What a Magnetic Reversal Means for Earth

[stonehart]

Makes some very interesting points and not trying to fair monger as far as I can tell.

 

[Wade]

The only thing I've heard that i thought was of major concern...aside from electrical disturbances and navigation problems ( although I assume the gps system wouldn't be affected by pole reversal but by solar disturbances) would be that the reversal wouldn't be a flip flop type thing but a slow steady sporadic migration of the two poles as they move to their new positions and change possibly from month to month or week to week . That would mean for a time one of the poles could be over your home for a time and if during that period a solar event should break out you'd be in a very unenviable position. Also cattle and crops would be compromised.

At the very least it probably means we here in the northern hemisphere will be in the Antipodes but something tells me in your point of view we already were.

 

[Constance]

stonehart, thanks for posting this information. Do you know if scientists know whether earth has ever experienced a 'solar-induced EMP' in the past?

 

[stonehart]

stonehart, thanks for posting this information. Do you know if scientists know whether earth has ever experienced a 'solar-induced EMP' in the past?

Not that I know of.
The tech we have has just not been around long enough to see how it would really cope in a world wide EMP event.
Now what those two do not point out is that much of the military is EMP hardened such as, Large ships and protected facilities. Yes it could be chaos for a littl bit but we wont end up back in the stone age (well for long )
What this means is that power generation is in fact sailing around the world all the time and it can cope with heavy EMP.

The only thing I've heard that i thought was of major concern...aside from electrical disturbances and navigation problems ( although I assume the gps system wouldn't be affected by pole reversal but by solar disturbances) would be that the reversal wouldn't be a flip flop type thing but a slow steady sporadic migration of the two poles as they move to their new positions and change possibly from month to month or week to week . That would mean for a time one of the poles could be over your home for a time and if during that period a solar event should break out you'd be in a very unenviable position. Also cattle and crops would be compromised.

At the very least it probably means we here in the northern hemisphere will be in the Antipodes but something tells me in your point of view we already were.

This is what worries me the most Wade, an EMP event is bad and will cause all kinds of chaos but that is not as bad as people make it out.. there are ways of generating power to get things running again in short order.
I don't know about the American power grid but in NZ (depends on where you live) there is redundancy and the grid if fairly well maintained.

Wat has me worried is what you say the slow migration of a weakened magnetic field .. that could be a real problem.

 

[mike]

stonehart, thanks for posting this information. Do you know if scientists know whether earth has ever experienced a 'solar-induced EMP' in the past?

Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Less severe storms have occurred in 1921 and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported. The March 1989 geomagnetic storm knocked out power across large sections of Quebec. On July 23, 2012 a "Carrington-class" Solar Superstorm (Solar flare, Coronal mass ejection, Solar EMP) was observed; its trajectory missed Earth in orbit. Information about these observations was shared first publicly by NASA on April 28, 2014.[2][15]

 

[stonehart]

Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Less severe storms have occurred in 1921 and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported. The March 1989 geomagnetic storm knocked out power across large sections of Quebec. On July 23, 2012 a "Carrington-class" Solar Superstorm (Solar flare, Coronal mass ejection, Solar EMP) was observed; its trajectory missed Earth in orbit. Information about these observations was shared first publicly by NASA on April 28, 2014.[2][15]

So judging by that the first we would know about it would be what many would just think was a power cut until they tried to use a phone or a computer to find they don't work either. From my understand such an EMP spike would only affect things that were switched on or plugged into mains at the time. The power grid is very vulnerable due to the surge effect which would take most if not all transformers out.

 

[stonehart]