What would a magnetic field reversal be like for us Earthlings?

Question

Jondal, very interesting perspective. I hadn't even thought of that.

Answer 1

well our compases would be thrown off that's for sure....

when the field reverses the protection it provides is depleted.... which solar storms can cause mass black outs.... you'll probably see a rise in cancer rates as well... seeing as the field protects us from radiation from space...

something tells me migrating animals would be really thrown off.... which would have untold implications (everything from the species disappearing to descending on a new area like a plague)

you forgot they say that it's happened multiple times in the past and it happens like clock work (it's actually one of the more 'regular' events we can track... by events i mean things like super volcanos, asteroids, etc... things that happen every 10's or 100's of thousands of years)

Answer 2

If the earth looses its magnetic field for any length of time we will all die.

I personally do not think it will happen...  

Answer 3

Could be that people's brains will suddenly rotate 180 degrees inside their heads, so that the visual centers are facing forward and the cerebrum is facing backward.

Answer 4

The Earth's magnetic field is constantly shifting.

A sudden reversal would render some of our technology useless.  It would have a direct effect on some species that migrate and navigate by magnetic means (e.g., some sea life).

A sudden reversal would briefly throw the magnetosphere into chaos until it reformed in a mirror image to acommodate the shift in polarity.  If the shift were sudden enough, however (i.e., instantaneous) then many of the field lines would remain intact and the lower Van Allen belt might not be greatly affected.

Earth's magnetic field holds charged particles trapped in a region above the Earth.  The slightly higher density of particles trapped in the magnetic field deflects the brunt of solar radiation, including solar flares.

And in case your next question was whether the doomsayers claiming this will happen soon have a point: the answer is no.  The magnetic poles are not going to suddenly shift according to any scientific argument,

Answer 5

Wake up call.

Answer 6

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.

The process of reversing earth's magnetic field will take years, probably thousands of years - so we'll have a period when compasses are useless - but that's about all...