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Magnetic Poles May Be About To Flip
AGD writes "According to the Guardian, Earth's magnetic field - the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space - is weakening dramatically. . The article goes on to say 'Earth's magnetic field has disappeared many times before -- as a prelude to our magnetic poles flipping over, when north becomes south and vice versa.'"
There can be no particular date.
The change will be gradual, with about a thousand years of no field. But I wont worry about it. There is no precedent of extinction due to pole reversal.
If primitive beings could survive so can we. There must be some mechanism by which the earth wards of the effects. Maybe some thing in ionosphere. It kind of difficult to beleive that something which couldnt make anything extinct 250000 years ago will do it now on a species which spends most of its life under radiation shields(read buildings)
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In many respects, a simpler culture is far more resilient than a complex one. Increasing the complexity is a bit like walking up a mountain - the safe area to walk on gets smaller the higher you go up. Consider the magnetic flip to be a huge hand reaching down and translocating you a distance horizontally... would you prefer to be higher up the mountain (wheeeeee.....ouch) or farther down ?
In (slightly) more scientific terms, the advances we've made since those cavemen times are built on the premise of incremental change - we talk of "advances", ie: building on the past to get farther. Take away the foundations (communications is the major one, I guess, direction finding, etc.) and see how well everything that depends on them copes. Consider how an economy might react to (for example: the collapse of air traffic), and the subsequent secondary effects. None of this was even slightly worrying to the caveman, but our world is immensely dependent on excellent long-distance communications.
Yes, we have a far and away more complex civilisation than a caveman ever dreamed of. This is a weakness, not a strength. The payoff comes from what we can do with that technology, but if you remove that, you end up with a lot of hungry people in a small space...
I concur with the physics, btw, but you're really overestimating the resilience of our civilisation.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Direction finding is becoming more and more based on GPS than anything. GPS has nothing to do with the magnetic field. It disappearing wouldn't cause it to fail at all.
The same goes for communications with the exception of possible solar flare interference periodically.
It seems to me that while the pole disappearing/changing could cause significant change it isn't a showstopper for much of anything except the use of all current compasses and perhaps sunbathing.
... Dr Paul Murdin, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. 'On Mars, when its magnetic field failed permanently billions of years ago, it led to its atmosphere being boiled off.'
.. steady on there Dr.Murdin! That's quite a brave thing to say as if it's a fact. That's just on theory, and an interesting one to, but you cannot prove this yet. I'm sure there are lots of other reasons why Mars atmosphere is the way it is now.
Whoa
'On Earth, it will heat up the upper atmosphere and send ripples round the world with enormous, unpredictable effects on the climate.'
Arh! I think it will make some lovely daytime aurora, and generally play havoc with electrical equipment.
Mars is exposed to this kind of solar radiation, but it's atmosphere stays fairly chilly! The only solar radiation that seems to affect its temperature is the infra-red kind.
I'm willing to bet this article is nothing more than pre-hype for the movie The Core.
but take away their infrastructure and they will start struggling.
Take a look at the early Industrial Revolution Cities in England. So overcrowded a plan was needed.
The solution : criminalisation of poverty. That way the poor could be killed or transported.
The sudden loss of computing would be totally devastating in the short term. And for mnay of us that could be as long as we live.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Direction finding is becoming more and more based on GPS than anything. GPS has nothing to do with the magnetic field. It disappearing wouldn't cause it to fail at all
It's the earth's magnetic field that diverts the solar wind away from us. Without it, the GPS satellites would almost certainly be destroyed by the increase in ionising particle flux. Along with all the communications satellites.
For the record, I often think it a stretch to describe this mess as a 'civilization' anyway. But to address your point--I think that the problems caused by this occurrance will be alleviated somewhat by it's relatively slow onset. Sure, the poles flipping is a very rapid thing on geologic timescales, but we're still talking decades or more.
Communications won't collapse--most long-haul lines are based around fibre now, which is essentially impervious to solar radiation. Satellites infrastructure might take a bit of a hit, but I don't see the iminent collapse of the GPS system. (Since the U.S. military really can't do without it, they'll find a way to keep it working. Kind of a hand-waving argument, but you can bet your ass that they'll get whatever appropriations they want from Congress.) Retaining GPS and transoceanic fibre will mean that international finance and trade will be pretty much unaffected.
Climate change is a different beast altogether. Nobody knows exactly what form it will take, if it happens at all. The world already overproduces food--we just don't distribute it very well. I suspect that we will see exactly what we've seen for most of this century--the developed world will survive in relative comfort, while Third World nations willl starve.
As to health effects--again, a big question mark. It depends on dose of solar radiation, but I'm heartened by the fact that these flips have happened fairly frequently without being accompanied by mass extinctions. Cancer rates will go up somewhat. Wealthy nations will probably develop preventive medicines to cut down on the effect.
In short, day to day life probably won't be seriously affected for most people. We'll get some weird weather, and have to develop some interesting technological solutions in some areas, and--oh, yes--low lying cities may have to build dikes or be evacuated. But that's about it. Not the end of civilizaiton.
Alternately, I advocate giving every person on earth a little bar magnet to carry around, along with detailed instructions as to how it ought to be oriented to maintain an artificial planetary magnetic field.
~Idarubicin
be sure to use only two data points.
according to another article that somebody else linked above, (here) this conclusion isn't based on an ongoing survey of the earth's magnetic field over the last 20 years (as implied by the observer article), but rather on the comparison of current data to a single set of data taken 20 years ago:
But Ørsted is the first satellite to take a snapshot of the Earth's magnetic field for 20 years, and such scant data makes it difficult to predict future shifts.
so while this may make a great shock news story (or hollywood movie plot) it hardly seems like anything approaching significant scientific research worth getting particularly alarmed about.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
On the bright side, if the poles flip, Earth's north pole will actually be a magnetic north.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I'll also point out that no one really knows how the planet's magnetic field is generated.
Sure we do. It's from dynamo currents caused by convection in the (liquid) outer core.
Magnetic field flips happen when turbulence grows enough to disrupt these patterns briefly.
This is why Jupiter has a much stronger magnetic field than Earth (huge liquid metallic hydrogen layer, and a very powerful internal heat source), and why the moon has almost no magnetic field (no liquid core; the only field is the one that was "frozen in" when the moon first cooled).
It still doesnt matter GPS navigation is for convience only. anyone needing to do absolute navigation still has several other forms that do not rely on any electronic device and one super accurate navigation system that doesnt care if the poles are north/south or even southwest and northeast. A sextant is a great device that can only be thwarted by stopping the rotation of the planet.
if anyone thinks that modern civilization will instantly collapse by the loss of GPS.... ther are the same morons that believed that Y2K was something to actually worry about.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Our technology will have to undergo a severe shift.
I am surprised no one has commented on the fact that the magnetic fields around earth protect the Earth from radiation that _damages_ electronics. When the sun has a solar flare, satellites are knocked out by the radiation. The only reason computers on the planet aren't is because the magnetic fields deflect enough of the radiation to make it harmless to electronics.
Yet, if we don't have a magnetic field to deflect the radiation, we end up with a completely different problem. A solar flare will likely be able to take out a majority of our satellites at first (if they aren't shielded, which most aren't to the degree needed.) Then with no field at all, the electronics on the planet are threatened by the radiation.
Likely very little will happen to us (considering it's just EM radiation mostly, and not radioactive isotopes.) But, There will definitely be a shift in computer construction towards better shielded designs. (because if there isn't, then... well, there won't be any computers working at all.)
~ kjrose
I wouldn't worry.
Earth's magnetic fields do not absorb ionized radiation. They deflect it, to the magnetic poles. I.E. Same amount of energy hitting the planet all the time. In today's world, most of the ionized particles are deflected and concentrated to the polar regions. Net effect of a polar shift, atmosphere stays the same size. If anything earth's magnetic fields act like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up charged particles from 5 to 10 times the earths diameter. If the field goes away, no more vacuum cleaner effect, which results in LESS ionized particles hitting earth. (Global cooling, perhaps???)
We've had radar stations and plenty of other sensitive electronics in the polar regions for a long time. Even at concentrated radiation levels, most of it still doesn't get through our atmosphere (14.7PSI). 14.7 PSI is roughly equivilent to a 32 foot/~10 meter column of water. Plenty of shielding.
Or cloud cover...
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Whee. Another excuse to bash MS. I mean c'mon, does EVERYTHING have to somehow be turned into some MS bashing comment? Why don't you use something like "Good luck finding supported drivers for Rudolph's red nose in linux."
Either all this MS bashing is because of a lack of anything intelligent to say, or slashdotter's just aren't that creative or funny.
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