The 7 Climate Ages

Look out your window. What’s the weather today? Weather patterns, such as heat, cold, rainfall, and snowfall, become the climate over time. Now you may’ve heard that our climate is changing and that we should be worried about it.

But, as always, we need to look at everything with our biblical glasses on. When we start with the Bible’s history, there are seven climate ages. Let’s check them out!

1. Perfect

The first climate age began at, well, the beginning! On day two of creation week, God separated the waters, forming our atmosphere, clouds, and more. Two days later, he created the sun. Together, our sun and atmosphere create the earth’s climates.

After God finished creating, he declared his creation “very good.” In this perfect world, there was a perfect climate—none of the extreme cold or extreme heat we know today. And there were no hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes, either!

God’s perfect world had a perfect climate.

Before the global flood of Noah’s day, all the land on earth was one continent. So while earth would’ve still had seasons (those are caused by earth’s tilt), they wouldn’t have been as extreme as they are today in the far north and far south.

What was this perfect climate like? We don’t fully know—only Adam and Eve ever lived in it!

2. Groaning

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, everything changed. God had given Adam dominion (the authority to rule) over creation, so when he sinned, everything under his authority was broken. God even cursed the ground because of Adam’s sin.

Our climate went from perfect to groaning (everything groans in a fallen world!).

3. Flooding

People’s sin brought about the next climate age, too. Adam’s descendants had become very wicked, so God judged their sin with a global flood. The flood began when the “fountains of the great deep” burst open. Can you imagine the ground splitting and water gushing up from under it?

The flood was the biggest climate event ever.

This catastrophe likely caused the single continent to break up into the seven continents we have today and moved those continents to their present locations. That movement created deep ocean trenches and towering mountain ranges. Volcanoes erupted across the globe, and earthquakes still rumble today in places where the ground was split open.

The flood was the biggest climate event in all of history!

4. Icy

During the flood, many volcanoes erupted ash that would have blocked out the sun, reflecting sunlight back into space and cooling everything down. Those volcanoes would have also warmed the oceans. Warm water evaporates quickly, leading to lots and lots of water vapor, which would have come back down as snow. During this time in history, called the ice age, one-third of the globe was covered in ice! Now that’s some climate change!

Today, many scientists study the ice cores and ice sheets in the North and South Poles, believing they were slowly formed over hundreds of thousands of years. They believe each layer shows just one year’s worth of snow. But these layers of ice were laid down quickly, with each layer representing massive ice age storms. It took only a few hundred years for the ice sheets and glaciers to build up and then melt back to where they are today.

Ice in the North Pole
Matti&Keti Lorenz King, uni-giessen.de, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

5. Shifting

As the earth settled down from the flood and the ice age, the new continents and mountains changed wind patterns and ocean currents. Those changes then shifted the weather patterns that make up our various climates.

Some lush areas slowly dried out and became deserts. Some dry areas became wetter, and life flourished. Eventually, the climate stabilized, but there are normal variations even today, possibly due to changes on the surface of the sun.

Did you know people once farmed in Greenland? You’d never know it today, though—it’s a barren, frozen country. And Europe once experienced a “little ice age” that caused temperatures to dip far lower than anything the people now living in those areas know today.

Climates change over time, and there are normal variations. But God created a world that can cope with those changes. He even promised after the flood that seasons, cold, and heat would continue (Genesis 8:22).

It’s important that we remember we’re to care for God’s creation wisely, but we aren’t in control—God is!

6. Fiery

God promised that he will never again send another global flood. But he also promised that he will come and judge the earth once again. You see, God must judge sin because he is righteous, holy, and just. But this coming judgment won’t be with a flood; it will be with fire. This coming climate age will lead into the very last one—an age that will last forever!

7. Heavenly

Someday, God will create a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1). In this heavenly home, the climate will once again be perfect. No more extreme weather, no more earthquakes, tornadoes, or volcanoes. Every person who has trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation from their sins will be rescued from God’s judgment and will live with him in this new heaven and earth.

It will be paradise again—and it will never end, because sin will be no more.

Don’t Worry

Ever since sin entered the world 6,000 years ago, the climates have been changing. Sometimes the change is huge—like the flood. Sometimes the change is small and slow. But we don’t need to worry about these changes because God is in control. He promised that the seasons will continue until he returns and makes the new heaven and new earth, where we’ll live with him forever in a climate that’s once again perfect.