2024: The World Under Water?
31 Jan 2025
Taking a deeper dive into recent flooding and landslides, and their relation to biblical prophecy
More than any other type of natural disaster, the mainstream media would have us believe that 2024 was the year of flooding. Reuters even titled their year-end review “The world under water” and attributed vast inundation to global warming caused by human activity.1
Truthfully, while 2024 was indeed a year in which flooding dominated natural disaster headlines, some perspective is needed. Flooding killed fewer this year than in each year for the last couple of decades2 and it was also an unusually quiet year for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and wildfires.
In perspective
In February 2024, the wildfires in Valparaiso, Chile topped the list of deaths due to wildfires last year, with 131 killed.3 This is less than the total reported as killed from wildfires in 2023.4 In January 2024, the most deadly earthquake took place for last year – a 7.5 magnitude in Noto, Japan, which killed 475. This was far short of the 60,000+ killed eleven months earlier in Turkey and Syria by a somewhat stronger 7.8 magnitude quake. Flooding events in previous years have likewise been much more deadly. Over 4,000 were killed in Libya alone in September 2023,5 while over 1,700 were killed in seasonal flooding in Pakistan in 2022.
Flooding killed fewer this year than in each year for the last couple of decades and it was also an unusually quiet year for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and wildfires
Floods and landslides
Nonetheless, last year there were eight significant flooding events, each of which caused death counts surpassing 100. Spring and summer monsoon rains in Afghanistan and Pakistan killed a total of 1,084 in flash floods, building collapses and landslides. In May, the village of Tuliparo in Papua New Guinea was buried in a landslide which resulted in hundreds dead, possibly thousands.6 Another 420 were killed due to landslides caused by heavy July rains in Wayanad, India.7 Low pressure systems that resulted in severe rainfall and flooding occurred across the Brazil-Uruguay border and killed 181 in May,8 while 231 were killed in November along the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
Then there were the floods caused by tropical cyclones: Typhoon Yagi killed 844, Hurricane Helene 234, and Tropical Storm Trami 178. Yagi was one of four Category 5 equivalent typhoons in the South China Sea and crossed over the Philippines and China’s Hainan Island before hitting Vietnam as a Category 4.
Inland Myanmar is where the majority were killed, however, as remnants of the storm caused flooding and landslides in mountainous terrain. Similarly, Hurricane Helene stalled over the mountains of western North Carolina, where the vast majority of deaths occurred. Unprepared for heavy rainfall events, many were caught off-guard by the flash flooding and had little time and few options for escape.
Climate change propaganda
Thus, while it is true that the majority of disaster-related deaths in 2024 are attributed to flooding, there is simply no basis to believe that this past year the world was “under water” more than previous years. It certainly wasn’t more deadly, as already discussed earlier. Such exaggeration only highlights the mainstream media’s desperation to generate fear. The climate change propaganda it has been pushing for decades is becoming less and less believable with the absence of supporting data.
Such exaggeration only highlights the mainstream media’s desperation to generate fear.
It is true that warmer seas will result in increased evaporation. When the atmosphere warms, it has more energy to drive severe weather storms. Increased precipitation, flooding, and landslides will be the natural result. However, the data does not at this point support anything more than cyclical climate variations, as some periods of earth history are warmer and some cooler. More data is needed to ascertain whether the earth is indeed in a natural warming trend, as it is quite possible that the earth is warming slightly. However, the limited ability humanity has to affect the constantly changing climate is far smaller than what nature itself can do.
Ancient climate change
A few thousand years ago, prior to any industrialisation, the scale of climate change was much greater. Both secular and believing geoscientists agree on this. Prior to the global flood, the climate was much warmer than it is today. This is evidenced by the vast coal seams that are the compressed remains of lush, pre-flood forests. The petroleum found around the world came from bacteria and algae that bloomed in warm floodwaters full of decaying matter. These floodwaters, heated by magma under the earth, from the “fountains of the great deep” (Gen 7:11), were much warmer than the seas are today. Most believing geoscientists, including myself, have concluded that these warm seas resulted in heavy inland precipitation that far surpassed the events of recent history. The natural dams holding back massive lakes were breached, the resulting torrents carving deep canyons like the Grand Canyon. At extreme latitudes, heavy precipitation built up as thick ice sheets. Secular scientists acknowledge this past, natural climate change, and acknowledge that the earth was much warmer during the “time of the dinosaurs”, attributing the ice sheets to lengthy “ice ages”.
Job, who lived in what is now a very hot and arid Arabia, speaks as an eyewitness of the “storehouses of snow” and “storehouses of hail” (Job 38:22). He may also have witnessed flash floods and landslides.
There is no need, however, to assume vast time spans for such extreme climate change to occur as the historical record indicates it happened within the first few centuries after the flood. Job, who lived in what is now a very hot and arid Arabia, speaks as an eyewitness of the “storehouses of snow” and “storehouses of hail” (Job 38:22). He may also have witnessed flash floods and landslides: “But the falling mountain crumbles away, and the rock moves from its place; water wears away stones, its torrents wash away the dust of the earth” (Job 14:18).
Prophesied climate change
So, we can see how climate has changed in the past. But could it be linked to biblical prophecy for the future? The fourth bowl poured out in Revelation results in humanity being “scorched with fierce heat” (Rev 16:9). This warning of impending judgement is not apparently something that humanity caused, nor is it something that humanity can prevent. Rather, it may be thought of as a merciful escalation, a warning to repent and to avoid the final “lake of fire” (Rev 20:15) where even the “elements will melt with intense heat!” (2 Pet 3:12)
Just as warming cycles today may cause flooding and landslides, as they certainly did in the time of Noah, does the prophetic word speak of such catastrophes to come? Whereas interpretations of the apocalyptic prophecies vary, it certainly appears so: Revelation 12:15 tells us how “The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood.” The passage continues with describing a pure woman who is preserved from this flood. Yeshua may also describe landslides when he references Psalm 46: “Even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea’, it will happen” (Matt 21:21). Landslides are one mechanism by which this prophecy could be fulfilled, another is tectonic activity associated with massive earthquakes, which I detail in my book, Revelation’s Geology.
Hope for believers
However, the promise given to Noah that the world will never again be “under water” is still trustworthy today.
Regardless of the way in which these prophecies are eventually fulfilled, it is clear from scripture that they are not caused by human activity, but are rather a demonstration of the power of the Creator over His creation. Will natural disasters continue and escalate in 2025? Will the mainstream media continue to deny the Creator and attribute such catastrophe to human activity? The answer to both questions is, ‘Most likely, yes.’ However, the promise given to Noah that the world will never again be “under water” is still trustworthy today.
The prophesied natural disasters still to come are simply a warning, given in mercy, to return to the protection of the Creator. For those whom He has called there is the promise: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.” (Isa 43:2). Like Peter, when the waters rise around us, all we need to do is cry out, “Lord, save me!” (Matt 14:30) and our Messiah will be right there to rescue us.
Ryan Thompson has a Master of Science degree in Geoscience and worked for over a decade in the American petroleum industry. He is the author of Revelation’s Geology, a book on scientific clues in end times prophecy. He currently teaches math and science online while living internationally, first in the Holy Land and now in the UK, with his wife and two teenagers. www.remnantrendezvous.org
Notes
1. ‘2024 in photos: The world under water’, Reuters, 16 December 2024.
2. ‘Global number of deaths caused by floods 1998-2023’, Statista, 22 October 2024.
3. ‘Forest Fires kill 131 in Chile’s worst disaster since 2010 earthquake’, The Jerusalem Post, 6 February 2024.
4. ‘Global number of deaths caused by wildfires 1990-2023’, Statista, 27 November 2024
5. ‘2023 - a year of extreme weather’, BBC News, 30 December 2023
6. ‘Landslide covered village to become cemetery’, Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, 5 June 2024.
7. ‘Wayanad landslides: Fire Forecast, NDRF, Volunteers continue search operations’, Business Standard, 9 August 2024.
8. ‘Brazil: Rio Grande do Sul Flood Emergency: Snapshot #4’, OCHA, 7 July 2024.
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Ryan Thompson