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Magnetic Field Reversals Unlikely To Be a Problem For Life, Says Astronomer (arxiv.org)
RockDoctor writes: A common trope in "the world is going to end, maybe tomorrow" alarmism is the prospect of the earth undergoing one of its frequent (but aperiodic) magnetic field reversals. Popular conceptions have migrating birds falling out of the sky, satellites and GPS systems no longer working, and much other such silliness. Of course, geologists point out that it has literally all happened before, that there is no significant association of extinction with reversals, and that what evidence there is points to a reversal taking a number of centuries to millennia to achieve. And then the next story comes out and the same old "sky is falling" garbage comes out again.
Just for a change, an astronomer has thrown in his few cents worth. In a letter to The Astrophysical Journal (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), Manasvi Lingam of Harvard University looks at the implications of a magnetic reversal, or of the "switching on" of the Earth's "dynamo" on the flux of radiation experienced by an organism living near the surface. Lingam deduces that during a reversal (or before the dynamo started) "neither the biological radiation dose rates [...] would vary by more than a factor of 2." Behind the "..." is a prospect which will appeal to those looking for ways to die, as "the atmospheric escape rate" is also somewhat affected by the strength of the magnetic field. As a theoretical astronomer, Lingam agrees with the geological record (yay!) that field reversals are unlikely to have major effects on life, or on the atmosphere, or really, on anything other than astronomers' and geophysicists' gauges and dials. None of this will even slightly slow down the overblown hysteria that accompanies the next twitch of the magnetic field.
Just for a change, an astronomer has thrown in his few cents worth. In a letter to The Astrophysical Journal (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), Manasvi Lingam of Harvard University looks at the implications of a magnetic reversal, or of the "switching on" of the Earth's "dynamo" on the flux of radiation experienced by an organism living near the surface. Lingam deduces that during a reversal (or before the dynamo started) "neither the biological radiation dose rates [...] would vary by more than a factor of 2." Behind the "..." is a prospect which will appeal to those looking for ways to die, as "the atmospheric escape rate" is also somewhat affected by the strength of the magnetic field. As a theoretical astronomer, Lingam agrees with the geological record (yay!) that field reversals are unlikely to have major effects on life, or on the atmosphere, or really, on anything other than astronomers' and geophysicists' gauges and dials. None of this will even slightly slow down the overblown hysteria that accompanies the next twitch of the magnetic field.
Raining on a good panic parade with your "facts" and your "science".
Won't anybody think of the poor panickers bereft of a good panic?
I was taught by slashdot commenters that scientists always like to create alarm and panic in order to raise taxes. What happened here ?
... hiker who gets lost and starves to death because of a compass that isn't pointing north any more?
... where will it be pointing? will there be a mass recall of compasses?
All stars end up as iron, as it's the lowest energy state that can neither be fused nor fissioned.
A star usually fuses its elements in a chain, and a fraction always ends up as iron, by the time it explodes.
Our sun is not the first generation.
So the cloud it formed in, also contained some iron.
And from that cloud came our planet.
That alone would not be enough.
The key factor is, that it is liquid. Allowind the poles of the iron atoms (and everything else) to line up, at least regionally.
Add spinning, forces from other large bodies and varying levels of liquidity, and you get quite a bit of sloshing stirring chaos in there.
The pole emerges form most polar material lining up.
But of course it isn't precise, and changes all the time in that big mess of poles and smaller poles and arcs and twisting.
And once in a while, the main pole gets so disturbed, that it splits. Then you have multiple smaller poles, and a useless compass.
It takes some time to align into something we and the birds consider useful again.
... is often followed by "Hold my beer."
I personal;y have a very simple risk analysis method. It is 50%. Either is happens, or it doesn't.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
He's a real dick...
All stars end up as iron
Not true. Only stars above a certain mass (much larger than our Sun) get to the point where they can fuse larger elements up to iron. Iron comes from supernova explosions and small stars never do that.
as it's the lowest energy state that can neither be fused nor fissioned.
Again not true. Iron can be fused but the reaction loses energy in the process causing the temperature of the star to drop. In large stars this thermal pressure is what is keeping the star from collapsing and/or exploding. Stars that get to the point of trying to fuse iron will rapidly end of life, often violently. You can fuse and fission iron but not in a way that is a net energy gain.
A star usually fuses its elements in a chain, and a fraction always ends up as iron, by the time it explodes.
Stars have to be much larger than our sun to explode via the chain you describe. You have the basics process more or less right but it doesn't apply to all stars. Small stars have much different end of life processes.
"None of this will even slightly slow down the overblown hysteria that accompanies the next twitch of the magnetic field."
"And then the next story comes out and the same old "sky is falling" garbage comes out again."
When every scientific effort documented in TFS is punctuated by this bullshit, it really makes me wonder why scientists even expended the effort to do a study in the first place.
In the face of mass ignorance and stupidity, trying to educate people seems so damn futile.
Panic here:
https://phys.org/news/2018-12-earth-magnetic-poles-flip.html
And EU funded agency to study the "problem":
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/213916/factsheet/en
There is always money to be made by scaring the public with stuff they don't understand.
Is it the solid core that spins differently to the earth, or is it the liquid layer only sloshing around?
A 20 second search on Wikipedia would answer your question...
I'm reminded of similar statements by scientists that an EMP or another Carrington event will have minimal effects on humans or animal life. In both cases (and in this), the problem isn't the direct effects, it's the secondary ones. An EMP will mostly pass through biological tissue just fine, and might not even permanently disable some older cars -- but if the US is out of power for 14 months because no one can get the transformers rebuilt, that particular aspect doesn't really matter, now does it?
For a pole flip, I'm not really concerned about the biosphere (except maybe birds), for precisely the reasons indicated. Rather, how does a magnetic flip affect GPS? Compasses? Does it induce current in the process of the flip? That sort of thing.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Big problem!
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
satellites and GPS systems no longer working, and much other such silliness. Of course, geologists point out that it has literally all happened before,
We all know that GPS was not affected last time.
The roads are not going to twist just because the poles flip.
You just need to learn to read a map or the land.
If you are in Colorado you can pretty much tell where you are by what side of the Mountain you are and which one.
Considering that solar wind has been correlated with so many aspects of life and health and that our magnetic shield (which has lost 15% in last century or so and is accellerating) is what protects us from these I find this hard to believe.
Atmosphere protects you, too. It's ten tonnes of mass per every square meter above your head. Hardly an insignificant shield.
Ezekiel 23:20
I said there is a chain of fusion. From hydrogen, over helium ... all the way to iron.
You said "A star usually fuses its elements in a chain, and a fraction always ends up as iron, by the time it explodes." This only a true statement for a fraction of stars of sufficient size. Smaller stars like our Sun do not do this to any meaningful degree.
But in the end, even a dwarf star will end up wirh iron. In fact there will be a time, when everything will have become iron, and stay that way for a long time.
This is simply not true. You need to study the physics involved a bit further. You've got some of it right but your conflating some of the details.
"Magnetic Field Reversals Unlikely To Be a Problem For Life ..."
Key word there is "life", other than messing with any species that uses the magnetic field to guild its migration path for the most part a collapse and flip of the Earth's magnetic field will have little or no long term impact on "life"
But Technology on the other hand is going to be mostly screwed over by a flip. Something most people don't get is a pole flip won't be a clean instant flip where suddenly your compass is 180 degrees off from where it pointed to before lunch. The poles will move around, the "North" pole could end up on the Equator while the "South" pole has become multiple "poles" scattered around the other side of the planet for awhile. This unstable period could last for years if not decades. But that won't be what fucks over technology..
When the Earths magnetic field starts going wonky the Van Allen Belts, the shield that protects the Earth and, most important to Humans, all the communication/GPS/monitoring satellites in orbit will mostly cease to exist. Many of those satellites are not made to withstand direct exposure to the Sun's radiation for very long. So most of the electronics in orbit will be fried. Also affected will be the Earth's Ionosphere, when it gets hit by strong solar radiation, like during a solar flare or direct exposure to the solar wind the layer becomes opaque to radio, no more GPS or reliable communications via satellite will be able to reach the ground, which will mess with shipping, aircraft, commerce (lots of systems use GPS for their time reference) and even local cell phone connections. And all the copper wire strung all over the planet we rely on for power distribution and communications will be similarly hosed. Read up on the Carrington Event" of 1859 to learn what happens when the Earth gets hit by a LOT of solar wind.
All that said I'm not going to lose sleep over the possibility of a flip in my lifetime. Like the Astronomer said, it won't be a problem for Life because it will adapt to the changes and continue on. And as much as I would dislike it not being able to get GPS driving directions to my hotel or surf the Internet won't kill me.
This submitted article literally says the opposite, as does your second link, since airliners fly above most of the atmosphere but below most of the magnetic field, so obviously it's the atmosphere making most of the difference. As to atmospheric stripping, I suggest you easily find with google the mean molecular velocities of gases and escape velocities of individual planets and that you read up on the basics of a topic before trying to refute it.
Ezekiel 23:20
Have gnu, will travel.
"But these exposures were greater than on typical flights at lower latitudes, and confirmed the concerns about commercial flights at high latitudes."
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/cosmic-rays-burst-magnetic-shield
The quote is not found in the linked page.
Ezekiel 23:20
If you had ever looked at a magnetic field strength estimate taken from a sediment (or igneous) pile of rock, you'd know that fields are constantly changing by large factors. Indeed, anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of geomagnetics knows that during the period of instrumental measurement (~2 centuries) there has been a factor-of-2 decrease in general field strength, and more in some areas. So, anyone designing a system that uses geomagnetics is going to incorporate that possibility in their design. Anyone not doing that is flat-out ignorant, incompetent, or both.
"Equipment designed by ignorant/ incompetent people breaks" - even Slashdot would probably reject that story!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
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Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Atmospheric stripping is one of the issues that Lingam addresses. It's not a big deal.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I learned that lesson from either Towering Inferno or Jaws in about 1974.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
The author has released a revision of the paper at the same location as described above. The original version is now here. There are no major changes to the conclusions.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"