Replicating the biblical flood

The Biblical story of the Flood describes how over a period of 40 days the earth is flooded so that the peak of the highest mountain is 15 cubits/22.5ft/6.858m below the new mean sea level. The flood waters remain stable over for 150 days before being removed over the period of the following 220 days.

We could achieve such a flood by locating ice asteroids and depositing them on earth. We can assume that this is being done by beings with hard-science based spaceships which may exceed our current capabilities even given an unlimited budget, but must still obey the laws of physics as we know them. For example, if a required ship or ship type has a very large and powerful engine capable of lowering the requisite ice/water at a safe rate, the effects of the drive on the environment must be accounted for.

1. How much water would be required to flood Earth to this level?
2. How could the water be deposited to do the least damage or alteration possible (including heating or cooling or altering Earth's rotation or axial tilt) to Earth - aside from flooding it, of course? We could simply drop the ice as a single bolide, but there would be a great deal of cratering and other damage, the avoidance of which is highly desirable.
3. Given that the water must be deposited over a period of 40 days, and assuming an effectively equal rate of deposition over the entire surface of the globe during the majority of this period (at least 99% of the 40 days, with at most the initial and terminal 0.5% of this time ramping up and tailing off the rate of deposition respectively), at what rate must the water be deposited, and how would that compare to natural rainfall?
4. How could that amount of water be removed over a period of 220 days, again causing minimal damage or alteration to submerged land features. The maximum preparation time for this removal of the excess water is the aforementioned 150 days, though it may be less.
5. What would the world look like after 150 to 370 days entirely under water? What species (animal, plant or otherwise) could survive?

posted over 9 years ago

Monty Wild‭

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