Pole shift?

Question

im confused will this happen quickly or over time? and what effects will it have on us

Answer 1

The magnetic pole shift, or change, takes several hundred years to complete.  The magnetic field will first weaken and become somewhat erratic then strengthen in the opposite "direction".  During the time when the field is weak, more harmful radiation will reach the surface of the earth, this is likely to produce more cases of cancer and genetic mutation in people.

Answer 2

the pole shift you're probably asking about is a cruel and cynical hoax. nothing will happen in 2012.

Answer 3

Magnetic pole shift or geomagnetic reversal is something that takes thousands of years and may not even start for thousands of years, so it isn't likely to affect anyone at the moment.

Shift of the rotation poles only takes place in the form of 'polar wandering' of a few metres a year. Anything you've heard about the earth's rotation poles suddenly flipping over is not only pure bunk, but a physical impossibility.

Answer 4

over time... you're probably confusing polar shift and continental shift (i did too for awhile)

Answer 5

It's already started, and it will take a while (I'm not sure how long, but maybe some decades or even a century or two).  During the shift, the earth will have no clearly defined poles, and the magnetic field will be greatly weakened.  What this means is that the Earth's protection from cosmic radiation will also be weakened.  This will not be devestating - although incidences of skin cancer my increase slightly.

The polar shift has happened many times in the past, and life still exists on Earth, so I wouldn't be too worried about it.

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Answer 6

Fast:  Every minute of every day, the geographic pole shifts by a few inches (or centimetres).  Actually, it is rather the Earth's crust that shifts on top of the mantle, and since our reference system (for positions) is attached to the crust...

The magnetic poles (name of the location on Earth's surface, where the magnetic field lines are vertical) are moving a lot faster.  Shifts are measured in kilometres per year.

Slow:

A reversal of the poles of rotation has taken a measly 4 billion years on Venus.  It was caused (it is still caused, since it is still ongoing) by the Sun's tidal effect.  That'll teach it to be too close to the Sun and not massive enough.  For us, the Sun will go red giant (5 billion years) before it has had time to "flip" our poles of rotation.

A magnetic polarity reversal takes at least a thousand years (with experts saying the average is around 5,000 years).  They occur every 700,000 years on average (and we are due).  But we do not know if it has even begun.

Signs of the beginning include fast moving pole locations (which we now have) and split poles (which we've had a few decades ago in the southern hemisphere).  However, other signs are more difficult to confirm.  I do know that it had not yet started 20 years ago.

During a reversal, the Earth's field does not go to zero.  The poles keep wandering, further and further from the (geographical) polar regions, until they cross the equator and, eventually, settle around the other geographical pole, somewhere.

We continue to be protected from charged particles (solar wind, cosmic rays), although satellites may become more affected by geomagnetic storms.  In 1989 (when we knew that the reversal had not yet begun), a major power failure in the province of Quebec in Canada, was caused by a geomagnetic storm.  They have installed safeguards.  I do not know if we have.

It has very little to do with the ozone layer (which is caused by the action of high-energy photons on the oxygen molecules in the high atmosphere).

Answer 7

Geographical poles don't shift.

Magnetic pole-flipping is possible over thousands of years.

Answer 8

The magnetic poles move all the time.

There is a geologic record that shows it has happened many times in our past but not at regular intervals. Time between reversals can be 10000 yrs or a million years.

However - we know that the magnetic field does not collapse in the process - if it did, there would be major extinctions that correlate with the geologic record for pole reversals - there is no correlation.

The latest hypothesis is that the Earth's magnetic field gets chaotic, with lots of north and south poles - so we still have a magnetic field, but compasses will be useless. And then it straightens itself back out, but with north and south reverse.

This is actually similar to what the sun does - but the sun does it on a regular 11 year cycle.

As for when it will happen - those people that observe the magnetic field think it will go through its chaotic thing and reverse some time soon based on how it is currently behaving, but that is a hypothesis waiting for the event to occur to be tested, and the exact date certainly is not known.

Now for the rotational axis and its shift:

The axis of the earth does wobble on several known timescales. These wobbles are known as the Milankovic cycles.

Basically the axis of the earth’s rotation does not always point to Polaris (the Pole Star); and we are not always inclined at 23.5 deg. So the poles do move relative to the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun, and relative to the stars – but the shifts are minor.