North will become south, south - north, and all life on the planet will die - such a terrible picture is painted by American scientists. Russian experts disagree with them.
American experts from Johns Hopkins University (USA) recently scared: a change of magnetic poles is coming. They made such a conclusion after they found out that chaotic processes are taking place in the earth's core. One side of the solid inner core (the other part of the core is outer and liquid - Ed.) Of the Earth is slowly growing, while the other is slowly melting.
- Such a one-sided growth of the earth's core can provoke a rapid displacement of the magnetic north pole to the east, and as a result, north and south will switch places, - the author of the study, Peter Olson, predicts. - The movement of magnetic fields was confirmed by satellite data. When the planetary cataclysm will happen - I don't know. The chaos in the core makes it difficult to make long-term predictions.
But his colleagues from other countries are more categorical. Danish scientists from the Copenhagen Research Institute of Space claim that the polarity reversal will occur in 40 years. And the staff of the Paris Institute of the Earth are convinced that in 100. And they paint pictures of a real apocalypse.
These are the "smallest" troubles that this castling brings: navigation and electronic equipment will fail, and birds and fish will be lost in space.
And worst of all, the climate will change. The ozone layer will become thinner or completely disappear. A stream of solar radiation will fall on the planet from space, usually deflected by a magnetic "shield". And the weather will become unpredictable. Winters will become harsher, summers drier. Showers, floods will create a threat of the Flood. Earthquakes will change the face of the planet. Our whole life will be in jeopardy.
“Judging by the fossil remains of animals and plants over the past 540 million years, during polarity reversals, there are sharp leaps in the evolution of the biosphere, and most living organisms die,” says Renaud Degen from Johns Hopkins University (USA). - It is possible that the dinosaurs died as a result of such castling.
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Fantastic hypotheses are also put forward
- As a result of the change of the Earth's magnetic poles, Atlantis and other civilizations that once inhabited our planet perished, - assure geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman from Columbia University. - And even Mars became uninhabited, because the magnetic field disappeared during the polarity reversal, which in turn led to the volatilization of the atmosphere on the Red Planet.
Is the fate of Mars awaiting us? For comments, we turned to the Deputy Director of the Institute of Physics of the Earth. O. Yu. Schmidt RAS, Doctor of Technical Sciences Vyacheslav Koneshov.
A POWERFUL MAGNET INSIDE THE PLANET
Vyacheslav Nikolaevich, are we really in danger of a planetary catastrophe?
“Fortunately, no,” the professor reassured us. - Throughout the history of the Earth, the magnetic poles have changed places several times in 8.5 billion years of the existence of the Earth. And the planet is alive, and we are with it today. A change in magnetic poles is a common history of the existence of a magnetic field on our planet.
How did the Earth's magnetic field come about? Someone put a powerful magnet inside our planet?
- We live on a shell called the surface of planet Earth. The shell is called the "lithosphere". And inside this egg with a radius of 6,370 km there is a mantle with different layers, a liquid and solid core. The shell is thin. Under the oceans - 10-15 km, under the continents - 50-60 km. And so the movement of the mantle generates the Earth's magnetic field. This is what everyone's recognized theory of the geomagnetic dynamo says.
Does the mantle move clockwise or counterclockwise?
- No, it moves as it wants. It can change its speed and direction. Moreover, this movement does not depend on the geographic axis of rotation of the planet (the magnetic pole and geographic pole do not coincide, their deviation from each other is equal to 7 degrees. - Ed.). And since the mantle is the main and very large mass of the planet, it moves very slowly. Therefore, it cannot quickly change its movement. It's like a powerful truck that can't turn 180 degrees at full speed. And you think that in 40 or 100 years the poles will change places? Complete absurdity!
Does the abnormal behavior of the core affect our "truck"?
- This theory has the right to life for a simple reason: inside the planet, the core consists of two fractions - there is a liquid part of the core and there is a solid one. The solid center of the planet itself. And the anomaly in the central part of the core, which consists of pure metals, iron, for example, somehow affects the Earth's magnetic field. But the nucleus itself does not create a magnetic field and, therefore, does not affect the polarity reversal.
Well, but if not in a hundred years, but in a thousand, the magnetic poles will change places, what will happen?
- Nothing! You flew to Australia, where the shadow falls not to the north, but to the south. Would it move you? Also, when the magnetic compass needle points in a different direction, no one will be hot or cold from this change. Over the past billion years, the current magnetic north pole began to move in northern Australia, walked across the Pacific Ocean to the position of our geographic pole, and is now heading in the opposite direction. So what! The main thing is to keep the magnetic field. After all, it protects humanity from the hard radiation of space.
And if the field disappears, the planet will be burned by cosmic rays?
- This is not a question for me, I think that humanity will simply feel uncomfortable to live. But the end of the world will not come.
Half a century ago, the north magnetic pole was moving at a speed of 10 km a year, in the early 2000s - 40 km a year? Running faster now?
- Yes, his speed increased slightly.
So, we can get lost in the forest?
- We used to be guided by the arrow of the magnetic compass. But even then, the one who was engaged in real navigation still had a magnetic declination map, which showed how different the position of the North Pole was from the geographical one. In our latitudes, this difference is 7 degrees, and for other latitudes there are magnetic declination maps. This was important for the navigator. But now these declination maps are no longer so important, because now all of humanity is mainly guided by satellite navigation (GPS), which determines the coordinates. Gyrocompasses and inertial navigation devices are installed on ships and aircraft - they duplicate the work of satellite systems. The practical significance of using a magnetic field for navigation is decreasing, although magnetic compasses are installed everywhere.
And the climate does not change due to polarity reversal? And the weather reports are already very alarming: floods, downpours, extreme heat
- The Earth's magnetic field affects the climate, but not so significantly. For example, certain cycles appear in its spectrum - secular or 11-year. But humanity has always lived calmly during these cycles.