Will The Earths Magnetic Field "flip" If Weakened?, No racist comments!!

New research suggests that the Earths magnetosphere is weakening and that the poles could "flip". Meaning that the north becomes south, and the south becomes north. Meaning East will become west, and West will become east.

The Koran claims that when the "sun will rise from the west and set in the east", judgement day will come.


I myself am not Muslim, nor am in their favor, could this be a coincidence?

Now now people, please do not get racist here. We don't want racist people for friends do we?

Will the Earths magnetic field "flip" if weakened?

Kindest

Sandra

This post has been edited by Sandra doliak on Jun 24 2008, 09:35 AM

Don't worry, if Earth's magnetosphere diminishes too much, then the bulk of Earth's atmosphere will be blown away by solar wind, as has happened to Mars.
So there won't be time for racism, luckily .

(not sure what the timeframe for this would be though)

On the other hand, the situation I've just described might well qualify as 'judgement day' so it may well pay to keep an open mind. Who knows what ancient insight such books contain?

No, it just means compasses will point the other way. The Earth will still spin the same direction. There'll be a bit more 'Northern Lights' at lower latitudes and satellites will have more problems but in terms of the physical motion of the Earth and our notion of North and South, nothing will change. The Earth's magnetic field swaps about 2 or 3 times every million years, there's no way it can physically change the motion of the Earth's rotation.

Noone is going to reissue maps to have the compass turned upside down, we no longer navigate by compass. And even if we did, we'd just adjust for it.

Does judgement day come 3 times every million years?

Besides, it doesn't happen instantly. People won't be look at a compass and it suddenly turns around. It'll take thousands of years, slowly changing. 5,000 years is a very short time in geology.

Except the Earth has much more geological activity than Mars. Besides, if you were right, why doesn't the atmosphere burn off every 300,000 years? How did our ancestors survive last time it happened? Because the atmosphere doesn't burn off.

Come on people, use some sense. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to think "If the atmosphere burns off when this happens, how has life lasted so long?". I'm not a geologist but even I can see it's pretty ****in' obvious life will go on.

Hence the sun rises in the west and sets in the east -- because the compass directions are reversed!

Only because the compass is measuring things backwards. The sun will still rise in the same physical direction as it does now, because the Earth will still be spinning the same way.

What is the definition of a direction like east? It's a direction relative to the actual pole of the planet, not the magnetic pole. If we had been a bit slower and the earths magnetic field was reversed before we developed compasses, what we now call north would be called south and vice versa. Theres nothing magical going on, it's just definitions.

There's 'magnetic north' and 'true north'. True north is defined irrespective of the Earth's magnetic field. Hence 'North' will still be 'North'.

When backpacking, I still use a compass (though GPS is nice!), and maps are regularly updated because the magnetic North wanders.

Not just a bit: something like 2° (two degrees) within two decades here in temperate Europe.

It's so important that maps include a prediction (extrapolated from past observations...) of the change of the magnetic North direction, so that maps stay usable until the next edition.

So if the poles flip, at least for the maps, it will be as usual: they will tell another direction each year for magnetic North, and at some time it'll be the opposite direction.

By the way, I'm not convinced that the magnetic poles vanish during a flip. They could wander through the Equator, even if weakened. This would explain why the atmosphere isn't blast away.

I also wonder if ionizing radiations increase during a flip, or if the atmosphere catches these particles globally instead of doing it only near the poles (aurorae). Would a radiation increase mean that our datations based on mitochondrial ADN are false, since we extrapolate today's rate of change?

Put the arrow on the other end of the magnet - problem solved. Duh!

Besides compasses are already off by quite a bit. A compass in my back yard is several degrees off from the North Star.

The north star is not that close to true north. You can see that by doing something like this:

User posted image: User posted image

If the pole star was truly over the north pole there would just be a point, not a little circle.

True, but if it was at the location my compass points to - it would be a BIG circle.

Are you sure you just haven't got a bad compass?

Well obviously the law of conservation of angular momentum don't cease to apply as soon as the poles flip.* I was just humoring one possible interpretation. Geez, this isn't a forum for stupid people you know.

* Unless of course time itself suddenly reversed itself, in which case both the direction of Earth's rotation and the apparent magnetic field direction of the poles would reverse.

hello, im new to this forum, just got one small question for you guys..

i got a link, but its not alowed it says, sorry, but google magnetosphere simulation and it will direct you to it

this is a simulation yes..but i have been watching this for quite some time now, and i have not yet seen anything like this before

i was searching for a forum to have this posted, and came up with this one, if there is anyone who can verify this in a "real" situation, i would be gratefull

seems to me we have a polarshift on our hands if this continues to go this way..

and no wind, no presure nothing...

greetings me

Hi Glenn,
What you are observing is magnetic variation - the difference between the direction from your location to the geographical north pole and the magnetic north pole. This changes by a small amount - a few minutes of angle - each year and as Enthalpy stated you will find the rate of change in the compass rose of any navigation chart - means you do not need to buy new charts every year. You may also have some element of magnetic deviation - this is usually caused by the presence of a metallic object in the vicinity of the compass. When navigating you need to allow for both variation and deviation when calculating your true course.
regards
Edward

Hi All,

The earth's magnetic field is weakening and it will flip "soon" geologically speaking. There is magnetic striping in the lavas around the world and it is expected to occur. This is nothing to worry too much about other than it will cause some confusion with some wildlife and birds that navigate using the earth's field. This has happened many times before (about every 300,000 years) and is an entirely natural phenomenon.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/29...gneticfield.htm
The earths magnetic field has weakened 10% since the 19th century. So given a thousand years or so it might flip... It may be sooner depending on how the flip occurs. It may not be a smooth transition but a "leap" from one polarity to the other taking a "short time" even in human history. What I think it is confident to say is this is not generally recognized to be due to any activity of man and man will probably not be able to do much about it (what a relief!). We will be exposed to additional solar radiation but the atmosphere will not be "blown away into space" since this phenomenon has happened thousands of time in the geologic past and the wildlife and the atmosphere continued to exist.

Cheer up... the collapse in the markets will get you first. Perhaps you will all mutate into spiderman or the Hulk or something... ur... perhaps not!

Cheers