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Max Haskins

April 5th, 2018

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

Lets’ Flip the Switch and Talk about Polarity

Introduction

Who even knew that the magnetic field flips in the first place, and when will it flip again?

That has been the underlying question that has driven my research, to discover why the magnetic

field of the Earth flips and what happens during these flips. This curiosity all started when I

walked into class one day reading a news article about how the Earth’s magnetic field and how it

was speculated that it was going to flip in my life time. The article talked about how the Earth’s

magnetic field strength dropped a total of 10 percent since humans have recorded; because the

magnetic field is not as strong as it was in the past the article assumed that it is bound to flip.

From this, my mind started questioning, and coming up with its own ideas as to when the field

would flip and what affects it would have on society. Through my thought process, I will explore

what the magnetic field is, how it is formed, why it flips, and what dangers it could pose to

society.

What is the Magnetic Field?

To understand how the magnetic field works we need to figure out how it is generated,

and to figure out how it is generated we first need to learn how the planet Earth was formed. A

long time ago, when our solar system was just a beginning to form around our sun, a massive

disc of dust and rocks circled our star. “The solar wind swept away lighter elements, such as

hydrogen and helium, from the closer regions, leaving only heavy, rocky materials to create
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smaller terrestrial worlds” one of these worlds would be Earth (How Earth Was Formed). These

heavier rocks would collide to form the core of our planet, as this core become planet sized, the

rocks inside the core started to face extremes pressures. This pressure raised the temperature of

the core to the point at which these heavy elements, such as iron, would melt down to a liquid

state of matter. The Earth’s core is “divided into a solid inner center roughly 1,500 miles wide

covered by a liquid outer layer about 1,400 miles thick.”( Earth's Core Has Another Layer) These

two regions are varying in temperature force an imbalance in density of the core, which forces

the more dense liquid (that has cooled off from being further away from the hot core) to sink

closer to the inner core while the less dense liquid rises, like a giant lava lamp. This constant

motion of the liquid up and down, in addition with its rotation with the earth causes the iron to

rub against each other. “This flow of liquid iron generates electric currents, which in turn

produce magnetic fields.” (What Causes the Earth's Magnetic Field?) Just like a regular magnet,

our field has poles of their own, they are located roughly in the same spots are the North and

South pole, but they tend to move since the core is always moving. Because the Earth produces a

magnetic field, the Earth is protected from the chaos that is called our universe, based off Nasa’s

website, the magnetic field can protect Earth from solar and cosmic particle radiation, and the

erosion of our atmosphere. Sadly, because the poles of our magnetic field move, that means that

occasionally it does tend to wander to far from the poles and flip to the other side of the globe.

This flip changes North and South to be South and North and could pose a problem to modern

day technology and other facets of life.

The magnetic field that Earth has is a rare one, not many planets in the inner solar system

possess the power to generate such a field to protect itself from the solar winds of our star. The

inner planet of our solar system consists of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars these planets are all
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located at different distances from our star and all have different magnetic fields. Mercury, the

closest to the star, has a “filed strength only about 1% that of Earth’s” which is understandable

since the solar winds are ripping away the filed (Field Flip Ahead?). Next Venus has a filed

strength that is not even detectable, which is odd since It is further away from our star compared

to Mercury, so the solar wind has less effect on it. Following Venus, we have Earth, which we all

know about. Then finally Mars, it has no global filed like Venus, but oddly enough Mars did

have a magnetic field once in its history. From this, some rocks have held on to that magnetism

and produce magnetic fields in “a series of magnetic stripes of alternating polarity in the

southern hemisphere. (Field Flip Ahead?)” Because of these planets we are able to understand

that the magnetic field is something that can be easily taken away and that Earth is lucky to still

have one, so when will it flip.

When Will It Flip?

The next big question I asked my self when learning about the magnetic field is when

will a reversal happen? The Earth’s magnetic field is constantly moving and changing because it

is based off the movement of liquid iron in the Earth’s core. Due this dynamic fluid motion, the

magnetic North and South pole can wander because they are not fixed into position; recently

they are wandering “by as much as 40 kilometers (25 miles) per year. (Field Flip Ahead?)” And

with that wandering “the overall strength of the magnetic field strength of has weakened by

about 9% over the past 175 years. (Field Flip Ahead?)” These facts would lead someone to the

assume that the magnetic field is surely going to flip soon, but scientist is hesitant to give a

general date or a range as to when the magnetic field will flip.

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A magnetic field flip is called a reversal, reversals have occurred on our planet since the

begging of our magnetic field this can be proven by looking at clearly documented

paleomagnetic records. These paleomagnetic records are basically rock samples that show where

the North and South poles were during that time. So, a rock that is found deeper in the ground

that shows the poles in one direction can be compared to another rock sample that is found closer

to the surface to see if the magnetic field direction has changed. From the samples collected from

around the globe, they show that on average the Earth has a reversal once every 250,000 years

(Field Flip Ahead?). Based off these statics the Earth is long overdue for a flip, the last reversal

to occur on the planet Earth was roughly 780,000 years ago (Field Flip Ahead?). Generally, what

is expected before a reversal occurs is that the overall strength of the magnetic field will weaken

to a point where it moves freely about the Earth where as normally it is “locked” into place. As

stated earlier, the Earth’s magnetic field has weakened by about “9% over the last 175 years”,

this might sound like a significant drop in strength in a short time period but It all depend on a

person’s perspective (Field Flip Ahead?). If you look at a time frame of the last 100,000 years

then you would see that “we’re near an uptick” in the geologic time scale, meaning that even

though our magnetic field is weakening it is still strong enough to resist flipping. From computer

models based off Driscoll, a staff scientist for Carnegie Institution for science, and other

geophysicist a magnetic field can be stable while moving around its side of the planet but then

randomly flips sides and precedes to do the same thing again. If a reversal would happen today it

could interfere or even destroy today’s technology that so heavily depend on satellites. Because

the magnetic field would weaken to the point where it would not be able to provide sufficient

protection against the solar wind, damaging crucial parts of the space craft that allow it to relay

information back to the ground. Enough about the satellites, what about the humans?! The Earth
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would “lose its ability to fend off solar outbursts. Even a relatively modest solar flare or coronal

mass ejection could pump enough electrical energy into the lower atmosphere to blow

transmission lines over wide regions of the planet” leading the planet into power outages that

would affect hundreds of millions of people (Field Flip Ahead?).

What Do Scientists Think Will happen?

Well scientists are confident that they know what to expect if the magnetic field were to

undergo a reversal, it would start by a weakening of the magnetic field, followed by a thousand

or so years of constant moving, then it would settle back out again. During those years of

significantly reduced magnetic field strength, the Earth’s surface would be exposed to more

harmful particles such as the solar winds, or cosmic rays which can have catastrophic effects on

the DNA if it were to pass through a living being. During this period, peoples risk for cancer or

other mutations would be significantly higher due to these particles whizzing through our planet.

From history we can tell that human and living being have survived during this dramatically

reduced period of field strength, so humanity will live, but our technological advances might be

stopped. Most of our modern-day equipment rely heavily on electricity and radio signals, these

signals have always been protected from our star by the magnetic field; well once our field goes

down, there is nothing to protect it. If the sun were to unleash a solar flare at the Earth during this

reversal, most of the power grids around the world would be wiped out for a long period of time,

this is because the particles released from the sun tamper and disrupted the flow of electrons in

the power lines that power our cities.

Conclusion
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If the Earth were to under go a magnetic field reversal today, society would pause and must back

track to simpler times where we did not need our energy. Lucky for humanity, I do not believe a

magnetic field reversal is going to occur. From the data collected by scientists, the Earth’s

magnetic field is strong and healthy, yes it has weakened a bit over the past 175 years but that is

expected over time. Also, our field is still currently over the historic average, so there is no need

to fear. From this inquiry, I believe that scientist need to shift their research from the strength of

the magnetic field to finding different ways that humans can protect themselves from the affects

of it, and the same goes for our technology. This could also prompt the question to what are other

new ways to transmitting power other than by power cables? Doomsday has been adverted, and

we should all sigh in relief as we look forward to the next disaster that is up and coming.
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Works Cited

Choi, Charles Q. “Earth's Core Has Another Layer, Scientists Claim.” LiveScience, Purch, 8
Dec. 2010, www.livescience.com/10324-earth-core-layer-scientists-claim.html. Accessed
03 April 2018.

Naeye, Robert. "Field Flip Ahead?" Sky & Telescope, vol. 135, no. 3, Mar. 2018, pp. 16-21.
EBSCOhost,
librarylink.uncc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/login.asp
x?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=127708249&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 01
March 2018.

NASA, NASA, science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/magnetosphere-ionosphere Accessed

03 April 2018.

Redd, Nola Taylor. “How Was Earth Formed?” Space.com, www.space.com/19175-how-was-

earth-formed.html. Access 03 April 2018.

What Causes the Earth's Magnetic Field? Explore, www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=64.

Accessed 03 April 2018