Guest essay by Eric Worrall
“Ship of Fools” Captain Chris Turney at UNSW claims to have identified a climate catastrophe 42,000 years ago, caused by a period of solar minima, intense cosmic ray bombardment, and the collapse of the Earth’s geomagnetic field.
Earth’s magnetic field broke down 42,000 years ago and caused massive sudden climate change
February 19, 2021 7.20am AEDT
Chris Fogwill
Professor of Glaciology and Palaeoclimatology, Head of School Geography, Geology and the Environment and Director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures, Keele UniversityAlan Hogg
Professor, Director, Carbon Dating Laboratory, University of WaikatoChris Turney
Professor of Earth Science and Climate Change, Director of the Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre, Director of Chronos 14Carbon-Cycle Facility, and UNSW Director of ARC Centre for Excellence in Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSWZoë Thomas Zoë Thomas is a Friend of The Conversation.
ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSWThe world experienced a few centuries of apocalyptic conditions 42,000 years ago, triggered by a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles combined with changes in the Sun’s behaviour. That’s the key finding of our new multidisciplinary study, published in Science.
This last major geomagnetic reversal triggered a series of dramatic events that have far-reaching consequences for our planet. They read like the plot of a horror movie: the ozone layer was destroyed, electrical storms raged across the tropics, solar winds generated spectacular light shows (auroras), Arctic air poured across North America, ice sheets and glaciers surged and weather patterns shifted violently.
During these events, life on earth was exposed to intense ultraviolet light, Neanderthals and giant animals known as megafauna went extinct, while modern humans sought protection in caves.
…
Because of the coincidence of seemingly random cosmic events and the extreme environmental changes found around the world 42,000 years ago, we have called this period the “Adams Event” – a tribute to the great science fiction writer Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and identified “42” as the answer to life, the universe and everything. Douglas Adams really was onto something big, and the remaining mystery is how he knew?
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/earths-magnetic-field-broke-down-42-000-years-ago-and-caused-massive-sudden-climate-change-155580
The abstract of the study;
A global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago
Alan Cooper, Chris S. M. Turney, Jonathan Palmer, Alan Hogg, Matt McGlone, Janet Wilmshurst, Andrew M. Lorrey, Timothy J. Heaton, James M. Russell, Ken McCracken, Julien G. Anet, Eugene Rozanov, Marina Friedel, Ivo Suter, Thomas Peter, Raimund Muscheler, Florian Adolphi, Anthony Dosseto, J. Tyler Faith, Pavla Fenwick, Christopher J. Fogwill, Konrad Hughen, Mathew Lipson, Jiabo Liu, Norbert Nowaczyk, Eleanor Rainsley, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Paolo Sebastianelli, Yassine Souilmi, Janelle Stevenson, Zoë Thomas, Raymond Tobler, Roland Zech
Geological archives record multiple reversals of Earth’s magnetic poles, but the global impacts of these events, if any, remain unclear. Uncertain radiocarbon calibration has limited investigation of the potential effects of the last major magnetic inversion, known as the Laschamps Excursion [41 to 42 thousand years ago (ka)]. We use ancient New Zealand kauri trees (Agathis australis) to develop a detailed record of atmospheric radiocarbon levels across the Laschamps Excursion. We precisely characterize the geomagnetic reversal and perform global chemistry-climate modeling and detailed radiocarbon dating of paleoenvironmental records to investigate impacts. We find that geomagnetic field minima ~42 ka, in combination with Grand Solar Minima, caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration and circulation, driving synchronous global climate shifts that caused major environmental changes, extinction events, and transformations in the archaeological record.
Read more: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6531/811
Sadly the full study is paywalled, but I think we get the idea.
I asked Dr. Willie Soon about this paper. He is very dubious about the suggestion that cosmic rays significantly influence global climate, the date for the Laschamp events (41,000 year geomagnetic anomaly), dating of the kauri trees, and claims that the collapse of the Earth’s geomagnetic field led to the destruction of the ozone layer.
Chris Turney’s other efforts include his ill considered ship of fools expedition which got stuck in the Antarctic global warming, and some fascinating dying penguin theories.
Laschamp event. A bit of a speculation sort of 2+2 makes 5 possibly ignoring strict chronology but sounding plausible. Pretty good for a crew of folly person. There are caves at Laschamp with paintings of animals.
I visited another of these caves quite high in the Pyrenees The artwork was stunning and it proved to me that we have not advanced hugely in artistic flare over the ;ast 20-40,000 years.
The portrayal of some of the bison was worthy of Picasso.
I did wonder. Since Bison don’t clamber around rocky scree slopes and cliffs, the nearest bison to this place was on the coastal plains near Bordeaux, so what did the users of these caves know about bison?
Were they sitting there in the freezing dark having been dispossessed by Homo Sapiens up into the starving highlands , eating marmosets by guttering bat-tallow candles and wistfully thinking ” By Gaia I could murder for a bit of bison steak”
Or maybe they were on transhumance holiday taking a break from bison chasing , avoiding the mosquitos in the coastal marshes and chilling out in the hills prior to going back in Autumn for the wine harvest and a spot of Bison hunting
If the zealots of the green persuasion have their way and bring about the termination of the Western industrial civilization we will all soon be subject to one or other of these scenarios. I hope for the latter but fear the former.
Please someone peer review these maunderings of mine cos I want to be a published scientist. and you got to be peer reviewed for that . Note to peer reviewers . You can be as daft as you like it matters not
Lascaux has some famous cave paintings … but I wasn’t aware that Laschamp was also similarly adorned.
Not to mention Campi Flegrei going off.
Just love the bit about “murder for a Bison steak”.Keep it comin’.
Clutching. At. Straws. Neanderthals didn’t have the intelligence to shelter in caves (despite multiple sites showing Neanderthal remains in caves) whilst modern human types did and survived. Flies in the face of archaeological evidence of Neanderthal remains in caves and in our DNA, not to mention remains showing both Neanderthal and modern type characteristics. That’s about enough for me to sink the entire paper – a 12 year old could’ve come up with a better idea, quite frankly.
The Scottish wild cat is in danger of extinction. The culprit being the domestic cat, it is being bread out of existence
If cats and Scottish wildcats interbreed, is either of them really extinct, or is interbreeding a form of evolution? If cats and Scottish wildcats can interbreed, doesn’t it mean that they earlier split from the same original species but never became fully separate species, so when they interbreed again neither is really going extinct?
If the answers to the above are that there isn’t an extinction, then surely Neanderthals did not go extinct, they evolved by interbreeding (humans today have -1-4% Neanderthal DNA). Just as dinosaurs didn’t go extinct – they evolved into birds.
Interested to know whether these lines of thinking are acceptable.
Birds had already evolved long before the end Cretaceous mass extinction event. Most of them were wiped out too. A few small seed eaters and some Antarctic water fowl managed to survive.
Lots of species considered distinct can still hybridize.
“Considered distinct” in the world of biology is meaningless.
Even today with DNA research clarifying biological relationships, many biologists refuse to retreat from their “splitter” species definitions.
The act of “naming” a species is a cherished institution.
If they can interbreed, then they are related.
If their progeny can flourish and successfully breed, then their biological relationship is close enough.
If the rules for hominids was the same as it is for other species, there would be at least dozen “species” of humans.
The human species does have several variants when examined in their unmixed states.
Caucasian (which is a long time multitude mixture of European countries)
African (several different skin tones ranging from lighter to nearly black)
Arab
Asian (Korea, China, Japan, Mongolia)
Native North American (Cherokee, Pawnee, Souix…)
Native South American (Inca, Maya, Aztec, Amizonia…)
Australian Aboriginal
Inuit
That’s at least 8 variants separate and distinct in physical characteristics and visually distinguishable to most people
Yet still genetically compatible
You can also add Polynesian.
Including Maori?
While different races exist its only a tiny tiny bit genetic, better described as geographic ancestry.
Same goes for dog breeds which can appear very different, there is more genetic variation withing a breed. The result is from a very few but powerful genes
The Arab designation is a funny/tricky one – where I used to work there were a lot of Syrians (who liked to be called Assyrian) and Iraqis (who were Chaldean Catholics) and they both seemed very like not-to-distant cousins to my Italian background. All of humanity is less genetically varied than a single troup of apes in Africa.
Phenotype vs. genotype is a whole can of worms. Sexual dimorphism is another one again.
The earlier distinction of species was necessarily based on what the specimens looked like because genes weren’t known about.
It becomes even more convoluted with Paleontology where most of the work involves extremely incomplete specimens. The seminal work in identifying (many) dinosaurs as warm-blooded relatives of birds was done in the mid 1970s.
It’s a fascinating filed which I know far too little about, so many of the comments here from people in the relevant fields are quite enlightening.
Neanderthals did not go extinct from lack of shelter. They did live in caves. Nor did they all die out 42 Ka.
But they are extinct. That portions of their genome still exist in some people today doesn’t mean that the subspecies survives.
Maybe the correct term for what happened to Neanderthals is not extinction. Perhaps assimilation would be more accurate.
Someone should have told them that resistance is futile.
Teens with high libido finished off Neanderthal
Neanderthals had a bigger brain than we have. Too much brain leads to extinction. AOC is the future.
We’re Doomed to Idiocracy
It would be remarkable if there were not wars between Neanderthals and Homo Sapientes. Where you get wars you get rape,loot and plunder. The first of these implies a fair amount of Neanderthal genome getting into the Hom Sap lineage, and I am sure it did us a power of good Thats where Picasso got his bull ideas from and maybe his bullish temperament too
There are people and organisations trying to stop this from happening, don’t think they’ll succeed. Too many domestic Moggies.
I once had a feral kitten that I raised, which resembled its feral mother. Except for its long tail, it was a dead ringer for a bobcat. He weighed 20 pounds at a year of age, and he wasn’t fat! The number of teeth it had was intermediate between a bobcat and a domestic cat. It was the smartest cat I have ever owned! I could share some interesting anecdotes about its demonstrated intelligence, but bigoilbob might take exception to me providing something to read that is more than we have come to expect from Mosher.
The biggest issue with hybrids is that they are often sterile, as is the case with mules. So, if feral cats are more abundant and out-breeding the wildcats, then there is a risk to the survival of the wildcats. So, the question becomes not whether Neanderthals were capable of interbreeding with Sapiens, but how fertile the offspring were. If I remember correctly, it is estimated that only 1 out of 10,000 mules are fertile. With so few mules today, it is unlikely that a fertile male will encounter a fertile female, thus they can’t ‘evolve’ as an independent species and can only continue as hybrids.
My understanding is that Sapiens and Neandertals were so closely related that there is an on-going debate whether Neandertals were in fact a separate species or just a race of Sapiens. Maybe its just a matter of definition and perspective and a meaningless debate. It seems likely that the two groups were so closely related that there was no biological barrier to interbreeding between Sapiens and Neandertals and it seems likely that their offspring would have the hybrid advantage. If Sapiens had the larger population their genetics would have swamped out Neandertal genes (with some exceptions where the Neandertal genes offered a survival advantage) just through random chance.
Surely bannocked out of existence
That’s the solution, get them to eat more meat.
Better red meat than dead!
Are they gluten intolerant?
er… the argument is that Neanderthals lost out due to increased competition for cave space with modern humans…
Interbreeding reduces their population too.
Don’t be silly Griff. Firstly, do you really believe it would be possible to shelter in caves for about 200 years without huge amounts of forewarning and preperation? Secondly there are huge numbers of caves dotted around Europe that could have housed around 10 times the population at that time quite comfortably. Thirdly what about the humans in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world, did they all manage to find enough caves for 200 years? Fourthly what about the other Homo Sapiens offshoots that died out at different times? Heidelbergensis apparently went extinct thousands of years before Neanderthalensis and, like the Neanderthal DNA, we have a little bit of Heidelbergensis DNA in us – are you really saying that both of these extinctions happened for completely different reasons but coincidentally just so happened to have the exact same result on our DNA? It doesn’t stack up at all.
The extinction bit is not scientifically documented, but effect on the climate is all too real.
Poles switch is not a switch at all, it is a slow splinting and drift towards equator, and the magnetic field will not disappear but may be more fractured and regionally unstable.
The field is already in the process of reversal, the trigger for it was the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet when the Earth’s crust bounced upwards releasing pressure on the mantle below.
It started about few hundred years ago when the significant split occurred in the ‘North’ pole, the original branch is still fixed and located near the Hudson Bay and slowly loosing its strength, while the other is in central Siberia and is getting stronger. In 1997 the Siberia’s branch become dominant giving appearance of the N pole rapidly drifting eastwards. This indeed may have an effect on the weather and eventually climate (pole splitting causes split of polar vortex during SSW as was case this January, followed by the current cold spell, I wrote about this on WUWT on 18th of January). http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/NH.gif
At the same time the S pole is loosing it strength too and slowly drifting in direction of Tasmania. Either of two dominant poles may split again.
Further ‘low field’ anomalies (aka South Atlantic) may occur, I suspect the area of central USA is showing unusually fast drop in the field intensity.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/USA-MF.htm
Even though the poles switch, that’s nothing to do with the ozone layer, which doesn’t need the Earth’s magnetic field to be stable. He’s confusing the ozone layer with the Van Allen belts, which do.
I certainly did NOT SAY it is to do with ozone layer,
Right hand graph is atmospheric pressure (hPa), not ozone layer.
FYI, if you read my comments of 18th Jan you can find what is this bit all about
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/18/the-stratosphere-has-warmed-profoundly-this-month-what-are-the-implications/#comment-3164797
I believe that the HE in Hivemind’s comment was Turney and other authors of the paper.
Thanks, I realise that later but it was much too late to edit
Dang, I knew it was Pootun’s fault. I knew it !
So much for navigating by magnetic compass. Are all the charts going to be reissued monthly with the new corrections?
NOAA now updates data every 5 years and extrapolates for years ahead ahead and presumably back corrects already published data.
Declination and total field maps
https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/data/WMM2020/WMM2020_D_BoZ_MILL.pdf
and
https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/data/WMM2020/WMM2020_F_BoZ_MILL.pdf
Zoom in on the second map and see how stronger is Central Siberia when in 1997 they had same intensity (61 vs 58 microTesla now, ~5% in ~25 years)
If you look at this map
https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/data/WMM2020/WMM2020_F_SV_BoZ_MILL.pdf
You will see that USA area from Rockies to Florida is loosing its magnetic strength (about 105-110 nanoTesla/annum) faster than anywhere else on the globe, while the Southern Indian Ocean is gaining at the same rate. This would suggest that the Earth’s field is on the move.
losing ffs ”slowly loosing its strength”
@ Richard, none of this makes sense. If there were “apocalyptic” conditions for a couple of centuries, our ancestors must have emerged from their caves quite a bit!
I’m of the opinion that interbreeding with Neanderthals produced sterile dominant males, thus condemning their tribe to extinction, by preventing the fertile beta males from breeding. A simple hypothesis.
sounds awful speculative
Except for the simple fact that today’s humans have some few percent of Neanderthal DNA in us, which means that the offspring must have been viable. All it would have taken is for the Homo Sapiens Sapiens inherited characteristics to have been slightly more dominant than the Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis inherited characteristics and bingo – a few generations down the line there would be no visible Neanderthal characteristics. Arguably the Neanderthals were a better, more adaptive people – stronger, more resilient and with bigger brains but our genetics proved dominant in the long run.
If the magnetic reversal was enough to kill of the Neandrathal because they allegedly weren’t smart enough to get underground, then it should have killed off any type of wildlife that didn’t spend most of it’s time underground as well.
The author’s need to explain why Neanderthals were the only form of life that was killed of by this catastrophic event.
Neanderthal remains in caves were probably leftovers from supper
Don’t you know Neanderthals went extinct from Covid. Joking aside there is a possibility Neanderthals died from disease brought by Sapiens. There are other theories as well such that Sapiens were physically better at walking and running so could out compete in hunting. Some even suggest Sapiens might have used dogs in hunting giving them and advantage. Many other theories as well.
Robert Felix of Ice Age Now has done work on this.
Apparently the poles do and are shifting and then get to a point when they suddenly switch.
The big question is: Will we be affected. Will we even notice. The compass will be opposite, is that all.
There is no doubt a pole shift would damage the Earth’s magnetic field, letting in more damaging radiation, plus likely have a profound effect on the electric grid. There are very many studies on this apart from the one mentioned here… you’d notice alright…
following Svendsmark I would agree
You don’t define “damaging radiation.” If you are referring to cosmic rays, they are attenuated strongly in the atmosphere, with a noticeable increase in intensity with elevation. Yet, people living in the Himalayas, or the Andes haven’t been wiped out. They haven’t even grown more fingers! People even manage to prosper in Denver!
Clearly, you’ve never been to Denver….There really still are Neanderthals….
Actually, I lived in Denver for a few months.
they already had to re orient at lkeast one runway in usa a few yrs back cos mag nth moved
so yes it does and is happening
how sudden is a matter of much conjecture
some say fairlt fast when it does others say a slow progression
it will stuff up GPS etc for sure
“I doubt you could even point to any airliner that still used magnetic north instead of GPS.”
When I get an instruction from ATC to turn to heading 170, that is a magnetic heading and not a true heading. All the runways are based on magnetic headings. All the new visual displays in the cockpit have both but if I go to Foreflight and say I want to go from A to B, it will give me a magnetic course to get there, not a true course.
A magnetic heading that is adjusted for the current location of magnetic North.
Compass readers are advised to pay attention to magnetic North corrections and to use corrected directional readings in their map reading.
That is even when using maps printed with corrected magnetic North readings at the date of printing.
Compasses used for serious purposes, e.g. flying, magnetic North updates and adjustments are recommended; especially during this period of rapid magnetic North Pole movement.
Keep in mind that latitude and longitude points are not dependent upon magnetic North.
Magnetic North is just an easy substitute for determining True North.
Runways are named by their magnetic orientation. When the declination charges enough they have to change the designations. Also, last year NOAA made a change to the declination maps, five years early, because magnetic North had moved so much.
There is an anomaly at London Gatwick airport The North terminal is about 350 metres North of the South terminal. It is also 1.5 Km West of the South Terminal so logic dictates that they should have named them the East and West terminal. It makes as much sense as referring to New Zealand as being East and West Island or The US Canada Mexico as West America and the Latino Manana part between there and Antarctica being East America.
However when the Romans built Gatwick airport 200 years ago maybe the poles were rotated.
But in NZ the South Island is definitely West of the North Island. The main fact is that both exist, as so many maps do no show us, even though they may show the change in Magnetic Variation! I suppose that means someone is making a judgement about importance, to which I object being located in the East Island!
ATheoK has it exactly right. Even persons training to get their Private Pilot license are taught early on about the need to adjust their airplane’s magnetic compass headings for “local” magnetic deviations to get a true magnetic North heading.
However, such deviations (published on aviation topo maps) are typically less than 5 degrees and in practice with flights less than several hundred miles in VFR conditions almost never actually performed due to the correction being so small and the magnetic compass bearing being effectively continuously corrected by the pilot referencing external landmarks.
VFR “flight following” by radar ground stations and radio communication with the pilot, as well as low cost GPS sets (even portable GPS such as in cell phones), have also pretty much bypassed use of the magnetic compass for long distance navigation, but it is still useful for short flights and is very much a critical backup instrument (not being dependent on electricity) for both VFR and IFR flight.
Umm, when I was tasking flight training here in Southern California was about 14 degrees. And, yes, we corrected the magnetic compass reading to get True North, which is how the charts are printed. (Tru North never, ever, moves.)
Retired_Engineer_Jim posted: “And, yes, we corrected the magnetic compass reading to get True North, which is how the charts are printed.”
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_deviation#:~:text=Magnetic%20deviation%20is%20the%20error,same%20as%20%22magnetic%20declination%22. ):
“Compasses are used to determine the direction of true North. However, the compass reading must be corrected for two effects. The first is magnetic declination or variation—the angular difference between magnetic North (the local direction of the Earth’s magnetic field) and true North. The second is magnetic deviation—the angular difference between magnetic North and the compass needle due to nearby sources of interference such as magnetically permeable bodies, or other magnetic fields within the field of influence.” (My bold emphasis added.)
It is true that aviation sectional charts are aligned to true North and they print lines of magnetic variations, mapped as “isogonic lines” for every one degree of magnetic variation. These charts are updated every six months.
BTW, “true North” (aka “geodetic North”) is defined by the alignment of Earth’s spin axis relative to Earth’s composite surface features and it does move, relative to any surface feature, based on plate tectonic movement.
If you like to find out how far your magnetic North is from true (geographic), providing you know your Lat/Lon coordinates you can calculate it here:
https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/calculators/magcalc.shtml
(e.g. for JFK airport declination shows 12.7 W degrees from the true north.
Ps. My magnetic North is 0.24 deg E , although my longitude is 0.22 deg W
Having not had to depend on compass bearings during the last several years I have not updated any of my maps. Thanks to this discussion and brutally cold temps I will be doing it today! Thanks for the reminder.
ADS-B is now the preferred method for ATC to track aircraft. Only its cost is slowing its penetration to general aviation.
ADS-B is now REQUIRED for most airspace in the US. Its cost is actually quite reasonable, down from much higher costs a few years ago. You can get one built into a replacement wingtip for a couple $K https://uavionix.com/products/skybeacon/
ok, the runway didn’t move, but the labels have been changed. Runways are labelled in degrees magnetic,rounded i.e. an east/west runway would be 9/27 .
when the rounding changes, FAA relabels.
Please see my comment above – they don’t move the concrete, they just repaint the runway and change the charts. The runway numbers are the magnetic heading of the runway centerline to the nearest 5 degrees.
Slightly off topic – my firm was flight-testing a new unmanned vehicle at Edwards Air Force Base. As part of the testing, we would measure landing dispersal. We were doing very well, but were always about 4 feet to one side of the centerline. Our VP and the Base Commander would talk about this quite a bit, with the Base Commander joshing us about the bias. Then someone asked him when he had last surveyed the runway. Of course, Southern California is a geologically active are, and the runway centerline wasn’t where it had been stated to be. Charts were updated. I heard that a very nice bottle of adult beverage was presented to our VP.
Did they re-orient the runway, or just paint a new number on it?
Just a new set of numbers, Mark – much less expensive.
Runways are often oriented to best take advantage of local wind directions. Unless winds have shifted, just repainting the numbers would also be safer.
Yes, the runways at Santa Ana (SNA, aka John Wayne) went from 1-19 to 2-20 a couple years ago.
The authors don’t mention Svensmark. The clear indication of increased cosmic ray bombardment (ozone depletion, auroras, increased 14C in the atmosphere) and a dramatic cooling effect, is to say at least not contradictory to Svensmark’s theory of increased cloud formation due to cosmic rays.
Ozone is formed when ultraviolet light breaks apart O2 molecules. link Given that cosmic rays are more energetic than ultraviolet light, you would think they would be more likely to split O2 molecules leading to the creation of even more O3. What am I missing?
I’ve read that one of the ways a gamma ray burster would end life on the planet, if one were to hit us, would be by destroying the ozone layer.
Assuming the dose was above LD10 at sea level (200 rem at nadir, spreading to 100 rem at the limb surface), things would be pretty shitty instantly after the GRB hit for the hemisphere facing the arrival vector.
But things would quickly go down hill for the rest of our interconnected world though a few days to weeks. The event would have to be pretty close though, in our local arm of the Milky Way, a couple hundred light years at most.
An intense gamma ray burst from a nearby source would probably incinerate everything. However, while a small increase in cosmic rays might disrupt the stratospheric ozone layer, I would expect that the UV-C would still be attenuated by oxygen and ozone in the troposphere. The tropospheric ozone would have a much shorter half-life than what it experiences in the stratosphere, and probably result in tropospheric heating, but I would expect the UV would primarily be a problem for life in high mountains, which it already is!
Physics.
Chemical bonds (UV photon absorbed by valence shell electrons) versus striking a nuclei with relativistic speed particles.
Willie Soon´s comments notwithstanding, this is an interesting article, Eric. About a year ago I posted a comment at WATTS about the duration of the time to complete an earth magnetic reversal, based on two intrusions, one normally and one reversely polarized, with a reversely polarized magnetite skarn associated with the normally polarized intrusion (in the Gualcamayo Gold District, San Juan, Argentina). Based on intrusion cooling rates, the Curie Point, and the mix of normal and reverse magnetic polarity, I suggested about 200 years to complete a magnetic reversal in the earth’s magnetic field. So, my recommendation is: if a magnetic reversal starts, and cosmic rays increase, live in your basement for around 200 years. Good luck.
Most of the dated reversals are based on the sea floor spreading indicator, where the new floor is added at a very small rate, it takes hundreds of years to provide a detectable reversed magnetic layer. However, there is evidence from pottery that reversals have been shorter and more frequent. As I understand it, the position of pottery is known from the flow direction of the glaze during firing. Some pre-roman pottery have been shown to have been fired during intervals when the magnetic field was reversed. Because the interval during which the field was reversed was short, it would not be detectable in the sea floor banding.
When I read this article elsewhere I was surprised at the claim of a reversal 41-42,000 years ago. After some additional reading it turns out that the “Laschamps Excursion” was a transitory event that quickly (geologically speaking) reverted back to the polarity we currently experience.
I’m dubious of the claim that a weakened magnetic field would destroy stratospheric ozone. The authors don’t present any chemical mechanism for that to occur. Even so, I would expect that oxygen in the troposphere would provide ozone to protect against UV-C. Ozone is principally generated in the tropics and moves upward and polewards. I would expect that to be enhanced by increased UV. It seems that the authors are speculating outside their field of expertise.
Ron, I was attracted to Svensmark because it provided a neat solution to a complex problem, But our Willis made a strong case that the evidence doesn’t stack up. Dr. Willie Soon also appears to believe Svensmark is not supported by the evidence. So I accept the magnetic field is possibly going to reverse at some point in the relatively near future, but I don’t have a clear idea of what impact if any this will have on global climate – quite possibly very little.
Eric, if we go through a magnetic reversal the climate will be the least of your worries. Stock up on 200 years of emergency food? Tin foil? (see below). What a great website!
If a magnetic reversal was as bad as you believe, the geological record would show a mass extinction event coinciding with each past reversal.
I think that a magnetic reversal would be more of a shock to our technology and infrastructure than it would be to the natural ecosystems. I agree with MarkW that there is little geological evidence to suggest that the many reversals in the past had any significant impact on extinction rates or boundary events.
You might well be right. If and when the North pole’s bifurcation disappears, possibly sometime towards the end of this century, or the N pole move to below 60 degrees latitude. The N pole’s field under certain circumstances forces splinting and weakening of the Arctic’s polar vortex. (when the SSW is caused by a volcanic eruption ejecting ash and hot air plumes to the upper reaches of the troposphere).
Current/recent cold spell might be the text-book example, with other similar situations occurring during the past decade.
Why that might be so be see discussion at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/18/the-stratosphere-has-warmed-profoundly-this-month-what-are-the-implications/#comment-3164797
Perhaps what is needed are large groups of field-reversal scientists (I suggest ~32) spread out among nations, universities and various Government agencies writing computer models of field reversal predictions, or is it projections, based on science of course. Other groups also spread out among universities and so forth can then make predictions about various environmental disasters that are about to occur because of field reversal. Hysterical public and Government groups will then emerge. John Kerry can double his salary as both a “warmist” and a “reversist.” There will be money for everyone!
Sorry DHR, you can’t make much money on magnetic field reversals unless you can scam the public into believing that human activities are causing the reversal AND that it’s a problem AND that something they depend on to maintain their standard of living needs to be replaced with something else.
Just replace magnetic field reversals with global warming in the above, and you’ll see my point.
It’s the electric grid that causing the reversal.
Obviously the solution is to stop using electricity.
See Mark’s comment.
Whoa, way too skeptical!
Where’s my money for building the unobtainium ship that’s supposed to go down to the earth’s core and restart everything?
SS Unobtanium;
Registered in UNSW;
Master – Captain Chris Turney.
Yeah.
What could possibly go wrong??
Auto
No, 42. R.I.P. Douglas.
Wouldn’t tin foil hats protect from cosmic rays?
Tin foil?
Protect what?
Protect from high energy cosmic particles?
High energy particles, the kind that easily penetrate physical matter?
So no, alarmists wearing tin foil hats will not be protected from cosmic rays.
They will look awfully stylish!
Only if worn while socializing with warming alarmists.
No, because cosmic rays easily pass though a vacuum, between the ears under the hat….
Maybe the high energy cosmic particles will cure Covid. Perhaps wearing multiple tin foil hats and a dozen masks will help!
No only staying indoors will help.
eyesonu
Reply to
ATheoK
February 20, 2021 7:44 am
Maybe the high energy cosmic particles will cure Covid. Perhaps wearing multiple tin foil hats and a dozen masks will help!
Cosmic rays are too energetic to reach the ground.
Typically, they smack into air molecules in the upper atmosphere, and sprays of secondary particles bombard us in the lower atmosphere. Likely, a tinfoil umbrella would provide pretty good protection. Or maybe a tinfoil sombrero. 🙂
That’s right, Pat Frank. The large distributed detector array of the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray complex, located in Malargue, Mendoza, Argentina, calculates that one high energy (ten to 20 power electron volts) strikes a square kilometer every year. There is another analog to this complex somewhere in USA, stop to visit if you pass by.
If you did that, people might think that you were running for president.
Are catastrophists losing their zeal for CO2? No mention of the evil gas in the abstract. Wonder if it gets a mention in the body of the story. How is it possible to inflict so much destruction without CO2 showing up. If weather can change without CO2 then what confidence level can we hope to put on weather forecasts out to 2100.
I can assure you climate rentseekers are working tirelessly to determine how climate change is responsible for the on-going geomagnetic shifts
Wiped out Neanderthals?
Caused an explosion of cave art?
East Anglia meets New South Wales
Neanderthals lived in caves, like humans – but still managed to become extinct.
Seems like a flawed proposition to me…
sounds like “making shit up” to me.
“but still managed to become extinct”
They werent as smart as homo sapiens had more to do with it.
Similar result in the arctic over the last 2000 yrs. The Dorset people ( named after Cape Dorset), who were around when Vikings were in Greenland were gradually replaced by Inuit who migrated from the North slope of Alaska and had better methods of survival…
“Inuit legends recount them encountering people they called the Tuniit (singular Tuniq) or Sivullirmiut “First Inhabitants”. According to legend, the first Inhabitants were giants, taller and stronger than the Inuit but afraid to interact and “easily put to flight.”
Will we now hear that there’s an anthropological cause for the planet’s magnetic polarity change? I have wondered for some time if Tesla was wrong and DC would have been better for power distribution. And with a DC grid we may have been able to “control” this flip…..
Tsk tsk.
Turney was not the Captain, Turney’s people disobeyed the Captain when the shore party was ordered to return to the ship at once but did not do so.
Chef said it, never get off the boat.
The thing that so dismays me about these wicked deceivers is that they are much more influential than us. They are masters of propaganda and are winning this historic tussle between rational folks and the new-religion bedwetters. We need to raise our rhetorical game: adherence to the facts is no longer sufficient to win this argument
People screaming and running around with signs announcing, “The End is Nowhere in Sight!” have a hard time getting attention.
“Climate’s changing! We’re to blame! We’re all gonna die!” will always get more press than “It’s a tad warmer than it has been for 170 years but not as warm for most of the last 10000 years”.
If it bleeds, it leads, and greenies sure know how to make it seem like the earth is bleeding
I think you’re being unduly pessimistic. A survey a year or two ago of Americans’ fears put CAGW dead last out of fifteen scenarios. All the same, it is infuriating to see the MSM parroting obvious lies.
But other surveys report aht >50% of Americans now believe in CAGW. Believe being the important word.
The facts will win when the waiter delivers the check to the consumers and taxpayers.
funny thing about the 4k yr old NZ kauri tree rings?
another lass(with Karoly assist) is using the same treering data to claim , using ONLY 1k of the data from the rings that us mob and co2 are causing so much damage yadda yadda etc
she managed to entirely gloss over the older data, and used karolys help and MODELS to get her endpoint scare tactics
The climate debate really has no skin in the game on this one and arcane details about dating the demise , or integration of the Neanderthals is just science at work – so hypotehses adcvanced and then refuted or vindicated – only academics in the field need get het up about it. For the rest of us it is mildly interesting and we dont need to take sides. Out of curiosity I would be interested in whether Svendsmark’s mechanism holds up under a reversal
With apologies to Douglas Adams, the key to life, the universe, and everything seems to be approximately 1/137.036
So, how are we causing the geomagnetic collapse, and who are we supposed to send money to so it stops. Inquiring minds and whatnot.
I’m working on it – send a few $$millions and I may have an answer
Has anyone told Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? It can be added to the Green new Deal. Everyone has a right to fixed magnetic poles, whehter they are willing to work or not.
Patently the output of a brainstorming session ‘down-the-pub’
Its been some party also, how many of them?
What happened to Social Distancing?
(There’s a ‘law’ somewhere about authors isn’t there. Exponential, each one additional author doubles the height of the shit mountain and sadly, it doesn’t saturate)
Quote:
“”New Zealand kauri trees“”
They’re on the Ring Of Fire.
A volcano went off.
period
What is the effect of increased cosmic ray on brainstorms? I think I’ll write a grant application.
This is pure assertion, climate csience methods.
Where is this in the SH ice core records from Vostok or EDC? And then there’s the idea about shortage of caves. He is making a bogus causal link with the time when the Neanderthals died out but at around 40KaBP. Neanderthals were intelligent and made tools , clothes, shelter , and survived through 4 ice age glacial phases, which is more than their less rugged but better protected Hom Sap followers have yet to do, but managed to proper and replace the Neanderthals, but not in Asia. Where they weren’t.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-were-the-neanderthals.html
I thought Neanderthals were limited to European areas and the Siberian plains and development of the Humans spreading around the Pacific was more continuous – and different, and was less affected throughout the ice age due to lattitude, and clearly that led to the more Asian/Mongolian features of Native Americans in the North and South. etc. Interested in that and don’t know. And, if the field reverses, it doesn’t mean it goes away . JUst aligned another way. Still deflecting high energy protons from the cosmos.
Interesting article, thanks for posting it. I have wondered if our intelligence did not actually come from the Neanderthals, as they lived in colder areas where one has to plan to get through the winter. More thinking to survive was involved in their evolution.
Climate seance methods? 😉
Janet Kelso has several excellent lectures on paleogenetics on YouTube.
So our ancestors lived in caves but the Neanderthals didn’t manage to find the caves and went extinct. What about other species? Did they also find caves or go extinct? This one doesn’t pass the smell test at all.
Our modern ancestors were racist and refused to let the Neanderthals share the caves.
An interesting question to ponder:
If a tribe of Neanderthals were discovered in some remote, unexplored portion of the world, how would they be treated by modern humans? Would they be placed in zoos, or given full rights as members of human society?
Either way they could vote!
Only if they reliably vote Democrat.
We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzee’s, which are hunted, killed for meat and for sale to the illegal pet trade. Don’t kid yourself that we would necessarily be benevolent neighbours.
Yes, we even dispatch our own kind in crime and wars. We have even been known to eat each other.
Feminists hoodwinked Neanderthal females into believing they were men. Extinction in a generation.
I subscribe to the 12,000 year catastrophe cycle of which we are fast approaching the next one. Good luck everyone.
Perhaps it’s a 12,009 year cycle. Kerry says we have 9 years left.
Its funny really, do you think they think anyone at all takes them seriously, any normal person would feel intense embarrassment at saying such dumb shyte, but politicians especially those on the left do not seem to have any sense of shame or embarrassment.
I mean what do they think will happen in 9 years time thats going to wipe out what will be 9 billion people they are quite insane.
Part of the problem is that progressives refuse to associate with anyone who isn’t a progressive.
As a result, everyone they associate with believes the same things they do. They find it impossible to believe that any “educated” person wouldn’t agree with them and their friends.
Remember Pauline Kael, who wrote for the New Yorker magazine. After Nixon crushed McGovern in a 49 state whooping, she was quoted as telling her friends that she couldn’t understand how Nixon could have won. After all none of her friends voted for him.
Ben Davidson is a kook and a huckster.
Turney is listed as second author of 33 named authors…
42,000 years ago? Presumably, Turney and his ground used a few of the buried kauri logs.
Turney’s abstract explicitly states “trees” as indicating plural…
One is reminded of the influential Yamal tree.
In the abstract, there is no mention of how Turney’s gang identify and separate ground contaminates from his magnetic field markers.
Precision is of little value when accuracy is poor, at best.
Radiocarbon dating? Of what exactly?
One suspects that the tree is radiocarbon dated then tree rings are their modifier.
The abstract’s wording is fancied up to disguise their bait and switch scam.
“perform global chemistry-climate modeling“?
How does that work?
One suspects that their Confirmation Bias conclusions were hard coded and then models programmed to reach their conclusions.
There are enough speculative baffle-gab grandiose claims in that one paragraph to appear utterly bizarre in dendrochronology research.
“caused substantial changes”
“driving”
synchronous global climate shifts
“caused major”
These characters should be embarrassed to have their names anywhere near such silly research claims.
Is it possible that peanut butter-banana smoothie withdrawal could cause damage to higher brain functions and human moral compass influences?
The Laschamp-Olby Event was first discovered as a reversal of the magnetic field in volcanic rocks of the Chaine des Puys in France. The dating of this event was the subject of my doctoral thesis. We used both the K-Ar and Ar-Ar methods and for the latter method, this was groundbreaking research at the time. The precision was a few thousand years and I believe that is has got better since. The magnetic field actually reversed in France, but in the rest of the world, the event appears only as a field reduction, so it does not represent a complete reversal of the main dipole field. However, the paleointensity studies on the Laschamp and the Olby lava flows does suggest that the field was very weak.
The Laschamp-Olby event is a widely recognized event now in the field of paleomagnetism and the dating of it is quite well determined, so I think you can put away the skepticism on at least that score.
42000 years is about 8 half lives for C14. That’s 1/256th of the original C14 remaining.
Using radiocarbon dating for something this old doesn’t pass the smell test.
They do high resolution mass spectrometry these days for C–14 dating out to about 50,000 years, Mark. They can literally count the C-14 atoms one-by-one.
I’m always a bit suspicious about info provided using the word “literally”. I guess they count C-14 atoms like they count polar bears?
I would love to know how they got evidence showing that there was a Grand Solar Minima 42,000 years ago.
“42”
Very nice to see Douglas Adams finally recognised in Science.
On the other hand, it’s delightful to Not see CO2 as the Only cause of changing climates.
Mercifully !
This reads like plot of a sci-fi horror movie because it is one!
Dramatic, speculative garbage dressed up as science.
Science magazine publishes a lot of that stuff these days.
Here’s the lead story on the front of Scientific American magazine this month:
“How Social Justice Movements Succeed”.
That’s what our young scientists are learning nowadays.
The socialists are in control of our institutions.
It has very much to do with the ozone layer. Ozone is diamagnetic (unlike oxygen) and is repelled by magnetic fields. In winter, ozone builds up around the polar vortex. When the vortex splits, ozone gets above the polar circle (SSW). Furthermore, the magnetic field of the solar wind also affects ozone. When the magnetic activity of the solar wind increases, the polar vortex is stronger and does not split.
Unlike our geographic north pole, which is in a fixed location, magnetic north wanders. This has been known since it was first measured in 1831, and subsequently mapped drifting slowly from the Canadian Arctic towards Siberia. However, since the 1990s, this drift has turned into more of a sprint – going from its historic wandering of 0–15 km a year to its present speed of 50–60 km a year. Using satellite data, including from ESA’s Swarm mission, have concluded that this is down to competition between two magnetic blobs on the edge of the Earth’s outer core. Changes in the flow of molten material in the planet’s interior have altered the strength of the above regions of negative magnetic flux. The image shows how the strength of the magnetic patch over Canada has weakened and how the position of the north magnetic pole has changed between 1999 and 2019.
Read full story: Magnetic north and the elongating blob
These new findings suggest that in addition to shielding Earth from incoming solar radiation, the magnetic field also actively controls how the energy is distributed and channelled into the upper atmosphere.
The paper’s lead author, Ivan Pakhotin
“We are not yet sure what the effects of this asymmetry might be, but it could also indicate a possible asymmetry in space weather and perhaps also between the Aurora Australis in the south and the Aurora Borealis in the north. Our findings also suggest that the dynamics of upper-atmospheric chemistry may vary between the hemispheres, especially during times of strong geomagnetic activity.”
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Swarm/Energy_from_solar_wind_favours_the_north
You remarked, “Ozone is diamagnetic … and is repelled by magnetic fields.”
Then why does it migrate to the poles where the magnetic field lines converge and the field strength is greatest? Being diamagnetic, is should be repelled. If the effects were substantial, one should expect higher concentrations of oxygen at the poles, and higher ozone at the Equator.
Brewer–Dobson circulation is a model of atmospheric circulation, proposed by Alan Brewer in 1949 and Gordon Dobson in 1956, which attempts to explain why tropical air has less ozone than polar air, even though the tropical stratosphere is where most atmospheric ozone is produced. It is a simple circulation model that posits the existence of a slow current in the winter hemisphere which redistributes air from the tropics to the extratropics. The Brewer–Dobson circulation is driven by atmospheric waves and may be speeding up due to climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%E2%80%93Dobson_circulation
The cut-and-paste isn’t really responsive to my question. You have merely stepped it up one level. Why should the Brewer-Dobson circulation exist if there are magnetic forces repelling ozone at the poles?
Geomagnetic cutoff rigidity shows the weakening of the magnetic field over North America. Ozone builds up over North America during the winter. Can’t you see the relationship between the strength of the magnetic field and the increase in ozone over this area?
What? . . . tree rings, AGAIN???
Obviously, I didn’t pay to read the full paper, but if, as Eric Worrall states, the 42 kYa Laschamps Excursion resulted in “. . . intense cosmic ray bombardment, and the collapse of the Earth’s geomagnetic field” shouldn’t there be clear evidence of this in radioisotope composition variation across the relatively recent geological record (say, over the span of the last 100 kY)?
That is, intense cosmic rays at Earth’s surface should have left traces of anomalous transmutations of elements comprising rocks.
Has such a layer ever been detected?
Why would such intense cosmic ray bombardment apparently only affect the C-14/C-12 ratio? Earth’s atmosphere is far too tenuous to stop all cosmic rays, most of which reach the surface of Earth at full energy.
Ooops, I need to correct my post immediately above. I was wrong in my last sentence in stating “ . . . to stop all cosmic rays, most of which reach the surface of Earth at full energy“.
Earth’s atmosphere does stop most of the primary, high energy cosmic rays entering from outer space. However, those cosmic ray collisions with Earth’s atmospheric molecules and dissociated atoms, mostly oxygen and nitrogen, produce high-energy products called “secondary cosmic rays”, some of which do reach Earth’s surface. Obviously, secondary cosmic rays, individually, DO NOT have the same energy as the primary cosmic ray that created them.
Mea culpa.
C-14 is naturally produced by cosmic ray interaction with N-14 in the atmosphere, so the cosmic rays don’t have to reach the ground to modify the C-14/C-12 ratio. Variations in the cosmic ray flux will also affect the production of other short-lived isotopes, like Cl-36, Be-10, Ar-39, Kr-81 and Kr-85.
42000 years is about 8 half lives for C14. That is there is only 1/256th the original amount of C14 remaining in the sample.
Given the vagaries of how C14 is created and accumulates, I seriously doubt there was enough C14 left in the samples to draw any conclusions regarding how much C14 was in the original sample.
It was dated by K-Ar and Ar-Ar, subsequently confirmed by orbitally tuned paleomagnetic timescales. The half life of K-40 is one and a quarter billion years. We still have K-40 left over from the formation of the Earth.
The article specified radiocarbon dating.
Sorry, I was referring to the Laschamp event, which was dated using K-Ar and Ar-Ar. I have a personal connection:
Hall, C.M. and York, D., 1978. K–Ar and 40 Ar/39 Ar Age of the Laschamp geomagnetic polarity reversal. Nature, 274(5670), pp.462-464.
However, although it is difficult, one can date organic material at this age range back to 42ka with C-14. The difficulties revolve around contamination. “Dead” carbon increases the age and biologically active carbon decreases it and at this age range, any contamination has a big effect, especially active carbon. Provenance and control over contamination are crucial. The other big problem is that C-14 needs to be calibrated because the production of C-14 is not constant (mostly because of geomagnetic field variations). The last I looked, this had been done back to ~11ka using tree rings, but people since may have pushed things back using other cosmogenic isotopes like Be-10 and Cl-36. You’d have to look that up.
“During these events, life on earth was exposed to intense ultraviolet light, Neanderthals and giant animals known as megafauna went extinct, while modern humans sought protection in caves.“
what a load of crap. They are using the Mannian scientific climate data device named, “Making shit up.”
The megafauna went extinct thousands of years after the Neanderthals did.
Of course the microfauna have genetic protection against things that slay giants. /sarc
I think that caves were of greater value in protecting the inhabitants against precipitation and allowed them to keep fires burning all the time. It also helped protect their ‘sixes’ from predators looking for an easy meal.
We (the climate skeptics) need an update on the geomagnetic field hard paradoxes observations.
In the last decade, it was discovered (the geomagnetic field specialists), that the earth’s geomagnetic field has abruptly and cyclically, changed in a manner which is impossible to explain using a ‘self-generating’ concept.
For example, the Younger Dryas abrupt change, 12,900 years ago. from an interglacial climate back to a glacial climate, at a time when solar insolation at 65N was maximum, for 1200 years, with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade, correlates with the largest change to the geomagnetic field in the last 20,000 years.
At the time of occurrence of the YD, there is a large region in Sweden, Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion, abruptly changed polarity.
The current Geomagnetic field generating model electrical not correct. The Geomagnetic field is not caused by a convection currents in the liquid core. That ‘model’ cannot explain the current or past geomagnetic field observations.
A) North Pole Location Changes (post 1997)
Starting in 1997…. The Geomagnetic North pole ‘drift’ suddenly increased by a factor of ten from 15km/yr to 55 km/yr.
B) Geomagnetic field strength of the entire planet was decreasing in about 5 per cent century and starting in 1997, the geomagnetic field intensity of the planet started to decrease 5 per decade.
What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
The north magnetic pole (NMP) is the point at the Earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field is directed vertically downward. It drifts in time as a result of core convection, which sustains the Earth’s main magnetic field through the geodynamo process. During the 1990s the NMP drift speed suddenly increased from 15 kilometers per year at the start of the decade to 55 kilometers per year by the decade’s end.
This acceleration was all the more surprising given that the NMP drift speed had remained less than 15 kilometers per year over the previous 150 years of observation. Why did NMP drift accelerate in the 1990s?
http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/2000/QuatIntRenssen/2000QuatIntRenssen.pdf
Younger Dryas Abrupt Cooling Event
…we argue that this is indeed supported by three observations: (1) the abrupt and strong increase in residual 14C at the start of the Younger Dryas that seems to be too sharp to be caused by ocean circulation changes alone, (2) the Younger Dryas being part of an approxl. 2500 year quasi-cycle also found in the 14C record that is supposedly of solar origin, (3) the registration of the Younger Dryas in geological records in the tropics and the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere.
The Younger Dryas (YD, 12.9}11.6 ka cal BP, Alley et al., 1993) was a cold event that interrupted the general warming trend during the last deglaciation. The YD was not unique, as it represents the last of a number of events during the Late Pleistocene, all characterised by rapid and intensive cooling in the North Atlantic region (e.g., Bond et al., 1993; Anderson, 1997).
Moreover, the YD seems to be part of a millennial-scale cycle of cool climatic events that extends into the Holocene (Denton and KarleHn, 1973; Harvey, 1980; Magny and Ru!aldi, 1995; O’Brien et al., 1995; Bond et al., 1997). Based on analysis of the 14C record from tree rings, Stuiver and Braziunas (1993) suggested that solar variability could be an important factor affecting climate variations during the Holocene (see also Magny, 1993, 1995a),
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/003358947790031X
The Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS0016793212050076#
Manifestation of the gothenburg geomagnetic field excursion in sediments on the northwestern Central Russian Upland
“Abstract
The Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion in a broad sense ranges from 13,750 to 12,350 years BP and ends with the Gothenburg Magnetic Flip at 12,400−12,350 years BP (= the Fjärås Stadial in southern Scandinavia) with an equatorial VGP position in the central Pacific.
The Gothenburg Magnetic Flip is recorded in five closely dated and mutually correlated cores in Sweden. In all five cores, the inclination is completely reversed in the layer representing the Fjärås Stadial dated at 12,400−12,350 years BP. The cores were taken 160 km apart and represent both marine and lacustrine environments.”
What makes the geomagnetic field past observations of sudden changes to the geomagnetic field that correlate with small, medium, and super large climate changes… Is there are real time super large changes to the geomagnetic field that are happening now.
The sudden change in the Northern magnetic pole drift velocity and the sudden decrease in the strength of the geomagnetic field…
….was one of the reasons the EU space agency found the half billion dollars funding for the ‘Swarm’ satellite system which was developed to monitor the magnetic field.
http://news.yahoo.com/earths-magnetic-field-weakening-10-times-faster-now-121247349.html
“Earth’s Magnetic Field Is Weakening 10 Times Faster Now
…Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. As such, rather than the full flip occurring in about 2,000 years, as was predicted, the new data suggest it could happen sooner.
Floberghagen hopes that more data from Swarm will shed light on why the field is weakening faster now….”
What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
The north magnetic pole (NMP) is the point at the Earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field is directed vertically downward. It drifts in time as a result of core convection, which sustains the Earth’s main magnetic field through the geodynamo process. During the 1990s the NMP drift speed suddenly increased from 15 kilometers per year at the start of the decade to 55 kilometers per year by the decade’s end. This acceleration was all the more surprising given that the NMP drift speed had remained less than 15 kilometers per year over the previous 150 years of observation. Why did NMP drift accelerate in the 1990s?
Most people are not aware that the current ‘theory’ (then current theory as to what generates the geomagnetic field is a computer program that includes non physical assumptions that ‘generates’ a toy model result) concerning what physically causes the geomagnetic field appears to be a urban legend because it cannot explain what is happening to geomagnetic field now or in the past.
The self-generating magnetic field theory…. assumed when the earth was formed there was an initial electric current (this is assumed) and that tiny electric current, generated a magnetic field in the liquid core. And the convection motion in the liquid core amplified that tiny electric current. The convection motion of conductive liquid and the initial electric current in the earth…
Produce a special ‘system’ (that cannot be drawn or explained) creates a massive amount of electrical current and electric current generates a magnetic field… And the system never dies out.
…. And 4.7 billion years later…. This self-generating model is assumed to have not failed. Every laboratory test failed. There is zero experimental evidence to support the self-generating model. i.e. When this ‘experiment’ is tried in the lab with liquid sodium (UK 10, 15 years of testing) the initial current generates a magnetic field and then the when the current or magnet is removed the self generating system decays to zero.
Mutations caused by cosmic rays during magnetic reversals are thought to be major evolutionary drivers. Maybe Neanderthal’s DNA was mutated in a non advantageous way?
The world experienced a few centuries of apocalyptic conditions 42,000 years ago, triggered by a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles combined with changes in the Sun’s behaviour. That’s the key finding of our new multidisciplinary study, published in Science
I saw this and thought, “Hmm… maybe this is them strting on their journey to sane science?”
But then there was this… Because of the coincidence of seemingly random cosmic events and the extreme environmental changes found around the world 42,000 years ago
…and I realised they aren’t making any connections.
Also, I’m a bit puzzled Dr Soon isn’t a fan of the GCR theory – I thought the connection between solar activity and the changes in GCR’s is pretty well established by the data.
If I am not mistaken, this claims that Neandrathals recognized that cosmic rays were a hazard to them (!) and rushed, suddenly, into caves, which is where, prior to the cosmic wave assault, they did not live. This killed them. This would presume they did not live in caves before the magnetic event. Meanwhile, modern humans, rushing up from Africa did not live in caves, were not wiped out by cosmic rays and were unaffected. Coo Coo. As an aside, if ‘modern’ humans bred with them and the result was a ‘human’ child who could breed with either side, they were all human. Just that some of them seem now to be uglier than others.
THAT would be biologic science.
Prideaux GJ, Long JA, Ayliffe LK, Hellstrom JC, Pillans B, Boles WE, Hutchinson MN, Roberts RG, Cupper ML, Arnold LJ, Devine PD, Warburton NM. An arid-adapted middle Pleistocene vertebrate fauna from south-central Australia. Nature. 2007 Jan 25;445(7126):422-5. doi: 10.1038/nature05471. PMID: 17251978.
Probably contested but it’s not consensus that climate change had an effect on mega fauna in Australia that began disappearing 100 ka.