GISP2 core drilled between 1989 to 1993 from the top of the ice in central Greenland to bedrock at about 10,000 feet deep (Oard, 1995). The GRIP core was drilled nearby at the same time by a European team. It is further claimed that the very basal ice is 250,000 years old (Dansgaard et al., 1993), or possibly 2.4 million years, back to the time of the original buildup of the ice sheet (Souchez, 1997).
The reason for this is because uniformitarian scientists view the ice sheet as maintaining equilibrium, about the same height and shape, for a few million years. Thus they view each annual layer as becoming greatly compressed the deeper in the ice sheet. The number of annual layers is simply an outgrowth of their extended time scale.
On the other hand, creationists view both the Greenland and Antarctica Ice Sheets as products of a post-Flood rapid Ice Age, plus additional ice added after the Ice Age (Oard, 1990).
Since the Ice Age ended about 4000 years ago, the compression of the ice sheet has been much less than uniformitarian scientists believe, but still substantial (Vardiman, 1993). So, one annual layer deep in the ice sheet may represent 100 or even 1000 uniformitarian ‘annual cycles.’
Furthermore, the ice sheet during the Ice Age would have been lower and warmer at the time the snow was building. This would have resulted in more melt or hoar frost layers (cloudy bands), which is one of the variables used for annual layer determinations. Therefore the uniformitarian scientists are claiming as annual variations oscillations that occur within the year.
The variables used to determine annual layers can be produced many times during a year in the creationist model. Very short term oscillations representing as little as a day or two show up in the variables (Grootes and Stuiver, 1997). A storm has a warm and cold sector with different measurements of the variables. These storm oscillations may be on the order of several days. These storms can produce problems in annual counting, even in the uniformitarian paradigm, as Alley et al. (1997, p. 26,378) state:
“Fundamentally, in counting any annual marker, we must ask whether it is absolutely unequivocal, or whether nonannual events could mimic or obscure a year. For the visible strata (and, we believe, for any other annual indicator at accumulation rates representative of central Greenland), it is almost certain that variability exists at the subseasonal or storm level, at the annual level, and for various longer periodicities (2-year, sunspot, etc.). We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year or missing a weak indication of a summer and thus picking a 2-year interval as 1 year.”
The uniformitarian scientists do not believe these subannual cycles exist because of their assumed great compression of the ice sheet based on their old-Earth time scale. This is how they manage to ‘squeak out’ 110,000 years." CMI
Out of whose womb came the ice?
Job 38:29
