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Tonight we're going to talk about a subject that perhaps is a little bit different than we might anticipate as a proof of the Bible, and that is miracles. Because some people feel that the miracles in the Bible are the problem with the Bible. If we could just get rid of the miracles, we could have a lot more people who would believe the Bible. But, on the other hand, I believe that one of the greatest verifications that this is the true Word of God is the fact that there are miracles in it, and that's what we're gonna share tonight.
Now, what is a miracle? We have to start somewhere. Let's start there. What is a miracle? An accurate definition of a miracle is very important, specifically, I mean, a Biblical definition, because we use the word so loosely today. We say, "Boy, today I was driving home, and you'll never believe what happened. This guy went through a red light and barely missed me. I'm telling you, it was a miracle." Or, "Do you realize that I didn't have any money and I got a check in the mail for $50? I just praise God for that miracle." Or, "Do you know that I wanted to talk to Mrs. So-and-So and I ran into her at the 7-Eleven? What a miracle." Or when you bring the dress home and it just fits, "Look, honey, it's just a miracle that this fits." Everything is a miracle.
Now, what is a miracle? Well, if you were to look it up in Webster's Dictionary you'd get a poor definition. You'd get one that fits the modern mentality. It isn't quite as far out as the uses we've just suggested, but Webster says it is an event or effect in the physical world deviating from the known laws of nature or transcending our knowledge of these laws. And that's an amazing definition, because he says the same thing twice. He says a miracle is something that happens in the physical world deviating from the known laws. Notice, he doesn't say it deviates from the laws of nature. He says it deviates from what? The known laws of nature, or transcends our knowledge of these laws. Well, that's saying the same thing. So Webster explains miracles as a natural phenomenon, not supernatural.
Webster's definition of miracles does not apply to God. And that's okay for modern man's definition. You know, we say when a man lands on the moon that's a miracle. Or a narrow escape is a miracle. Or something that happens that we can't explain is a miracle. And so we say, well, it's some physical law that we haven't discovered yet. But that doesn't make it in the Bible. That is not the Scripture's definition of a miracle. Because, you see, that definition of a miracle only allows for ignorance, not supernatural power. And a true miracle is an act of supernatural intervention.
The implication that Webster gives, and that most people would give, to the concept is that a miracle is just something that happens that we can't explain. But the Bible definition of a miracle is something that happens because God intervened in the natural world and did something supernatural. And by the very definition of terms you realize the natural world is here and the supernatural world is outside. As I've illustrated it before, we have a little natural box that we live in, and everything in our little natural box is qualified by natural law. But God's outside our little box, and whenever He pokes His finger into our box He makes waves. He violates the natural by the supernatural.
Now, it's amazing to me that there are some Christian theologians who have adopted the Webster definition. And they are saying the same thing, that even when Christ did miracles and even in the Old Testament when you have miracles, those are simply miracles that could be explained by physical law or natural law if we only knew those laws. And, in fact, Dr. Carnell said in his book that if a scientist would search long enough, at the end of the miracle he would find some natural law. Well, you know, if you do that, then you don't need supernatural, right? So man is trying to explain the unnatural by his own ignorance rather than by the supernatural.
What is a miracle? Let me give you a simple definition. A miracle is an interference with nature by a supernatural power. A miracle is something outside our box invading our little box, something outside our world coming into our world and making waves and ripples. Miracles are events in the external world wrought by the power of God. A miracle is God stepping into the universe, setting aside the normal laws of nature to do a supernature act. The Bible describes miracles usually, especially in the New Testament, in three terms: signs, wonders and mighty works. And therein you have the definition of miracles, really. They were mighty works to create wonder, to act as a sign.
What is a sign for? What is a sign for? To point to something. You know, when you're traveling and you arrive in Arizona, you don't climb up on the sign and say, "I'm now in Arizona," because the sign says "Welcome to Arizona." Or when you're going to Bakersfield and the sign says "Bakersfield," you don't sit up on the sign and say, "I'm in Bakersfield." No, that's just a sign pointing you to there. You haven't gotten there yet. Miracles are not an end to themselves. They're a what? They're a sign, and signs are for pointing somewhere.
And you know where miracles are supposed to point? Outside the box. Miracles are designed by God to invade the natural world, to show the natural world that there's a supernatural world. And if you continually try to explain miracles away by natural reasoning, what you're doing is just acting like an atheist. You're disallowing God. Miracles are mighty works to create wonder that points to God. That's the three terms that are used.
Now, if naturalism is true, naturalistic atheism, and if you believe there is no God, then all miracles are impossible, because there's nobody outside the box. Right? I mean, if it's only the natural world, if you believe in naturalism and you're just...that's it, in the box, period, there's nothing outside the box, there's no God, then you're not gonna have any miracles, because nothing can happen out there to invade the box. But I'll tell you one thing. You're gonna have a lot of trouble explaining where the box came from.
Now, watch this. And I think this is so basic. If you accept the fact that there is a spiritual supernatural power, if there is a source of creation outside the box, if there is somebody up there, then miracles are easily allowable, aren't they? Because if the supernatural is there, and by the very definition we are the natural and it is the supernatural, it can act upon the natural. So if you allow for any supernatural power outside, then you must allow for miracles, because a miracle is just the revelation that what's there is there.
Now, watch how all that comes down to this. If there is a God, then there must be what? Miracles. I mean, you wouldn't say, "God is," and then not let God do, say He's there but He's never done anything. Now, wait a minute. If God is, then God acts, because being is doing, right? When you stop doing, you stop being. If God is there, then miracles are valid. And if God created once, why can't He create again? If God did a miracle once, and, let's face it, if you didn't believe in any miracles at all but you believed in God, you'd have to believe in one miracle, and that's the miracle of what? Creation. That's got to be a miracle. If there was a God out there and there was nothing, and He made everything out of nothing, that's a miracle. So if you can allow Him to do one, then why would you worry if He did some more?
So, you see, anybody who believes in God must believe in miracles. So don't go to the Bible and say, "There are...I'll accept the Bible as the Word of God if you get rid of the miracles." That's ridiculous. That's like saying, "Okay, God, you can exist. You just can't do anything." Being is doing. You know what's amazing to me is we have these so-called Christian theologians who want to demythologize the Bible. They want to de-miracle it. They start at the beginning and they suck out all the miracles. And, you know, they say, "We believe in God." Well, that is so stupid. If you believe in God, then let Him do what He did. They're the ones who come along and say, "Jonah, you know, didn't get swallowed by a great fish. What really happened was there was a dinghy tied on the back of the boat and the name of the dinghy was Great Fish and they stuck him in the dinghy." That's George Adam Smith's explanation. Or I was reading William Barclay this week, and William Barclay said the feeding of the 5,000 was a wonderful miracle. You know what the miracle was? The miracle was that everybody was selfish, and when the little boy shared his lunch everybody felt guilty and they all shared their lunches. That's William Barclay. The miracle was, a whole lot of selfish people became sharers. That's what he says. Oh. You know what I would say to him if he were here? He's not. But you know what I'd say? I'd say, "Let me ask you one question. In your commentaries through the New Testament, you believe in God." "Yes." "You believe in a triune God." "Yes." And he does. "You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and His deity, full deity." "Yes." "You believe in His blood atonement on the cross. You believe in His resurrection." Oh, all of those. He believes in everything. He teaches the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of salvation. Then why in the world won't you let God be God and do a miracle? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Foolish. If God is, let Him act.
Now, you know something? If there is a God, then I believe He'll be doing something. Don't you? If there is a supernatural God, and I want to know that God, then I'm gonna find the book that talks about supernatural activity. Would you buy that? If there is a God and I want to know that God, then I'm gonna find the book that tells about a God who did things supernaturally. And you know where that book is? It's right here. You know, when I read the miracles in this Bible I say, "This has got to be the revelation of God, because look at the miracles." You take all the miracles out of it and you don't have God anymore. You've just got philosophy, and we don't need any more of that. When you look for the true sacred book, when you scan the ancient and sacred books of the world and you want to find the true one, it'll have to be a book containing miracles. It has to be. The book that reveals God has got to contain miracles, because the revelation of God is a miracle. It's the supernatural invading the natural, and that's miraculous.
Now, let me take it a step further, and you'll understand as we go, if this isn't falling into little slots in your brain. But in order for a miracle to really fit, it has to have three qualities. This is introduction. First of all, it must be sensible. And by that I mean it must be perceived by the senses. It wouldn't do any good for God to go in a corner and do a miracle where nobody knew, or for God to go off somewhere in the farthest region of the universe and do a few miracles. I mean, that wouldn't help anybody, would it? That wouldn't point to God. It wouldn't be a mighty work to create wonder as a sign toward God. No, He does those things which are sensible. And what I mean by that is a miracle, to be a legitimate miracle, must fit the senses. It must be perceivable, and it must have testimony to its perception. There must be something that somebody saw or heard or felt and gave testimony to.
Secondly, it must be very clearly a miracle. It must be very clearly the revelation of the power and the presence of God. It must transcend all natural law so that it has no other explanation. True miracles, then, beginningly, must be perceived by the senses. Secondly, they must be so strong that they clearly reveal God and they have no other explanation.
Thirdly, they must have a divine purpose. Miracles, to be viable, must have a divine purpose. And by that I just mean this. God isn't a magician going around doing tricks to entertain people. You know, Jesus would never do that, would He? He would never just entertain people. God is not doing miracles to appeal to human curiosity. God does not do miracles to entertain us. God does miracles to reveal to us His person. So miracles must be perceived by the senses. They must be clearly beyond any natural explanation at all. And they must have a divine purpose.
Now, if the Bible is a book of miracles, its miracles will be sensible miracles, perceived by the senses. They won't be abstract, weird things. They'll also be clear and strong in their revelation of God's presence. And, thirdly, they will have as their intent a divine purpose. And you know something? You open the Bible and you find that the Bible miracles fit those qualifications. And I read through this Bible and all these miracles and I say, "Wow. Those people perceived those things. They saw those things and gave testimony to what they saw. Those were credible people." You know, it isn't the quantity of witnesses that matters to me. It's the quality of them. Right? And they saw those and they believed that, and they wrote those down. And they never tried to defend them. They just wrote them down. They didn't say, "I know this is ridiculous, but I'm writing it anyway." And not only that, they were clearly the revelation of God, and that's the way the writers stated it. And, thirdly, they always had a divine purpose. Now, once you admit, as I said, the existence of God, who is the creator and the maker of everything, then you're not gonna set any limits on His creative power. I mean, if He's there, let Him do something. And if you admit that He created once, He can create again, and all miracles are are really creations, because every one of them is unique, isn't it? It's something that never existed before. It's outside the natural world. And so when I pick up a book, if I pick up a sacred book and it doesn't have miracles, I throw it away. Because if it doesn't have miracles, then it doesn't tell me about the supernatural invading the natural. And if it doesn't tell me about that, it's a human book. And if I do find a book with miracles, I want to make sure those miracles are perceived by the senses and credible witnesses, that they are strongly and clearly divine and have no other explanation, and, thirdly, that they have a purpose that is toward God. And so the Bible authenticates itself by the character of its miracles.
And I want to take you to the first miracle that God ever did in relation to man, and it's in Genesis, chapter 1. And we're gonna look at miracles that affected all men, miracles that affected nations and miracles that affected individuals, just for some categories. Now, first miracle, here it comes, verse 1. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." Now, you notice that the Bible starts with an assumption. The Bible starts out assuming that God is. Right? You say, "Well, why doesn't the Bible prove that?" Because that's built into every man. The knowledge of God is built into man, according to Romans 1. That's just basic. And, by the way, folks, let me hasten to say this. There is no argument in the Scripture for the existence of God. That is not a theory to be proven. That is a fact to be affirmed. The Bible never attempts to prove God is. The Bible affirms that He is. If somebody comes along and says, "There is no God," let him prove that. So when an atheist says to me, "I don't believe there's a God," I simply say, "I believe there's a God. The Bible affirms there's a God. You prove to me there's not a God." Can't do it. So let them prove it.
Now, notice this. If you accept the first sentence of the Bible, you have no other problem with a miracle. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." Listen, the word "created" there, barah, means to make out of nothing. Now, if you believe that God made everything out of nothing, that's a miracle. And if you allow that one in 1:1 of Genesis, then why would you get bothered by any other one in the entire Bible? Because, friends, that's the greatest one, in just pure volume. Can you imagine that God one day stepped out on the edge of nothing and made everything, by His Word? That's a miracle, the miracle of creation, the first miracle.
And, you know, as you study the passage, you go through chapter 1, you find it's amazing how the Spirit of God describes this. Everything is in that first verse. Every single category that science has for putting things is in that verse. It says in verse 2, "The earth was without form and void," tohu and bohu, emptiness and formlessness. "Darkness was on the face of the deep. The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters." God creates, and the creation is formless. Then the creation takes form in verses 3 to 13. God creates light, verse 3. And He calls it day and He calls the darkness night. Verse 6. "Let there be firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so." In creation, God put some water above and some water on the earth. Did you know that at this particular time in the earth, the earth was covered with a vapor? And the sun's rays, the rays that are destructive rays, were filtered out, and that's why everybody lived so long. That's why Methuselah lived over 900 years and Adam lived over 900 years, and that's where you get great, huge monstrous animals and gigantic plants, because the sun's rays were filtered out by this canopy of moisture that covered the earth, the waters above. And God divided the waters.
Verse 9, "And God said, 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear.' Then God created the land." So on the first day light, on the second day water and air and on the third day land and plants. Now, there's the form. On the next three days came the fullness. On the fourth day came the lights, the heaven, verse 14 says, divided so that there would be signs or seasons for days and years, there would be lights in the firmament, two great lights, "the greater light to rule the day," that's the sun, "the lesser light to rule the night," and He made the stars also. On the fifth day, the fullness of the land came, the fowls and the fish, and on the sixth day animals and man.
So you have, first of all, formlessness, in verse 2. In verses 3 to 13 you have form. And in verses 14 and following, clear to 27, really, you have fullness. Here is a fantastically detailed and beautiful description of creation. Now the question comes up that some people say, "Well, this is just a myth. This is just somebody's thoughts. This isn't how it happened." Let me just show you a couple interesting things.
This particular description in Genesis contains no scientific errors at all. Not one has ever been proven. And even the sequence of the creation matches what scientists have discovered. According to Romanes and McCosh, I'm quoting from their book, "The order in which"...and they're not believers, they're just scientists, apart from any faith in God..."The order in which the flora and the fauna," that's plants and animals, "are said by the Mosaic account to have appeared upon the earth corresponds with that which the theory of evolution requires and the evidence of geology proves.
And I'll tell you one thing. Moses, who wrote that, was no geologist. I'll tell you something else. He wasn't around when that happened. But God gave him true revelation. The eminent scientist Sir William Dawson says, and I quote, "The order of that vision of the creative work with which the Bible begins its history is so closely in harmony with the result worked out by geological investigations that the correspondences have excited marked attention and they've been justly regarded as establishing the common authorship of nature and the Bible." Scientists say that what is happening here in Genesis fits the facts. Now, science comes along and it says, however, the Bible says it happens in six days, and that's where they go bananas, see. They reject that because they've got a geological age system. They say 20 billion years ago the elements and the stars and the galaxies evolved. They don't tell you from what, but they just evolved. Five billion years ago, the earth and the solar system evolved. Three billion years ago, the evolution of life took place. One billion years ago, the evolution of multicellular life. Six hundred million years, the evolution of complex marine invertebrates. Three hundred and fifty million years ago, the evolution of marine vertebrates and land plants. Two hundred and fifty million years ago, the evolution of amphibians and insects. Two hundred million years ago, the evolution of reptiles and flowering plants. Don't ask me what connection they had. One hundred million years ago, the evolution of mammals and birds. Fifty million years ago, the evolutionary ancestors of apes and man. And three million years ago, modern man evolved. That's their timetable. Now, when you throw at them a six-day creation in the Book of Genesis, they have a little trouble. Their creation covers at least 20 billion years. Now, you say, "Well, where do they get this kind of stuff?" Well, they've got their little ways of dating. They base it on the fossil record. They say they find fossils in sedimentary rock, and so they determine that the fossils are a certain age because of the rock. And then they go the other way and say the rock's a certain age because of the fossils. And they've got all different kinds of things.
Well, some Christians come along and say, "My, we've got to accept this. These are scientists." So they dream up this thing called theistic evolution, or progressive creationism, which says, "We believe the Genesis account, only those weren't actual days. Those refer to great million of years of passing of time." I think God knows how to communicate. He knows what He's doing. If He said six days, that's what He meant, because God knows how to say something else besides that. He's not stuck. He's got a vocabulary.
Besides, I'll give you another interesting thought. I don't know if you ever read this verse in this light, but listen to Exodus 20:11. "For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth." Isn't that interesting? "In six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day." Now, you tell me, was the Jewish Sabbath an age of million years? The Jewish Sabbath was a day. And Moses, getting the word from God, just like God created in six days and rested on the seventh, so you work six days and rest on the seventh. Friends, the parallel is obvious. He didn't mean you work for 20 billion years and then you can take a million-year nap.
The miracle, then, is clear. It's sensible. You say, "Well, how can I verify the miracle of creation?" Pinch yourself. There you are. Look up. Look around you. I mean, it's obvious something did this. It's verifiable. It's sensible. It's clear. It proves God to me. I mean, what else? It has to prove God. Somebody had to make this.
You take your watch apart and put it in your pocket and keep rattling your pocket and see how long it takes before you hear a tick. Somebody who knows what he's doing has to put that thing together or it'll never tick, and the same thing is true of the world. It's absurd to think that everything came from nothing.
Just an interesting quote I took. It said in this particular book, "The writer of Genesis is not content with setting forth the fundamental steps of the creation of the universe in a general manner, but deliberately lists 13 basic steps of creation, and establishes a very distinct order in which they were carried out, and those are listed in Genesis 1. Science today has determined by careful research and with reference to the established fossil record that the 13 steps of creation outlined in Genesis are not only correctly named, but in their correct order. The man on the street seems somehow to have the idea that the fossil record discredits the Bible, while actually it offers a convincing confirmation of its supernatural knowledge."
Here is a proposition worth your serious consideration. Without the advantages of the fossil record and most recent centuries of research, it is estimated by Dr. Peter Stoner that anyone would only have one chance in 31 times 10 to the 20th power, that's 31 with 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 zeroes, he would only have that one chance in 31 times 10 to the 20th power of determining those 13 steps and putting them in the right order. Moses put those in the right order without knowing one word about science. But God knew the way He did it. And even science, as blind as it is to origins, can discover the sequence. And when it discovers it, it verifies exactly the Word of God. That's exciting.
You say, "But what about these dating things? They've got radiocarbons, and they've got potassium-argon and strontium-rubidium and thorium-lead and all these ways to do it." And I read a fascinating thing in a magazine called Science, and this is what it said. It said recently they dated some lava flows from Kilauea, which is in Hawaii, the volcano. And this is a quote. "The lava samples were deduced to be 22 million years old on the basis of potassium, or, possibly, 200 years old." Slight margin.
Another interesting thing that I discovered is that the present growth rate of population is up to about 2 percent a year. Now, with 3.5 billion people in the world, and growing at a rate of 2 percent, that presents some interesting statistics. On the evolutionary assumption, what is the number of years needed to generate 3.5 billion people? We've got that many. Now, if you take a uniformitarian view of evolution, how many years do we need to get this many people? Because that's what's happened, they say. Evolution has gone on and on, and man's 3 million years old. He's been evolving. You know how many years you need to get 3.5 billion people on a uniformitarian basis at 2 percent a year? Eleven hundred. That would take us back to the 800s. That's all.
Well, let's say, well, maybe we didn't go 2 percent. Maybe we only went half a percent. Okay, you need 4,300 years. Forty-three hundred years you could generate 3.5 billion people. Hmm. You know something? If people only grew at a half of a percent for one million years, the total population would be 10 to the 2,155th power. You say, what's that? Well, there are only 10 to the 80th power electrons in the universe. You don't need much time to get 3.5 billion people. Listen, this is a miracle. And you know what? I don't mind that, because that tells me God is there. Let me take you to a second miracle. Look in your Bible, Genesis 6. Genesis 6 and 7, you have the second great miracle in the Book of the Law, the Pentateuch, and that's the Flood. Now, folks, that's a miracle. You know, here's God telling Noah to build that floating coffin, and that's what it was, dimension-wise, 450 by 75 by 45 is about the dimensions of a good coffin, and build it out in the middle of the desert. And then God created a miracle. Fantastic, what happened. God performed a wonder.
Go to chapter 7. We'll look for just a minute. "The Lord said to Noah, 'Come thou and all thy house into the Ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.'" It was one thing to build the Ark, you know, and keep saying, "I know God is in this." But then when they all went in and sat there that was another act of faith, I suppose. "Of every clean beast thou shall take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female, fowls," and He tells him about all these animals. And then some people say, "Oh, that is so ridiculous." How is this guy gonna herd these animals? How do the animals know whether they're male or female, and how do they determine who gets to go and who gets drowned? You know, all these ridiculous things. Listen, that's no problem for the God who made those animals. God has a lot less trouble with animals than He does with people.
There's an interesting statement. I think it's Isaiah 1:3. It says, "The ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib, but Israel doesn't know me. My people don't understand." Don't knock the animals. God just organized the animals. They all went in there. And an incredible thing happened. God just broke up everything. Verse 11, "God broke up the great deep." Water just surged up, and "the windows of heaven," and so forth, the firmament around the earth broke and came down to the earth. The vapor was ended. And that's why, after the flood, life was immediately shortened. Because the vapor that protected from the sun's rays was eliminated. And the tremendous flood took place, 40 days of rain and 150 days of water.
And you know something, folks? This is fantastic. Because water covered the entire earth. Mount Ararat was 17,000 feet high, and water covered that mountain. And you don't pile water up like this. Water seeks its own level. It's a universal flood. And that's where you get sedimentary rock, and that's where you get the fossils. They aren't fossils from all different kinds of ages. They're just things that all kind of zapped together in the Flood. You don't need great million-year Ice Ages to form various things. All you need is one super-flood. And the very existence of fossils proves catastrophism. Rhodes, Zim and Shaffer, who've written a book on fossils, again, they're unbelievers, say, "To become fossilized, a plant or animal must usually have had hard parts, such as bones, shell or wood, and it must be buried quickly to prevent decay, and it must be undisturbed throughout long periods." It must be buried quickly, rapid catastrophe.
The Ark landed on Mount Ararat, 17,000 feet high, after 150 days of floating. And it had another two and a half months before the tops of other mountains could be seen. Now, this is a miracle. This is a miracle of flood that covered the entire world. You say, "What makes you believe it covered the world?" Well, the very fact that it couldn't cover Mount Ararat, if water seeks its own level, unless it covered everything else. Plus, it says in II Peter 3:5, "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by which the world that then was was overflowed with water." The world was overflowed with water, says Peter.
It's a miracle. And it's verifiable today. Do you know that even today, and I talked to a guy on the phone the other day who had just returned from a summer expedition that even today they're looking for the Ark? And Navarro supposedly has photographs of the Ark. Now, I don't know whether they're gonna find it, but it's interesting. Stories also that find great interest to me are the fact that almost every part of the world has stories of a great flood. Everywhere from Europe to the South Seas and the Americas to the Far East, the people have stories of a great flood. There are witnesses to corroborate it. The witness of the fossils, the witness of the sedimentary rock, the witnesses of all these flood accounts all over the world. A miracle. Let God be God. Another miracle, Genesis 11. "And the whole earth was one language and one speech. It came to pass, as they journeyed from the East, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there." Hey, that's all right, they have a city there, I guess. "And they said to one another, 'Come, let's take brick and burn the brick and make stones and slime to put it all together, and let's build a city and a tower whose top shall reach to heaven.'" And here they got a little carried away. Gonna build a ziggurat. This is a pagan tower. They're gonna worship a false God. Self-glorification. Idolatry.
So the Lord did an interesting thing. Verse 6, "The Lord said, 'Behold, the people are one, and they have all one language, and this they began to do, and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. Come, let us go down and there confound their language.'" This is a little inter-Trinitarian conversation, "'Come, let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord scattered them abroad from there upon the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel." And, of course, the word comes from the Hebrew word meaning to confuse. The Lord confounded the language of all the earth. Now, that's where languages came from. God just scattered everybody. God said, "I'll break up their idolatry. I'll scatter them all over the world, and they all speak different languages and nobody'll be able to get together on anything."
One of the great promises of the millennial kingdom says that that's gonna be reversed and everybody's gonna speak the same language in the kingdom. Isn't that gonna be great? That's a miracle. But you know something? What's exciting about that miracle is it's a very clear and very lucid and very responsible explanation of where languages came from. I mean, if there wasn't anything like that, they would all have started out with an original language, and it would've kind of just been variations and so forth and so on, and it wouldn't have been much different anywhere, but all of a sudden, bang, historically there's people all over everywhere speaking very different languages. So some miracles affected everybody. They affect us, all of those. Creation affected us. Here we are. The Flood affected us. We're living in the earth that withstood that flood. And Babel affected us. We speak English.
Let me take you a step further. Second thing. Miracles that affected nations. And this is just to give you a look at it. Some miracles affected nations. And just in the time of Moses you could have 25 of these. But let me go to Exodus 14, and let's look at the miracle of the Red Sea. Remember, the children of Israel escaped form Egypt and Pharaoh was chasing them. And believe me, folks, if there's any doubt about this miracle, there were an awful lot of witnesses, a whole nation of them, some people say as many as 3 million people. Plenty of witnesses. Here is, again, a visible miracle with no other explanation than that it is miraculous and it reveals God as the Savior. It has a divine purpose. It shows God as Savior. Creation revealed God as Creator. The Flood revealed God as Savior. Babel revealed God as Judge. All of them a divine end, a divine purpose, pointing to God. And here, the crossing of the Red Sea, again, reveals God as Deliverer and Judge, for He delivers Israel and judges the Egyptians.
Now, there have always been people who criticize this miracle. Let's look at verse 13 and start there. "Moses said to the people, 'Fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace.' And the Lord said to Moses, 'Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward. But lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it, and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.'" He's right at the sea. Pharaoh's at the back, pressing. He's got nowhere to go but to the sea. He says, "How are we gonna get there?" And the Lord says, "Just put your stick out there and the thing'll divide and you can walk through on dry land." "And, behold, I'll harden the hearts of the Egyptians and they shall follow them, and I will get me honor over Pharaoh and over all his hosts, over his chariots, over his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." Now here God, again, is revealing Himself. He is doing a miracle to reveal that He is God. And, believe me, there must have been some real talk going on back there in the capital of Egypt when they realized that their whole army was drowned. After they had had all the plagues that had revealed God, they were probably pretty well convinced that that God was truly God. "The angel of God who went before the camp of Israel," verse 19, "removed and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud went from before their face and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these, so that the one came not near the other all night." God just plopped the Shekinah Glory between the Egyptians and the Israelites so the Israelites could have a comfortable night. Well, you know what happened. Verse 21, "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all night, made the sea dry land and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground. The waters were a wall unto them on their right side and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots and his horsemen. It came to pass that in the morning watch, the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians and took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily." It may indicate here that they got bogged down. It says, "So that the Egyptians said, 'Let us flee from the face of Israel.'" They tried to retreat, perhaps, "For the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians. And the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their horsemen.' Moses stretched forth his hand," and you know the story. The sea closed up and drowned them all. Now, folks, that's a miracle. There's no other explanation.
Now, there have been some offered. Let me suggest. Somebody who said, and I was reading it this week, that actually what happened here is that at the north end of the Red Sea you've got a little area called the Bitter Lakes. And the Bitter Lakes are sitting at the north end of the Red Sea. And supposedly this guy says that the Bitter Lakes, though they were disconnected, had a marshy connection in those days. And between the Bitter Lakes and the top of the Red Sea was a little marshy area two or three inches deep. And what really happened was they waded through the marshy area. And in fact a southeast wind blew up the channel, now, watch this, and the stiffness of the wind held the water in the Bitter Lakes, and the tide ebbed away in the Red Sea, and with a stiff wind holding the Bitter Lakes up, and the tide ebbing in the Red Sea, it left a little bit of dry and they kind of waded through the marshy two or three inches. Friends, that's weak. Listen, friends. If the children of Israel walked across a shallow, marshy area, that leaves a greater miracle. You explain to me how the well-trained Egyptian army drowned in two inches of water. I'll tell you what that strong east wind was. It's the breath of God. That's what it was. God walled it up on both sides. It's a miracle.
Now, why do you want to worry about the miracle? If you believe in God, let the miracle alone. If God is, let Him do. Let Him reveal Himself. It's so stupid for puny little picayune man to sit down here and say, "No, no, God, we won't allow that. Must explain it rationally." Let me give you another miracle, Exodus 16. This is the miracle of angel food cake. You remember this one. Manna. Exodus, chapter 16, verses 14 to 22 tell us about it. And I'm not gonna read it except to just say you remember that in the wilderness for 40 years God provided manna. God fed them with something that He created. Let Him be God. Listen, folks, the very fact that this Bible records a miracle tells me it's God's book. Right?
Let me tell you some miracles that affected individuals. Turn to Numbers 22. Not only the world and nations, but individuals. This is the miracle regarding Balaam's talking ass. Remember him? Interesting. I mean, more than interesting. Fascinating. Verse 21 of Numbers 22, "And Balaam rose up in the morning and saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab." Now, he's off, and he's a prophet for hire, and he's doing the wrong thing. "And God's anger was kindled because he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the way." The angel of the Lord just stood right in front of Balaam. He's going along, riding on his ass, and Balaam's moving along, and the angel stands there. Two servants were with him. "And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and the sword in his hand." The animal sees the angel. "And he turned aside out of the way and went into a field." And it says, "And Balaam smote the ass for turning out of the way." "What are you doing?" And this thing is going off in a field. And Balaam hasn't seen a thing, but the animal sees the angel of the Lord there with a big sword. "And the angel of the Lord stood in the path of the vineyards." The animal gets over in a vineyard, and he's wandering around over there, and the angel comes over there. "And he stands in the path of the vineyard," 24, "a wall is on the side...on one side, and a wall is on that side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord," now he's in a little narrow area with a wall on each side, and the angel's in the middle, and there's nowhere to go, so what happens? It says in verse 25, "When the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself onto the wall and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. And he smashed it again." "What are you doing?" He couldn't see anything. "And the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam, and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff." Now, he is really mad at that animal. Stupid animal. What is that animal doing? This is a familiar animal. I mean, he's probably ridden the thing every day. All of a sudden the animal's gone crazy, wandering all over, smashing his feet into the wall. Well, you want to know what happened? It's very interesting. Verse 28 says, "And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said unto Balaam, 'What have I done to you, that you smote me these three times?'" What's your problem, Balaam? I mean, you know, you don't think God has a sense of humor? You say, "Nobody would believe that. No sane individual would ever believe that."
You know, one of the most sane individuals in all the Bible, one of the most precious saints of God that ever lived, was the apostle Peter. Read his books and see if he was sane. Read his books and see if he was lucid. And listen to him as he says this. Talking of false teachers, he says in II Peter 2:15, "who have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, who was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass, speaking with a man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet." Peter believed in that miracle, and Peter's a credible witness, folks. I believe it's a miracle.
And so he says, "Why are you hitting me? What have I done to you?" And Balaam said unto the ass, "Because thou hast mocked me. I would there were a sword in my hand, for I'd kill you." You know, the miracle isn't that the ass spoke to Balaam, it's that Balaam answered. I mean, I think I would've fallen flat on the ground, you know. Now, you know, what is a critic gonna do with this? I mean, the guy wants to believe that there's a God, but he doesn't want to believe something like this. So I checked on some of what the critics say. Some of them say he was in a trance. Balaam was in a trance when the animal spoke. And I thought to myself, "It'd be very difficult to be in a trance after a donkey just smashed your leg into a wall. Very unlikely." One other critic said that Balaam had a habit of talking to himself, and he had such a habit of taking to himself that he really is just replying to himself and the witness mistook it for the talking of the animal. Somebody else said that he was so used to talking to the donkey that when the donkey brayed back to him, he was so familiar with the style of the bray that he interpreted what the donkey was saying.
"So Balaam said unto him, 'Because you mocked me. I would there were a sword in my hand, for I'd kill you.' And the ass said unto Balaam, 'Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever accustomed to do this unto you?'" "Well, give me a break. Have I ever done it before? Before you kill me, this is the first time." Like the joke, you know, "That's one." And he said, "No, you never have done this before." "And the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw." Saw the angel with the sword drawn. It's a miracle.
I'll tell you something. It got through to that guy. You know what's amazing about this miracle? It's so interesting. The donkey didn't say some great, profound truth. The donkey talked like the donkey. I mean those were kind of the thoughts that the donkey must have had if he had thoughts. God used a miracle to stop this false prophet. And what I want you to notice about this miracle that just astounds me is the total lack of defensiveness in putting it here. You know, if I were writing this down, I would say, "Now, folks, I'm about to say something that you're not going to believe. There was this guy riding a donkey." You know, you would have to throw a few little statements in there to prepare them for the jolt. But you know something amazing about Bible writers? No matter how bizarre and how strange and how weird the miracle, they never defended. They only stated. They only affirmed it.
Think of it. This is Moses who wrote this. Moses. Moses. The genius of that man. That man who was raised to the elevation of the highest place in Pharaoh's court. That man who, with the brilliant genius of leadership, led at least several million people through the wilderness. That man who had given himself over to God to the place where he was used of God to communicate revelation regarding the Ten Commandments and many other things of law to set in order those things which God demanded of His people. That man of the highest level who wrote the Pentateuch with all of its deep truths and great doctrines, who wrote all the sweeping history of the beginnings. That man who wrote the astute account of the creation. That man who gave God's great law, without any self-consciousness and without one defensive statement, writes a story about a conversation with a donkey. There's something exciting about that. That's a miracle. And that tells me God is acting. And if God is acting in this Book, folks, that's the kind of book I want, because I want to know God. Right?
Let me give you another one. Elisha. II Kings 4. We could talk about several with Elijah and Elisha. But Elisha. Shunammite woman, son died. Remember? Verse 18 would be a start. II Kings 4:18, "And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that it went out to his father to the reapers. He said unto his father, 'My head, my head." And he said to a lad, 'Carry him to his mother.'" Typical father. "And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon and then died." Must have been a sad scene, don't you think? Holding her little boy until he died. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Remember, she had a prophet's chamber that she provided for Elisha? She shut the door on the little boy and went out. "And she called to her servant"...to her husband, I should say, "and said, 'Send me, I pray, one of the young men and one of the asses that I may run to the man of God and come again.'" I have to go find the man of God, Elisha. "And he said, 'Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It's neither new moon nor Sabbath.'" There were certain times when they had meetings. She said, "Oh, it's well. Everything's fine." She didn't want to break his heart, didn't want to grieve him, didn't want to disturb him. Tremendous faith. "She saddled the ass, said to her servant, 'Drive, go forward. Slacken not thy riding for me except I bid thee.' And so off they went and came to the man of God in Mount Carmel. And it came to pass when the man of God saw her afar that he said to Gehazi, his servant, 'Behold, over there is the Shunammite. Run, now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, "Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?"' And she answered, 'It is well.'" Boy, that's faith, isn't it? "And when she came to the man of God, to the hill, she caught him by the feet, and Gehazi came near to thrust her away, and the man of God said, 'Let her alone, for her soul is bitter within her and the Lord hath hidden it from me and hath not told me.'" She's got a problem, but God hasn't revealed it to me. "And she said, 'Did I desire a son of my Lord? Did I did not say, "Do you deceive me?"' Then he said to Gehazi, 'Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand and go thy way. If thou meet any man, greet him not. If any greet thee, answer him not again, and lay my staff upon the face of the child.' And the mother of the child said, 'As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I'll not leave thee.' "And he arose and followed her, and Gehazi passed on before them and laid the staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing. Wherefore, he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, 'The child has not awakened.' And when Elisha was come into the house, behold the child was dead and lay upon his bed. He went in therefore and shut the door upon the two of them and prayed unto the Lord. "And he went up and lay upon the child and put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon his hands, and stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child became warm. Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro and went up and stretched himself upon him, and the child sneezed seven times." The first act of recovered respiration. And the child opened his eyes. And he said, "Get the lady." And when she came, he says, "Take up your son." That's a miracle of resurrection. You say, "No, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." That's what the critics say. "Sure. You know, the guy was fading fast, and he got up there and gave him mouth to mouth." You know what it says in that passage twice? It says he was what? Dead. He was dead. It's a miracle. This isn't just a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This isn't a semi-coma, where the body heat releases the life. Not at all. Resurrection. Now, if you believe in God, why do you worry about the resurrection? Let Him be God. You could talk about Daniel and his friends. Threw them in the fiery furnace in chapter 3. You know what the critics say about that? They say a moist wind came and drove the fire over to one side. The only problem with that was that the fiery furnace was in the ground and you were dropped in from the top. And you know what happened to all the guys who dropped them in? They burned to death. Have you ever read that in Daniel 3? All the people who put those guys in the fiery furnace burned to death. If it was that hot outside, there's no moist wind blowing inside.
So there were miracles affecting all people, nations, individuals. You say, "Are there any of them in the New Testament?" Oh. In the New Testament, Peter and John cured a lame man. Peter and the others were delivered from prison. Philip was carried through the air by the Holy Spirit. Paul healed a cripple. Paul cast out spirits and healed the sick. Paul was raised from the dead. Paul raised Uticus from the dead. And so it goes.
Listen, friends. This is a book about God. You know how I know it's about God? Because it has what? Miracles. If you take away my miracles, you've taken away God. Creation doesn't have to be evolution. The Flood doesn't have to be a local rainstorm where the drains backed up. The confounding of languages isn't a myth. The parting of the Red Sea isn't wading through a two-inch marsh. Manna doesn't have to be tamarisk twig globs. Balaam's ass doesn't have to be a trance. Elisha's raising of the dead boy is not merely revival with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The fiery furnace isn't just put out by a moist wind. Let God be God. Let Him act.
And, beloved, this is the record of His acts. And because it's miraculous, I believe it's divine. The miracles don't send me away from the Bible. They drive me into it. Because without miracles, you have no God. You have no Bible. You have no salvation. You have no hope. But with this miraculous Book, proven as it is to be God's revelation, there is hope.
Father, we thank you tonight for this time to share. How our hearts rejoice in the veracity of your Book. Oh, God, your power just awes us. How thrilled we are to let you be God. Thank you for the things you've done in the past that prove who you are. Thank you for the things we await in the future. Thank you for making us your children. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.
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Photo #34255
Last Name: Lambert
First Name : Jennie
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Subject's City: Colfax
Subject's State: IN
Subject's County: Clinton
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Date: 1901-1920
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Comments: Jennie Lambert (Nee: Shannon) | Colfax IN | 1901-1920 | Comments: A note on the back of this photo reads, "This is Dr. Lambert & Wife." I believe this is Dr. Isaac Lambert and his wife Jennie who were residents of Colfax, Clinton Co., Indiana. Checking the 1910 census, the Lamberts lived two doors down from my great- great grandparents, George & Flora (Murphy) Davis.
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Cold Truths
From the microstructure of snow to the massiveness of ice sheets, from fundamental science to practical applications, from Thayer's ice lab to the earth's polar regions, Thayer researchers are uncovering what snow and ice reveal about the world.
By Elizabeth Kelsey, Lee Michaelides, and Karen Endicott
COLD TRUTH: Ice Creeps and Fractures
RESEARCHER: Professor Erland Schulson
Professor Erland Schulson opened his ice lab in the basement of Cummings Hall 29 years ago to study the basic physics and mechanics of ice. "The object is to understand the physical processes that lead to creep and fracture," says Schulson. "But this is not done in isolation of the world's issues. Issues are driving the work."
Shortly after arriving at Dartmouth, Schulson, who has a doctorate in metallurgical engineering, was intrigued by the work being done a few miles north at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and decided he wanted an ice lab at Thayer to do complementary research. Funding from Mobil Oil and the Army helped establish Dartmouth's Ice Research Laboratory (IRL), and a $7.2-million grant from the Navy funded a major upgrade in 1987.
Schulson still directs the IRL, which is currently outfitted with eight custom cold rooms, various presses, a cold-room machine shop, an electron microscope, cameras, an X-ray micro-CT scanner, and a multi-axial loading system that remains unique in the world.
What changed over the years are the issues driving the work. Originally the IRL worked on problems related to oil exploration and national defense. "The Navy was very concerned about submarines surfacing through the ice," says Schulson. Research related to the oil industry, dormant for a while, is back in the forefront. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) recently awarded the lab $500,000 to study how Arctic sea ice breaks as it flows and pushes against engineered structures. Through micromechanical modeling and experimentation, the IRL will identify physical characteristics of ice conditions and quantify the rate at which ice becomes fractured and weakened. "The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and about 30 percent of the world's undiscovered gas are located above the Arctic Circle—most of which is beneath the Arctic Ocean. The ice forms a thick 1–3-meter mobile cover on the ocean, and therein lies the challenge to recovery," says Schulson.
Part of his research focuses on climate change. Given that polar regions are canaries in the global climate coal mine, scientists want to know what will happen as polar ice sheets melt and crack. Climate-change questions also circle back to the work done for BOEMRE: as ice fractures, what will be the impact on the industrial infrastructure?
Schulson's ice expertise has interested NASA over the years. After the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, NASA consulted Schulson about ways to prevent ice from building up on the external fuel tanks. Now the space agency is funding Schulson to study the icy surfaces of Europa, Jupiter's largest moon, and Enceladus, the second moon in the Saturn system.
It seems amazing that research done on ice blocks at Thayer applies to the ice crust of Europa some 367 million miles from earth. But comparing photos of ice in his lab, Landsat satellite photos of Arctic ice, and photos of Europa, Schulson sees similar fracture patterns. His conclusion: "Patterns of fracture are independent of scale."
As with many emerging areas of knowledge, not everyone agrees with Schulson. "Some geophysicists are skeptics," he says.
But NASA wants to learn more about the ice on Europa because "the conditions are there for a form of life," says Schulson. "NASA has engaged the IRL to get more information about the creeping, fracturing, and frictional sliding of ice because underneath the ice there may be an ocean. And where there is an ocean, the potential exists for a form of life."
Schulson, coauthor with Paul Duval of Creep and Fracture of Ice (Cambridge University Press 2009), the first complete account of these mechanical properties, brings his appreciation for ice into the classroom. "Ice is a wonderful teacher," he says. "Ice is a transparent material, and you can see cracks in ice, whereas you can't see cracks in other brittle materials. We can understand ice and relate it to other materials, like rock." (In fact, the National Science Foundation is funding Schulson and Dartmouth earth sciences professor Carl Renshaw to study faulting in ice for insight into how faults form and earthquakes develop in the earth's crust.)
"For someone learning about materials science, the clarity of ice allows students to see inside ice as it deforms under pressure," says Schulson. "This has been one of the most intellectually satisfying parts of this whole thing—to be able to relate what we see in ice to other materials and then what we see in ice in the lab to what we see in ice in the field."
—Lee Michaelides
COLD TRUTH: Ice Resembles Metals
RESEARCHER: Professor Ian Baker
Professor Ian Baker doesn't mind admitting that he fell into ice work at Thayer. "I started reading about dislocations in ice really because of Erland Schulson's work here, and then I got interested in this question about how ice deforms on a fundamental level," he says. "Nobody has answered it yet. Nobody knows for sure."
Baker applied what he did know—the physics of various metals and intermetallic compounds—to ice.
He began by using transmission electron microscopy to study how ice changes over time. Despite using liquid nitrogen (a frigid -346°F) to keep the ice from melting, Baker encountered a technical problem. "Ice suffers tremendous beam damage in the electron microscope," he says. "Ionization damage breaks the bonds in the ice, and the bonds reorient themselves. You end up with voids that form very rapidly in the ice and change the defect structure."
Next he tried synchrotron X-ray topography. "The X-ray technique images the defects like the electron microscopy, but it doesn't use electrons, so it's less of a problem. You do need a synchrotron, so I used the Brookhaven National Laboratory's synchrotron," he says. "We could do real-time experiments, deforming the ice and looking at how the defects moved in the ice. That led me to look at the effect of impurities on the dislocations' motion. We added dopants, like hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid, to pure ice to see how they affected the velocity at which these defects moved."
He moved on to studying the effects of an impurity that abounds in nature: sulfuric acid from decomposition, volcanic eruptions, and other phenomena. "It turns out that sulfuric acid has a really dramatic effect. It makes ice softer and more ductile, which means you can deform it more before it cracks," Baker says. "Then the question was: We can show this in the lab, but does this have any relevance to ice out in nature?"
For answers he looked at ice cores. "Natural ice consists of individual crystals that make up a big block of ice. A lot of people think that the impurities end up in the interfaces between the crystals. We found that the impurities are both in the interfaces and in the crystal itself," he says, giving credit to Daniel Cullen '86 Th'02, who was then his graduate student and is now a lab manager at Thayer.
The work necessitated creative lab techniques, including new ways of preparing ice specimens for scanning electron microscopy and using a confocal scanning optical microscope. "Instead of shining a light over something, you scan a beam over the surface. At each point you can get a signal; you can get the Raman spectrum from it so you can determine the impurities in the ice," Baker says. "Later we were able to get the electron backscatter patterns from ice. We were the first people to do that."
The work put Baker's ice lab on the map. "We've got a lab that can characterize ice microstructurally in the same way that people can do metals. We're pretty much the only lab in the world that does that," he says. "We've had a lot of collaborators in the last couple of years who come along because we can do things that nobody else has got that setup for."
A member of the ice core advisory group for the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver, Baker is now studying ice from Greenland to learn more about the microstructural changes that occur when ice sheets flow. He's also collaborating with Professor Mary Albert on gases in firn, old snow that hasn't become ice. "People look at trapped gases to determine past climate. One question is: When were those gases actually trapped?" he says. "Pores are open to the atmosphere to quite a depth, so as the wind blows over the top of the ice sheet, the air goes into these pores and exchanges with what's in there, so the pores generally are much younger than the ice surrounding them. The pores are not all closed off at the same time. Some are probably closed off close to the surface and some are closed off 70 meters down, so we're trying to figure that out by relating permeability measurements to the microstructure."
Meanwhile, Baker works on metals as well, including iron oxide nanoparticles for use in cancer treatments and magnetic materials for energy applications.
There's no disconnect for him. "When I work on ice or snow I come at it from a materials scientist point of view," he says. "I look at things at the microscopic level to understand what's going on. The metallurgical literature feeds into a lot of the behavior. The details are different, but the overall concepts are similar."
—Karen Endicott
COLD TRUTH: Ice Records Climates
RESEARCHER: Professor Mary Albert
To understand climate conditions today, scientists can measure carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases in the atmosphere. To know what the earth's climate was like thousands of years ago, researchers can consult a natural archive: air bubbles trapped in polar ice sheets.
Professor Mary Albert studies those ancient gases in ice cores from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. "I'm really interested in how we can decode the climate record that is in ice sheets to learn about atmospheric gases and their role of abrupt climate change from the past," she says. "We can better understand the present if we know what happened naturally in the past."
Albert, executive director of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program Office, does a lot of her work on firn, accumulations of old snow. She focuses on how the physical aspects of firn affect gas trapping. "The entrapment process affects what gases get trapped. How air mixes depends on the structure of firn," she says. "Understanding the snow physics and the mass transfer and the chemical transport allows us to figure out how the gases were trapped and what the gas concentrations mean."
When Albert and her students drill an ice core, they look for a site that is so cold that it is dry, has a lot of snow accumulation, and has the atmospheric circulation patterns to answer the problems they are trying to solve. "The atmospheric pattern from North America goes over Greenland," she explains, "so the Greenland ice sheet is a good indicator of chemical pollution from North America and from China. For gases that are globally mixed, we might go to Antarctica for carbon dioxide, for example, for records we know are in the atmosphere."
The depth of the drilling also depends on the question being asked. If the questions are associated with industry, Albert and her team only need to drill 100 to 200 meters. If they want to know what happened at the end of the last ice age, they must drill down two miles. "The oldest ice we've had in an ice core so far is 800,000 years," she says. "But we think there are other sites in Antarctica that go back a million years."
After Albert and her team drill ice cores—samples one meter long and 10–20 centimeters across—they bring them back to CRREL's cold rooms for analysis. (Albert previously worked at CRREL on snow physics and modeling of snow for army applications.) They view the cores on a light table to detect annual layering. They also measure the layers' density and permeability, assessing the interconnected pore space in the snow and firn, which is related to the transport of gases. Her group also does gas diffusion experiments and microstructure analysis at Thayer. Albert's partners at other universities measure the content of the bubbles for carbon dioxide and mercury levels. Interpreting ice cores "is a team effort because it's a complicated problem," Albert says.
"It's really amazing that snow and ice that falls in the polar regions in Greenland and Antarctica can serve as an archive of climate for over hundreds of thousands of years," Albert says. "The snow and ice on the polar ice sheets give us the highest-resolution climate record that exists."
—Elizabeth Kelsey
COLD TRUTH: Ice Amplifies Climate Change
RESEARCHER: Professor Donald Perovich
Donald Perovich's 32 years of Arctic ice study have taken him cruising on U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker ships for weeks on end in the Beaufort Sea, diving under sea ice, and walking on ice floes.
Perovich, a glaciologist who works at CRREL and has been a longtime visiting professor at Thayer, studies sea ice as both an indicator and a potential amplifier of climate change.
Sea ice cover is a strong proxy indicator of climate change, Perovich says, "because it covers millions of square kilometers—but it's thin. In a warming climate we'd expect the ice to retreat. In a cooling climate we'd expect it to advance. By keeping track of how much area is covered by sea ice, month by month, year by year, we can get an idea if there's a net warming or net cooling in the Arctic."
For the past 30 years, satellites have monitored the sea and can show which areas are composed of ice or water. Predictably, Arctic ice expands in the winter, covering around 15-million square kilometers and retreats in the summer, shrinking to 5–8-million square kilometers.
But Perovich and his colleagues aren't interested in the change of seasons; instead, they want to know how the amount of ice has changed over time.
"The satellite data tell a really great story," he says. "If we look at the overall trend, there's been a decline. And what makes it really interesting is that the decline is accelerating."
The acceleration doesn't mean that the ice reliably decreases each year; just like harsh New England winters, Perovich points out, there can be variations from year to year. In 1980, Arctic sea ice covered 7.8-million square kilometers, roughly the size of the continental United States. In 2007 Arctic sea ice was at a record low of 4.2-million square kilometers. "In 2007 it was as though the entire U.S. east of the Mississippi had melted away along with all the states from Minnesota south to Louisiana, plus North Dakota and part of South Dakota," says Perovich. "That's a really strong signal that the area covered by ice is decreasing."
And of the ice that does remain, he says, records show that it is getting thinner. "As an indicator, the sea ice is sending a pretty strong signal that there's warming going on in the Arctic," he says.
Perovich explains that sea ice is also an amplifier of climate change through a process known as albedo feedback: the amount of light reflected off its surface. He studies ice-albedo feedback through models, satellite data, and field experiments in the Arctic, where he walks on ice floes to take measurements. "You get a detector, you measure how much sunlight is coming in, you measure how much is reflected, and you divide. It's important because the driving force of the earth's climate is the sun, and how much of that sunlight is reflected by the surface, the albedo, is the key parameter in climate change."
Snow-covered ice reflects 85 percent of the sunlight, Perovich explains, but melting ice results in open ocean that reflects only seven percent of the sunlight. "You go from a very good reflector to a very poor reflector," he says. "The ocean absorbs more sunlight, more water gets heated, more ice is melted, the albedo lowers, and you get a feedback system that is really significant."
Perovich, whose projects are funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says, "The polar regions really give a lot of insight into climate change. They offer a prism to the past, present, and future. My ultimate goal is to understand climate feedback processes, because what happens in the Arctic doesn't necessarily stay in the Arctic."
—Elizabeth Kelsey
COLD TRUTH: Robots Map Crevasses
RESEARCHER: Professor Laura Ray
Enabling technology. That's the key to understanding why Professor Laura Ray started thinking about robots for polar environments in 2004. Previously she did pure research on artificial intelligence for robots. Then, she says, Thayer colleague Mark Lessard brought her an idea for "a solar-powered rover that could be on the ice sheet all summer under its own power and carry instruments for what others want to study." Lessard, now a professor at the University of New Hampshire, wanted to gather data for studies of the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. Ray got interested in engineering a robot that could do the job.
"They do their work in Antarctica where the observation points are so few and far between it's like having the biggest lake in the world and putting a thermometer in one place and saying what the temperature is," says Ray. "You can't just do that."
You can, however, build a robot to do the job. She secured a National Science Foundation grant to develop a proof of concept for a robot that could rove the ice sheet 24/7. Ray and Thayer Adjunct Professor James Lever, a mechanical engineer at CRREL, concluded that they could build a prototype for about $15,000.
The result—known as the Cool Robot—looks like a box on wheels. "For the Cool Robot our ultimate goal is to demonstrate that it can go several hundred kilometers trouble-free and collect scientific data that are useful. The roving scientific platform would be a significant achievement," says Ray.
Ray's lab built a second robot, called Yeti, in conjunction with CRREL, to negotiate around crevasses, a danger to anyone working on ice sheets. Traveling in front of a convoy, Yeti takes the burden off human interpretation of ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements. "GPR is almost like taking an X-ray of the ground. A radar operator working as long as 10 hours per shift must interpret the radar," says Ray. If the operator detects danger ahead, "you have a couple of seconds to stop the vehicle."
But a 10-hour shift is nothing for a robot. It never gets tired. Moreover, when Yeti spots a crevasse, its software can direct it to execute a series of turns to map the direction of the crevasse.
Lever wasn't available to speak with Dartmouth Engineer about Yeti because he and the robot were busy surveying the old South Pole Station. The abandoned station is covered with 30 feet of snow and people now need to traverse it. Lever and Yeti are mapping the hollow spaces under the snow. The Dartmouth team was called after another survey team working with a PistenBully tractor found a void by falling into it. The situation then got worse. "They sent another vehicle out to rescue it, and that one fell in," says Ray. "They said, 'We need another way. Can we borrow your robot?' "
Yeti has also gained attention in Greenland. Last spring Popular Mechanics sent a writer to the Greenland Summit Station to watch the robot being tested. The magazine ran a story about Yeti in July and posted video of the robot to its website. In August Cool Robot and Yeti both made it into The New York Times.
Ironically, Ray herself hasn't seen either robot in action in either Greenland or Antarctica. "I have four kids at home. It is a little hard to get away for three or four weeks. Someday maybe," she says.
This spring Yeti heads to Greenland again with the National Science Foundation's Greenland Inland Traverse team to ensure the team's safety and map crevasses. You can follow Yeti's progress at yetibot.blogspot.com.
—Lee Michaelides
COLD TRUTH: Electricity Flips Ice's Grip
RESEARCHER: Professor Victor Petrenko
"I'm a semiconductor physicist, not an ice researcher," says Professor Victor Petrenko. That statement is something of a surprise coming from the coauthor of Physics of Ice, the authoritative text on the subject.
Petrenko entered the field of ice research by coincidence 25 years ago. He was working at the University of Birmingham in England while on sabbatical from the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He saw a door marked "Ice Physics Lab" and opened it. Inside he met ice researcher John Glen. Glen told him three things about ice that changed Petrenko's career. First, ice is a semiconductor. Second, ice is a protonic semiconductor—protons, not electrons, transport electrical current. Finally, and this was the game changer for Petrenko—the physics of ice, unlike the semiconductors he had been working on in Moscow, was still being discovered. Petrenko wanted in on the new discoveries.
Making the switch, however, wasn't easy or quick under the Soviet system. When Petrenko returned from sabbatical he asked his lab director about shifting his focus to ice. "He suggested I apply ice to my head," Petrenko recalls. "He said 'Victor you are crazy. You want to trade the wonderful semiconductor physics for that dirty stuff—ice?' " Nevertheless, Petrenko spent 15 years working in both fields.
But that was then. Today the science of ice physics is a mature subject in part because of discoveries made by Petrenko and former Thayer researchers Valeri Kozlyuk, Michiya Higa, and Cheng Chen. Because of that, Petrenko has turned his research toward practical applications. He found that by applying short pulses of electricity across an ice-coated surface it is possible to break the bond between the ice and whatever material it covers. The process, which Petrenko calls pulse electrothermal de-icing (PETD), can be used to de-ice car windshields, airplanes, ships, power lines, bridges, and many other structures.
There's a complementary aspect to Petrenko's de-icing research. By reversing the polarity of the electrical current, the grip between ice and the material gets stronger. It is possible to make shoes that won't slip on ice, skis with brakes, and car tires that can handle ice as if it were dry pavement.
Petrenko's work has yielded 60 domestic and international patents, and 100 more are in the pipeline. Research funding has come from the military, the National Science Foundation, and Fortune 500 companies, such as BFGoodrich and GE.
Some of Petrenko's inventions have moved out of his lab and into the field for trials. Tests for de-icing power lines are run in China because that country has two key elements: a problem with ice on power lines and a state-of-the-art power grid that enables PETD technology, something the older U.S. power grid can't handle. Most recently, Petrenko's work has been in refrigeration, a technology that has seen only incremental advancement in the last 100 years. Petrenko estimates that his de-icing technology can cut the electric bill of commercial users by 40 percent. Since Petrenko's system provides uninterrupted cooling rather than cycling between warmth and cold, residential users would benefit from better food storage as well as lower electrical costs.
Petrenko sees a hot future for de-icing technology. "The applications based on ice physics have not been finished," he says.
—Lee Michaelides
On the Antarctic Map
Two sites in Antarctica officially bear the names of members of the Thayer community.
Mount Arcone (81º43'S, 161º2'E), a horseshoe-shaped mountain in the Nash Range, honors Steven Arcone Th'77 for the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and airborne radar surveys he conducted during six seasons on the ice. Having recorded and interpreted thousands of kilometers of GPR data, Arcone, a geophysicist at CRREL and former Thayer adjunct professor, has not only kept research convoys from falling into crevasses, but has also published numerous papers on the firn and ice stratigraphy GPR reveals.
Ackley Point (77º47'S, 166º55'E), an ice-covered point near McMurdo Sound, honors Stephen Ackley, an adjunct professor at Thayer from 1985 to 1999, for his extensive work on sea ice in McMurdo Sound and the Southern Ocean. The former CRREL researcher is a now a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
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Some people have used Facebook to broadcast things they are thankful for each day in the month of November. My wife is one of those people.
I'm not one of those people, but I have thought a lot about things for which I'm thankful during each day that my wife posted something.
What better place to list those things than on a public website, preserved for who-knows-how-long?
OK, here goes, in no particular order:
- My daughter, in general.
- Mornings when my daughter (Emerson) wakes up in a good mood and snuggles in bed until it's time to get up.
- My wife, in general.
- Mornings when my wife (Coury) wakes up in a good mood and snuggles in bed until it's time to get up (Just kidding, my wife is almost always in a good mood).
- My wife's pregnant belly. I can't wait to meet you, Baby No. 2.
- Good family. My wife and I are blessed with good family. Blessed.
- Our home. It's an old home and constantly needs work, but we love it.
- My job. I get to write for you, reader, and what could be more fun than that? I love my job.
- Good food. This ole boy loves good food: eating it, making it, smelling it. Mostly eating it, though.
- Food smells in our house. I'm combining two things I love into one bullet point. To me, nothing feels like home more than the smells of a home-cooked meal lingering in our house.
- Music. I'm not sure I could survive Monday nights at the office without some kind of upbeat music. If you enjoy getting your newspaper on-time on Wednesdays, you should be thankful for music, too.
- Freedom of speech. It kind of makes my job possible. Thank God for the freedom of speech.
That's all, ya'll. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
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How do I sign up for training?
Training information for online and classroom courses can be found at: http://mytraining.utsa.edu. A myUTSA ID (abc123) is needed to take the online courses. After logging in look for the course in the Courses Enrolled block, and if the course is not listed in "Courses Enrolled", then select the "Course Category" labeled "Laboratory Safety", and then click the course you wish to take.
A student worker may have a myUTSA ID, but still not have access to MyTraining, and in that case:
HR Training and Development staff will get to it as quickly as they can, and will have it completed within 24 hours, but during the work week (8-5:00) it usually takes around 30 minutes. Any incomplete or incorrect data will only delay the request. Please ensure you have used the Safety Training ticket form and that all required data has been entered.
What training courses do I need?
Different courses are required for work in different labs. Please ask your Principal Investigator or contact the Safety Office at 458-6697 or 458-5807 to find out which courses are required.
What is considered passing for your training courses?
A score 70% or better is needed to receive credit for Radiation Safety (SA 433) and Laser Safety (SA 465).
A score of 80% or better is required to receive credit for Hazardous Waste Generator (SA 401), Hazard Communication & Laboratory Safety (SA 443), Researcher Biological Safety and Bloodborne Pathogens (SA 483).
*The Annual Refresher Researcher Biological Safety and Bloodborne Pathogens (SA 483r) is a brief overview of Bloodborne Pathogens and is an annual requirement for those who have completed SA 483 the previous year and require Bloodborne Pathogens training.
When you complete your course there will be a link entitled "Certificate of Completion" that you need to click on to generate your certificate.
Do you offer in-class training?
Yes. Please see the class schedule at https://mytraining.utsa.edu/index.php/training/classroom Most courses are offered in class at least once per month. Some courses are offered by request only. To arrange those courses, contact the Lab Safety Manager at 458-6101.
How do I dispose of chemical and biological waste?
Please go to: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/?section=waste and select the link for the type of waste you are trying to dispose of. Please fill out the form as completely as possible. A representative from our department will pick up the waste within 3 business days.
How do I dispose of radioactive waste?
Fill out the following form for each waste container to be picked up: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/files/radiation/UTSA_Radioactive_Waste_Disposal_Instructions.pdf. The activity must be decay corrected to the current date or to a specific reference date. All chemical and/or biological components of the waste must be provided including the approximate percentage of each. Please contact the EHSRM Radiation and Laser Safety Coordinator for assistance with radioactive waste issues and to schedule a pickup (458-6697).
How do I complete a chemical inventory form?
The form can be downloaded from the following webpage: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/#/laboratory/labevals. Please use the information found on the MSDS for the chemical to assist in filling out the form.
What are secondary chemical labels and why do I need them?
Secondary labels are labels that must be placed on the container when a chemical is transferred from a primary container into a secondary container. Texas HazCom regulations require that all chemical containers be labeled with the identity of the contents and specific information about the hazards associated with the chemical. The secondary labels allow you to place the name of the chemical (s) as well as the hazard warnings and information specific to the contents.Ê If the chemical will be used up within the same day as it is transferred to the secondary container, then no label is required by regulation. However at least putting the name of the chemical on the secondary container is a best practice to avoid confusion.
How do I determine the maximum quantity of each chemical in my lab?
This should be the largest amount of each chemical you will ever have in your lab. This can be updated as needed. Please do not over estimate the maximum amount. EHSRM uses maximum amounts for reports to federal and state regulators as well as emergency responders.
How do I determine the average daily amount of each chemical in my lab?
This should be your best guestimate. It should not involve complex calculations. It should be somewhere between the amount when you re-order and the maximum amount.
Should I include an exact inventory of the amounts of chemicals in my lab for the annual inventory?
No. That inventory would be outdated within days, if not hours. The format used at UTSA allows for fluctuation in actual amounts by requiring only the maximum amount and the average daily amount.
What if my inventory has not changed in the last year?
If you have not added or deleted chemicals and your average daily amounts and maximum amounts have not changed, then make a new copy of your inventory and sign and date for the current year.
How do I submit a chemical inventory form?
You can email a signed copy of your form to your laboratory safety evaluator or send a hard copy by campus mail. An electronic copy should also be submitted for inclusion in our database.
How often do I need to submit an inventory?
An updated chemical inventory is required annually.
Which chemicals are required to have a Chemical Safety Committee (CSC) Protocol?
Chemicals which are carcinogens (examples from OSHA listed below), are highly toxic, especially gases, or otherwise highly hazardous such as pyrophorics. If you are unsure whether a chemical needs a protocol, contact EHSRM Laboratory Safety Division or the CSC.
How is the frequency of evaluations of determined?
A lab may be inspected quarterly, semi-annually or once per year. An initial hazard assessment of each laboratory must be conducted to determine the degree of biological, chemical, physical, radiation or laser, or other hazards present. Frequency of evaluations is determined from this assessment made by the safety office. Please contact the safety office before beginning work in a new laboratory.
A spill kit must include an absorbent agent, neutralization agent, dust pan, and broom. Spill kits can be purchased, or you can make one yourself using kitty litter and baking soda.
As a faculty member with a lab what should I do before I leave UTSA?
Contact EHSRM well in advance to arrange for deactivation of your lab. This will involve disposal of unwanted chemicals, biological agents, radioactive materials and controlled substances and decontamination of equipment as necessary. For more information on laboratory clearance go to: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/files/laboratory/Laboratory%20Clearance%20Procedure.pdf.
How do I prepare lab equipment for Surplus?
All equipment will need decontaminated for any chemicals, biologicals or radiological material which may have been stored or used in the equipment. EHSRM Laboratory Safety Division or Environmental Protection and Construction Safety Division should be contacted to review the equipment and provide clearance once the equipment is ready to go to Surplus. For more information on equipment clearance go to: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/files/laboratory/Laboratory%20Clearance%20Procedure.pdf.
How do I dispose of lab equipment?
The process is similar to preparing for Surplus. Once decontaminated EHSRM will review the equipment and clear is for disposal. There may be special disposal procedures according to the specific equipment. EHSRM will be able to assist with information about special procedures. For more information on equipment clearance go to: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/files/laboratory/Laboratory%20Clearance%20Procedure.pdf.
What do I need to do in order to ship lab equipment for repair?
The process is similar to preparing for Surplus or disposal. Once EHSRM has completed a review, documentation will be provided to include with the shipment confirming the decontamination of the equipment. . For more information on equipment clearance go to: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/files/laboratory/Laboratory%20Clearance%20Procedure.pdf.
My BSC needs to be recertified, what do I need to do?
Contact the Laboratory Safety Division. Our division manages the recertification program for biological safety cabinets.
What PPE do I need to wear in the lab?
Which PPE is needed depends on what hazards are present in the lab. Laboratory Safety Division can provide assistance in determining which PPE is needed in your specific lab. PPE such as gloves and lab coats should remain inside the lab and not be worn outside of the lab due to possible cross contamination to non-lab areas.
Why is it inappropriate to wear shorts and/or sandals in lab?
Shorts and sandals leave skin exposed to hazards in the lab, especially from spills. It's important to remember that you may not be working with hazardous materials while in the lab, but others might be.
What is a gold star lab and how does my lab qualify?
A gold star lab is one that does not receive any discrepancies noted to lab personnel during a lab evaluation for a quarter. All labs assigned to a PI or lab supervisor must have no discrepancies during the evaluation period to qualify.
I am purchasing a laser, what do I need to do?
Prior to ordering a laser, contact radiation safety personnel in Laboratory Safety Division at 458-6697. The type of laser will be evaluated to determine if it must be registered with the state and what safety devices or controls will be needed to operate the laser. Additional requirements will be discussed such as submitting documentation to the Radiation and Laser Safety Committee. The Laser Safety Officer (LSO) will begin work on getting the laser registered if necessary.
I want to work with select agents, what do I need to do?
Well in advance, contact the Laboratory Safety Manager / Alternate Responsible Official (ARO) for the UTSA select agent program at 458-6101 to begin the paperwork to obtain federal permission to work with select agents. Possessing select agents without this permission is punishable by criminal and civil penalties. For more information on select agents go to: http://www.selectagents.gov/.
I want to work with a controlled substance, what do I need to do?
In order to work with controlled substances, state and federal licenses are needed. PIs must apply for and receive these licenses prior to ordering controlled substances. Possessing controlled substances without licensure is punishable by criminal penalties. For more information see the UTSA Controlled Substance Use in Research Policy: http://www.utsa.edu/safety/#/laboratory/controlledsubstances.
For further information contact the Lab Safety Division.
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Atmospheric Sciences & Global Change
Research Highlights
June 2014
The Secret to Downscaling
Promising new approach allows global and regional climate models to share process information
PNNL scientists developed an approach that allows climate models at different scales to share parameterizations and other information. Enlarge Image.
Results: A new climate modeling approach that combines a detailed regional model with a more wide-ranging global model was developed by a team of researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in collaboration with the University of Wyoming. This approach, described in a recent article in the journal Geoscientific Model Development, improves the way models represent atmospheric particles, clouds, and particle-cloud interactions and how they vary at regional and local scales. The approach minimizes inconsistencies in how process information is parameterized—that is, translated into simplifications that well represent process complexity.
"Our approach facilitates comparisons and produces results that agree more closely with real-world observations than previous approaches," said Dr. Po-Lun Ma, PNNL atmospheric scientist and lead author of the paper.
Why It Matters: Understanding the past and predicting future climate trends takes lots of computational power. Global climate models break up the planet in chunks of 100 kilometers and then average climate processes over that large grid space. Because of this large scale, scientists have struggled to accurately capture regional and local variations and extreme weather events in these models. Instead, researchers often use regional-scale climate models to characterize real-world weather events, but different representations of physical, chemical, and other processes between global and regional climate models produce inconsistent information about the atmosphere. In this study, scientists used the new modeling approach to consistently share the climate's physical process complexities at all scales—global, regional, and local.
Methods: The PNNL research team transferred a set of Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1 (CAM5) physical parameters into the regional model Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). The resulting approach allowed both the high-resolution regional model and the lower-resolution global model to share information, using the same equations and computer codes for the physical and chemical representation of clouds and aerosols and consistent estimates of emissions of gases and aerosol particles. Sharing information between the models helped the researchers understand the impact of model resolution on the simulation using a consistent framework and allowed them to avoid problems typically encountered when connecting models.
The team applied the approach at multiple horizontal resolutions over an area encompassing the northern Pacific Ocean, northeast Asia, and northwest North America for April 2008. This timeframe took advantage of the data collected by a series of field campaigns managed by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The researchers then evaluated the model results against those field campaign measurements, data from satellites, and ground-based observations. The modules they created through this approach are now a part of WRF-Chem 3.5, which is available online for use by other researchers.
What's Next? Scientists will use data from other field campaigns to determine which set of physical and chemical representations in the models produce results more consistent with observations and why. They will focus on simulations that explore how the scale of the model affects clouds and atmospheric particles in different climate regimes.
Sponsors: This work was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research, through the Earth System Modeling Program. This work was also supported by a DOE Early Career grant awarded to William I. Gustafson Jr. and the Aerosol Climate Initiative funded by PNNL's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. The surface observational data used in this study were obtained from the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility's North Slope of Alaska site at Barrow, Alaska.
Research Team: Po-Lun Ma, Phil J. Rasch, Jerome D. Fast, Richard C. Easter, William I. Gustafson Jr., Steven J. Ghan and Balwinder Singh, PNNL; Xiaohong Liu, University of Wyoming.
Research Area: Climate & Earth Systems Science
Reference: Ma PL, PJ Rasch, JD Fast, RC Easter, WI Gustafson Jr, X Liu, SJ Ghan, and B Singh. 2014. "Assessing the CAM5 Physics Suite in the WRF-Chem Model: Implementation, Resolution Sensitivity, and a First Evaluation for a Regional Case Study." Geoscientific Model Development 7:755-778. DOI:10.5194/gmd-7-755-2014


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