pole shift | Science Of Cycles News and Research

Earth’s Magnetic Pole Shifting at Unexpected Speed

Rapid shifts in the Earth’s north magnetic pole are forcing researchers to make an unprecedented early update to a model that helps navigation by ships, planes and submarines in the Arctic, scientists said.

Compass needles point towards the north magnetic pole, a point which has crept unpredictably from the coast of northern Canada a century ago to the middle of the Arctic Ocean, moving towards Russia.

Arnaud Chulliat is a scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. He is also the lead researcher for the newly updated World Magnetic Model. Chulliat told the Associated Press the continuous movement of magnetic north is a problem for compasses in smartphones and other electronic devices.

“It is moving at about 50 km (30 miles) a year. It did not move much between 1900 and 1980 but it is really accelerated in the past 40 years,” reports Ciaran Beggan, of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh.

A five-year update of a World Magnetic Model was due in 2020 but the U.S. military requested an unprecedented early review, he said. The BGS runs the model with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Beggan said the moving pole affected navigation, mainly in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. NATO and the U.S. and British militaries are among those using the magnetic model, as well as civilian navigation.

The wandering pole is driven by unpredictable changes in liquid iron deep inside the Earth. An update will be released on January 30, the journal Nature said, delayed from January 15 because of the U.S. government shutdown.

“The fact that the pole is going fast makes this region more prone to large errors,” Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, told Nature.

Beggan said the recent shifts in the north magnetic pole would be unnoticed by most people outside the Arctic, for instance using smartphones in New York, Beijing or London.

Many smartphones have inbuilt compasses to help to orientate maps or games such as Pokemon Go. In most places, however, the compass would be pointing only fractionally wrong, within errors allowed in the five-year models, Beggan said.

BREAKING NEWS: More Signs Of Coming Pole Shift

A moving viscous flow within the Earth’s molten iron core has been discovered by scientists using the latest satellite data that helps create an ‘x-ray’ view of the planet.

Lead researcher Dr Phil Livermore, from the University of Leeds, said: “The European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites are providing our sharpest x-ray image yet of the Earth’s outer core. We’ve not only seen this moving flow clearly for the first time, but we understand why it’s there.”

“We can explain it as an accelerating band of molten iron circling the North Pole, like the moving stream in the atmosphere,” said Dr Livermore, from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds.

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Because of the outer core’s remote location under 3,000 kilometers of rock, for many years scientists have studied the Earth’s outer and inner core by measuring the planet’s magnetic field – one of the few options available.

Previous research had found that changes in the magnetic field indicated that iron in the outer core was moving faster in the northern hemisphere, mostly under Alaska and Siberia. But new data from the Swarm satellites has revealed these changes are actually caused by a moving flow moving at more than 40 kilometers per year. This is three times faster than typical outer core speeds and hundreds of thousands of times faster than the speed at which the Earth’s tectonic plates move.

The European Space Agency’s Swarm mission features a trio of satellites which simultaneously measure and untangle the different magnetic signals which stem from Earth’s outer and inner core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere. They have provided the clearest information yet about the magnetic field created in the core.

The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, found the position of the moving flow aligns with a boundary between two different regions in the outer core. The jet is likely to be caused by liquid in the core moving towards this boundary from both sides, which is squeezed out sideways.

Co-author Professor Rainer Hollerbach, from the School of Mathematics at Leeds, said: “Of course, you need a force to move the liquid towards the boundary. This could be provided by buoyancy, or perhaps more likely from changes in the magnetic field within the outer core.”

Rune Floberghagen, ESA’s Swarm mission manager, said: “Further surprises are likely. The magnetic field is forever changing, and this could even make the moving flow switch direction.

“This feature is one of the first deep-Earth discoveries made possible by Swarm. With the unprecedented resolution now possible, it’s a very exciting time – we simply don’t know what we’ll discover next about our planet.”

Co-author Dr Chris Finlay, from the Technical University of Denmark said: “We know more about the Sun than the Earth’s core. The discovery of this jet is an exciting step in learning more about our planet’s inner workings.”

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(PART III) Magnetic Pole Reversal Coming Sooner Than You Think

According to scientists’ best estimates, the Earth’s magnetic field is now weakening around 10 times faster than previously predicted, losing approximately 5% of its strength every decade. This finding indicates a magnetic pole reversal could be coming sooner rather than later.

The geomagnetic dipole has decreased by nearly 6% per century since first measured by Gauss in the 1840s. This too is 10-20 times faster than the “Ohmic” decay rate. (The process by which the passage of an electric current through a conductor releases heat). The causes of this rapid decrease in Gauss stability, is the proliferation of reverse magnetic field on the core-mantle boundary. This has occurred especially beneath the South Atlantic with the transference of heat energy in a horizontal stream of the magnetic field from high to low latitudes.

The weakening of Earth’s magnetic field has two fundamental points. First: A weakened magnetic field allows charged particle events such as galactic cosmic rays, gamma rays, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CME), to produce enhanced consequences to extreme weather events that include earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes etc.

Second: The second major consequence of a weakened magnetic field is its identification as the ‘precursor’ to a magnetic pole shift. It is estimated that Earth’s magnetic field reverses every few thousand years at low latitudes and every 10,000 years at high latitudes. It is believed we are far enough along the cycle that many living today will witness the bouncing back and forth of magnetic north and it swings reaching latitudes below 30°. Magnetic north can also move east and west longitudes.

Precursor First – Then Full Magnetic Flip
Individual magnetic reversal records show a remarkable degree of repeatability, including dipole collapse, rapid polarity change, and fast dipole intensity recovery stages. This is to say historical magnetic field reversals indicate that during the period of Earth’s magnetic field reduction, it will be in flux for several years before a full magnetic flip will incur. At this stage of magnetic minimization close to zero point, the magnetic field may have multiple swings north and south across the equator, additionally with large excursions of geomagnetic polar flux in east and west longitudes.

The final stage of reversal is when the dipole intensity partially recovers. An example of this phenomena would be magnetic north suddenly dropping down to at or below the equator, then rapidly snapping back to say and briefly exceeds the surface non-dipole intensity, which in turn is followed by a very rapid dipole intensity collapse, final reversal, and recovery of the dipole intensity in the new polarity position. The final latitudes and longitude positions are unknown. However, historical records indicate north will be south – and south will be north – but at what degrees North-South-East-West is anyone’s guess.

When the poles flip, having a compass that points South instead of North does not seem like too big of a deal to humans, but there is a question of what will happen other animals. Certain migratory animals like sea turtles and birds use the magnetic field in order to orient themselves. A reversal of the poles could interfere with their ability to do so.

Another concern about the reversal is that the weakening of the magnetic field, which precedes the flipping event, will mean that it will not be able to adequately shield us from the Sun’s radiation. Although there is no direct evidence in the fossil record of a “mass” extinction correlating with a field reversal or an influx of radiation, records show there have been selective extinctions. Additionally, there is concern of what could happen to power grids, satellites and effects on weather patterns.

The question is not ‘will there be a magnetic pole reversal’, but at what phase are we currently in? I would suggest we are in the last phases. There are many of you who will be able to witness a magnetic reversal firsthand, what transpires over the next 50 to 60 years. Unfortunately, I will not be one of them but my kids will be; and they have been instructed to take good notes and photos to pass on to their kids.