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This video is a basic discussion and explanation of some of the mathematics behind the impossibility of a literal (worldwide) interpretation of the Biblical Account of Noah's Flood. The planet just doesn't have enough water to do it!
Various sources:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/22058.htm
A technical paper on the linguistic reasons why the Biblical account of the Flood must be taken globally and literally (thus ruling out the various so-called "local" interpretations).
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html
The United States Geological Survey report on the total water present on Earth, with their own references embedded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_of_the_Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System
Three excellent and accessible articles on Geodetics and its application to the measurement of the Earth.
If, linguistically, we are compelled to read the Flood narrative literally (and there is substantial evidence that this is the case), and thus to conclude that the Flood encompassed the entire world, then we must account for that volume of water.
I will enjoy making the inevitable follow-up videos to this, as I foresee multiple literalists coming at me with various Bible verses that only slightly, vaguely, LOOSELY suggest that somehow the Flood occurred when the topography of the Earth was much "flatter" than it is today. These will be the same verses they use to try to explain why we find marine fossils thousands of feet above sea level, embedded in mountains and various strata.
They'll yell "NO NO!!! Everest was only like 500ft above sea level at the time of the flood!!!" Yeah, ok - by all means, make such remarks if you feel compelled to, even though they have been debunked by people that know far more about geology and tectonics than I'll ever hope to.
They'll also yell "You don't need all that water because the Flood was local, not global." Both linguistics and logic tend to rule out the idea of a local flood. For example, we have word usage and descriptions that specifically state that ALL living things that were NOT on the ark were killed in the Flood. This follows specific instructions given to Noah that he must collect specimens of nearly every living thing on the whole earth. If the Flood was local, then what did the killing outside the "local" area? If it was local, then what is the point of the rainbow covenant? If it was local, then how do we explain the fluid dynamics of waters remaining over "all the high [local] hills" for multiple months in a row?
God is perfectly fine operating on a local scale for his unusual manipulations of nature and nature's forces--there are any number of examples in Exodus in which magical/miraculous things take place in a finite area (parting of the Red Sea, the Plagues, etc etc). In none of these cases is the context anything but local, and is obvious to the reader. In the Flood narrative, however, it is repeatedly made clear that god was talking about a very boolean equation: Noah, his family, and the creatures on the ark got to live; everything else died. There's no mystery that god was hitting a Reset button on the whole world, but was happy enough with his creations that he wanted to make sure to preserve them for the future.
Check out paulchartley's excellent take on this subject as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0l0qTelEws
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