What will happen when poles switch

But should we really fear this event? What will actually happen when north-pointing compasses make a degree turn toward Antarctica?

Will the continents tear themselves apart, or are we in store for much more mundane changes? Earth's magnetic field takes between 1, and 10, years to reverse, and in the process, it greatly diminishes before it re-aligns. According to John Tarduno, professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester, a strong magnetic field helps protect Earth from blasts of radiation from the sun.

With a weak field, this shielding is less efficient. The charged particles bombarding Earth's atmosphere during solar storms would punch holes in Earth's atmosphere, and this could hurt humans.

These 'holes' would not be permanent, but might be present on one- to year timescales — arguably important enough to be a concern in terms of skin cancer rates," Tarduno said. Valet agrees that a weak magnetic field could lead to the formation of ozone holes. He wrote a paper last year proposing a direct link between the demise of Neanderthals , our evolutionary cousins, and a significant decrease of the geomagnetic field intensity that occurred exactly at the same period.

That time, the lead-up to a geomagnetic reversal appears to have been "aborted"; the field weakened but didn't end up flipping. Other scientists aren't convinced that there's a connection between pole reversals and species extinctions. The latter involves tracking the presence of an isotope called beryllium This is formed when high-energy cosmic particles bombard Earth, colliding with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere.

Read more: New evidence for a human magnetic sense that lets your brain detect the Earth's magnetic field. Our findings confirmed this. Several generations of people would have witnessed a plethora of spectacular auroras during the Laschamp excursion. But at 14, years old, the records from these lakes are much younger than the Laschamp excursion. Four decades later, our work at Lake Selina with modern techniques has revealed the exciting potential for similar research at other Australian lakes.

With this knowledge, we may one day potentially be able to predict the next geomagnetic excursion, before our phones stop working and the birds overhead veer off-course and crash into windows. Our dating of the Lake Selina core is just the start. And so we continue our search. And when it happens again, it won't be good news for humans. Now you might think, eight poles must be better than two. But the reality is that: Multiple magnetic fields would fight each other.

Earth's magnetic field is what shields us from harmful space radiation which can damage cells, cause cancer, and fry electronic circuits and electrical grids. With a weaker field in place, some scientists think this could expose planes to higher levels of radiation, making flights less safe. This could also disrupt the internal compass in many animals who use the magnetic field for navigation. Even more extreme, it could make certain places on the planet too dangerous to live.

But what exactly will take place on the surface is less clear than what will undoubtedly happen in space. Satellites and crewed space missions will need extra shielding that we'll have to provide ourselves. Without it, intense cosmic and solar radiation will fry circuit boards and increase the risk of cancer in astronauts. Our modern way of life could cease to exist.

We know this because we're already seeing a glimpse of this in an area called the South Atlantic Anomaly. Turns out, the direction of a portion of the magnetic field deep beneath this area has already flipped! And scientists say that's one reason why the field has been steadily weakening since As a result, the Hubble Space Telescope and other satellites often shut down their sensitive electronics as they pass over the area.

And astronauts on the International Space Station reported seeing a higher number of bright flashes of light in their vision, thought to be caused by high-energy cosmic rays that the weaker field can't hold back.

Since experts started measuring the Anomaly a few decades ago, it has grown in size and now covers a fifth This is so extreme that it could be a sign we're on the brink of a polar flip, or we may already be in the midst of one!