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Once I heard a creationist say that the earth once may have had a hydrosphere layer up above our natural atmosphere, which implied that a substantial layer of ice covered the earth and created a greenhouse effect.

I am not attempting to argue this assumption, but can this phenomenon occur in a world similar to our own? If it can, then what would be the consequences?

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  • $\begingroup$ Might be related: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/25571/… $\endgroup$
    – Real Subtle
    Oct 30, 2018 at 9:52
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    $\begingroup$ Did the creationist also gave a hint about what was keeping the water and ice up there and prevented them from falling down? And the creationistic technical term is "water canopy"; a hydrosphere is something else entirely, and Earth already has a hydrosphere. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Oct 30, 2018 at 12:37
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    $\begingroup$ By "world similar to our own", you seem to try to carve out an exception for the possibility of radically different behavior of physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics. No way. At the scale we are talking about, either the fundamental discoveries of millenia of science apply...or it's fiction. $\endgroup$
    – user535733
    Oct 30, 2018 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe there was some serious misunderstanding of what clouds are by the creationist. Technically, many parts of the earth are covered with 'thick' 'layers' of ice in the atmosphere, for sufficiently loose definitions of those words. In your question, are you looking strictly for solid sheets of ice? Planets can have rather high densities of ice in the atmosphere, but a solid sheet would be certainly something to behold. As ice is a mineral, it would stand to reason that it could possibly be considered the crust, with a gaseous 'mantle' and solid core maybe? $\endgroup$
    – ColonelPanic
    Oct 30, 2018 at 14:11
  • $\begingroup$ @ColonelPanic The idea of the water canopy comes from an absolute literal reading of Genesis 1:7, where God separates the waters "above" and "below". This was a pretty common feature of ancient Mesopotamian cosmology. $\endgroup$
    – Alan T.
    Oct 30, 2018 at 16:54

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Liquid or solid water is denser than air at STP, therefore there is no way that still air can sustain water by buoyancy.

A flow of air can lift water, but that would not happen all around the globe: somewhere the upgoing air has to come down.

If instead there is a layer of ice covering the surface and the liquid water is above this layer of ice, I have a hard time understanding how a bulk layer of ice can be qualified as "atmosphere".

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    $\begingroup$ I agree, it's not the name I would use. Maybe outer ice shell $\endgroup$
    – Austin Trigloff
    Oct 30, 2018 at 10:05
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    $\begingroup$ The key word in the question is "creationist". $\endgroup$
    – nzaman
    Oct 30, 2018 at 11:35
  • $\begingroup$ Also, the higher you are the lover the temp. Luqid water on top of ice not turning into ice itself? $\endgroup$
    – SZCZERZO KŁY
    Oct 30, 2018 at 15:03
  • $\begingroup$ @SZCZERZOKŁY, no. For the odd properties of water, its maximum density is at 4 C. So, as soon as water would get colder than that, it would float up... $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Oct 30, 2018 at 15:09
  • $\begingroup$ @L.Dutch This is what I meant, it would create ice that float into colder temp and solidify while at the bottom the liquid would be chilled from the ice cap. so maybe a strange ice water ice sandwich. $\endgroup$
    – SZCZERZO KŁY
    Oct 30, 2018 at 15:13
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I can't really speak much to the plausibility of a water canopy. It certainly seems like an impossibility, but then again, Venus (and all the gas giants) have extremely dense cloud layers, so I wouldn't rule it out completely.

That said, a water canopy in the upper atmosphere would have several interesting effects. First, it would work to diffuse light quite a bit. Probably to the point where a rainbow would be completely unheard of.

Water would filter out many of the harmful rays of the sun (alpha and beta radiation for example). A water canopy in combination with the ozone layer would block most of the ultraviolet radiations from the sunlight as well.

It would also likely increase oxygen content and atmospheric pressure. So everything on earth would be much healthier and heal a lot faster (sort of like a diving bell). This would also cause plants and animal to grow bigger and live longer than real-life equivalents.

Humidity would be a lot higher, and rain probably would not occur at all. This is because the more humid the air, the more saturated it is with water. If the air is completely saturated with water, then evaporation can no longer occur. If there is no evaporation, the water cycle stops and you have no rain. Any excess water would naturally congregate on the ground every night when things cool down. This, in addition to underground springs, would let plants grow without the need for rain.

Additionally, a greenhouse effect will occur that spreads the heat energy evenly throughout the whole globe. Granted you won't have ice cap anymore, but you will have an even, liveable, temperature (unlike IRL where if the ice caps melt everything either becomes a desert or a tundra).

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  • $\begingroup$ facinating. i've heard a similiar idea from the "hydroplate theory", a creationist explaination for the flood and pheonemon like the oceanic trenches. it seems like great material for worldbuilding, but i've heard this assertion has been disproven many times. $\endgroup$
    – Austin Trigloff
    Oct 30, 2018 at 20:19
  • $\begingroup$ At only 200 meters water blocks enough light to prevent photosynthesis. At 1000 meters all light is blocked. To be self supporting the ice shell would have to be hundreds of times thicker. With the exception of thermal vents the Earth would be cold, dark, and dead. But you got the rainbow right! $\endgroup$
    – Skek Tek
    Oct 31, 2018 at 11:46
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I had originally VTC'ed as a dupe, but I changed my mind when I took a time to see the context. The part that got my attention was:

Once I heard a creationist say

Since no specific creation myth has been specified, we may a go at multiple thesis.

For example, the greek believed in an Underworld. If we take that to face value, we have a whole world below the surface, which for a spherical planet means that the planet is hollow. With a hollow planet, you have an inner atmosphere that is below the oceans. There is also a non-trivial amount of rock between the oceans and the hollow Earth's inner atmosphere, but that is just a detail.

I would like to take a page from the single very best answer this stack has ever had, though: the giants' intestines produced special gases that would concentrate in the higher atmosphere, where they would condense into an impermeable film lighter than air, thus keeping any water above the film layer contained and suspended from the Earth. You may ask why then we don't have that film layer and floating ocean up there no more; To which I reply, do you see any giants around? They all died long ago, due to some natural accident of epic proportions, caused by divine fury.

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  • $\begingroup$ My apoligies, I wasn't specific enough. A judeo-christian who subscribed to the cretion myth of the book of genesis asserted that the earth once may have had a solid water canopy, which shattered, causing the mythical great flood of genesis. $\endgroup$
    – Austin Trigloff
    Oct 30, 2018 at 20:26
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We already have a LOT of water in the air. It is usually in gas form but occasionally becomes solid or liquid.

So let's imagine an extreme--global warming to the point that all the water on the planet has evaporated and probably even evaporates as it falls due to the heat. the atmosphere would probably be much denser than it is now. It would be impossibly humid everywhere.

Now at the top of these clouds where it's cooler what if a large area of water turned to ice--for instance the night-side of the planet. The cloud cover might already be so dense that most of the ice might stay suspended and form a different type of cloud--one made of loosely packed snow perhaps. If it blocked air flow it might just hang up there like a boat or ice burg on water--perhaps being buffeted by updrafts from the cooling nighttime planet.

What I can't imagine is this shell surviving on the day side of the planet. It might form a few hours after dark and melt a little after dawn.

Also internal movement and tidal forces would keep ripping it apart and mixing it up so it wouldn't ever be a solid piece you could walk on or anything.

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  • $\begingroup$ perhaps a water canopy cannot occur on a planet like ours anymore, but what if an earth developed with an outer shell of ice and the atmosphere developed between the ice and the surface? or perhaps that is even less plausable? $\endgroup$
    – Austin Trigloff
    Oct 30, 2018 at 20:38
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think that a sphere around a sphere can be stable. I think it would always degenerate into a wobbly mess and the inside sphere will smash into the outer one. I believe a ring around the planet would have the same problem. Any part that gets closer to the planet will be pulled harder by the gravity, so that part will continue to get closer. It's different from a moon orbiting a planet because a moon and planet actually orbit each other in a way that self-corrects/balances, the sphere can't really do that (at least I don't think it can). $\endgroup$
    – Bill K
    Oct 30, 2018 at 22:11

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