Many clues seem to indicate an accelerated movement of the magnetic poles of our planet. But is a pole reversal on the agenda on Earth in the near future? That remains extremely unlikely, according to a new study.
Will the north and south magnetic poles of planet Earth soon reverse? In the history of the planet, the phenomenon exists: the last inversion dates back to 780,000 years ago. These fluctuations come directly from the changing activity of the nucleus.
A recent anomaly in the Earth’s magnetic field, located in the South Atlantic, has attracted the full attention of scientists for several years: the field is weakening in this area, which could suggest an imminent reversal within a few decades. A hypothesis also supported by the displacement of the magnetic North Pole, whose movement is accelerating.
The Earth’s magnetic field acts as a shield: its presence is crucial to us. The inversion could cause a fairly chaotic (but not unmanageable) mid-period for communication and navigation systems — particles from the Sun, especially in flares, would degrade satellites, for example. The wider consequences are difficult to anticipate, in particular, because it is difficult to study the impact of past reversals. Should we be worried about it?
When will the pole reversal take place? Not in the near future
While studies questioning the potentiality of magnetic pole reversal are growing, new work published on June 6, 2022 is in the wrong. The authors have gathered data from “time capsules” from archaeological discoveries, that is to say objects and residues whose composition study provides valuable information on the state of the planet in the past.
From there, they mapped all of the known changes in the Earth’s magnetic field over the past 9,000 years, and they conclude that an anomaly like the South Atlantic remains relatively recurrent.
” Based on the similarities to the recreated anomalies, we predict that the South Atlantic Anomaly will likely disappear within the next 300 years and that Earth is not heading for a polarity reversal. “, Concludes Andreas Nilsson, co-author and geologist, on the Lund University website. This modeling may also prove useful for predicting the future of the Earth’s magnetic field in more detail.
In any case, this study does not definitively seal the debate, because on such a complex subject, new work could very well take into account new parameters or interpret them differently. But the solidity of this cartography suggests all the same that the inversion of the poles is far from being obvious in the short term for the planet.