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Ship Logs Suggest Upcoming Polar Reversal

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the straight-on-till-morning dept.

Nyerp writes "Researchers are using naval logs dating back as far as 1590 to arrive at better estimates of the decline of Earth's magnetic field. The results suggest that there may be a reversal of earth's magnetic field in about 2000 years." Also worth noting, our ancestors have lived through a number of polar reversals, and we're still here, so no need to fret!

6 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Slightly off... by Justifiable_Delusion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To say just because our ancestors lived through it 780 million years ago does NOT mean that we will do just fine and shouldn't fret. Maybe something like this occuring leads to accelerated mutations and changes in the human genome (or all animals for that reason). I would like to see if there were any studies done looking at genetics before and after each of these flips in the general population of living things. The planets surface is BATHED is radiation. To think this would have no affect on us would be foolish. We will have to change the way we live. Skin cancer now a days is bad enough....imagine multiplying it by a factor of 10,000.

    SPF my ass.

    --
    Mad, adj : Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. Ambrose Bierce - The Deveil's Dictionsary
    1. Re:Slightly off... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not quite. Skin cancer is believed to be caused by UV radiation. The magnetic field has absolutely no effect on UV. What the magnetic field DOES help to block is charged particles, particularly protons.

      People living at high latitudes and on the equator or flying planes for a living already get quite a bit more proton radiation than everybody else. British Airways has monitored their flight crews for a couple of decades and found that, despite the higher exposure, life expectancy was higher and cancer rates lower.

  2. "No need to fret?" Like hell. by gblues · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Also worth noting, our ancestors have lived through a number of polar reversals, and we're still here, so no need to fret!

    Sure, no need to fret. It's not like we haven't invested hundreds of years worth of technology and research based on magnetic reference points. Oh, wait...

    Nathan

  3. Re:Adverse effect on magnetic storage? by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > is it at all possible that a switch in the earth's polarity would damage/erase any data

    No. The Earth's magnetic field is pervasive, but not very strong. And what there is has a negative/disruptive effect on magnetic media in any case. During the Earth's transition period, magnetically-stored data should be more safe, if anything. But probably not enough to measure.

    When I worked for a HD company, years ago, we did find that one of our magnetic-layer deposition machines had a very slightly higher failure rate than the others, and that one did happen to be at ninety degrees to the others, and someone once suggested that it might be being affected by geomagnetism, but most of the engineers thought that was nonsense, and it was never investigated further, as far as I know. Frankly, I think it was just a slightly more flaky machine--it was the first one the company had built, IIRC.

  4. Less strange than fiction by haelduksf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's an excellent novel by N. Lee Wood called Faraday's Orphans set in the apocalyptic aftermath of just such a reversal. Probably inaccurate, but interesting.

  5. Solution: Solar wind is going to create a new MF! by mha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I read this story in a German magazine a few days ago (http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltraum/0,151 8,300232,00.html). They pointed to a an article about a study (http://xxx.uni-augsburg.de/abs/astro-ph/0404580) that says simulations of a complete failure of the earths mag. field is going to lead to a complete replacement by a new mag. field - created by the charged particles of the solar wind when they encounter the upper parts of the earths atmposphere. They also point out that this simulation seems credible because nowhere could anyone find any signs of mass extinctions or even mass mutations the many times the earths m.f. reversed so far.