It's Not The Reversal Of The Earth's Magnetic Poles That Ought To Excite Apocalyptic Alarms

Thee seems to be a lot of arrant babble circulating about a reversal of Earth's magnetic field and the cataclysm that it may portend.  In particular,  that we are headed for some kind of major catastrophe,  taking out billions.  Let me assure one and all it won't happen.

First,  some basics on terrestrial physics.  The Earth has a magnetic field as a result of the molten iron core within it and the free electrons in that molten matter being spun around by Earth's rotation.  The effect is basically a reverse dynamo action, e.g.

 Here the rotary motion of the molten iron core creates  strong electric currents that in turn generate the planetary magnetic field with north and south magnetic poles.   We call this a dipole field because two poles are generated by the action.

The planet's dipole field is extremely critical in terms of maintaining its residual magnetic field of roughly 3.1 G (gauss) which in turn implies the capacity to provide a magnetosphere (see top graphic) that's capable of intercepting the high energy particles of the solar wind as well as other solar-flare- triggered particles. e.g. high energy protons. The key point to grasp is that the Earth's spinning iron core generates the Earth's magnetic field (N and S poles)  which in turn gives rise to its protective magnetosphere.  Its basic components are the: magnetopause, magnetosheath and magnetotail.

Now, while the news of a "reversal" of the Earth's magnetic field may sound alarming to many, e.g.  an article in Undark Magazine declared, “It’s time to wake up to the dangers and start preparing,” this is mainly the stuff or pseudo-science and hysteria. The latter is based on hyping the peril of  devastating streams of  "malevolent" cosmic radiation that would wreak havoc on lives and power grids.  In fact, there is a real risk, but it is from enormously violent proton flares or associated CMEs,  originating at the solar central meridian,  and only if there is also no field at all.  But  even that probability is very much less than touted by the scare mongers.

My point is that when one dives into the stories under the headlines  things become much less alarming.   Let's clear the air on the meme that scientists were caught "off guard".   Nope. All scientific "eyes" have been where they needed to be in terms of monitoring the planet's magnetic poles. They weren't tweeting all day or watching FOX News like our so-called President.

All of the  responsible institutions and monitors have remained active and even during the recent federal shutdown those facilities  were not shut down.  They were doing their due diligence and monitoring magnetic pole phenomena, as well as magnetospheric events including any substorms.

Further, both  the United States and Britain have collaborated on issuing an updated World Magnetic Model every five years to make sure everyone’s on the same map.  Can't have any Arctic explorers getting lost because their compasses aren't tracking the real N. magnetic pole after all.   And by way of clarification -  and so no one gets needlessly hyper  -   the Earth’s magnetic poles have always been on the move, and have even swapped places several times over the eons.  As noted earlier the reason is that the molten iron deep inside the Earth "sloshes"  around, shifting the magnetic field with it.  (See the diagrams again).   For now, it is situated four degrees south of the geographic North Pole.

Now, how did the current scare-a-thon get started?  The next update for magnetic pole locations had been due in 2020. But early last year geo-scientists found that the north magnetic pole was heading eastward at an unusually rapid rate, about 35 miles a year. They then decided to adopt a new model, which became available soon after Trump's  shutdown ended.

The model’s out now, which is good news for planes flying over the North Pole, and for airports that name runways in relation to the magnetic north. Also for GPS providers and for anyone else in need of precise directions. For most other places there's minimal  need for corrections. South of the northern tip of Scotland, for example,  the correction amounts to only a small fraction of a degree.  Will you notice that on your compass? Not likely!

Never mind, as in the case of the HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) the conspiracy whackos have worked overtime to get their minions into a lather. Thus, the news of the rational updating of the magnetic pole model has not prevented online tabloids  and assorted crazies (likely from the FOX realm) having an apocalyptic field day.

 Recall in the case of HAARP,  the purveyors  of conspiracy ideations (I hate conferring gravitas using the term "theorists")   claimed that it was capable of "modifying weather, disabling satellites and exerting mind control over people.  Some  crackpots even blamed the program for causing earthquakes, droughts, storms and floods, diseases such as Gulf War syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome

In the case of the unexpectedly faster moving north magnetic pole, the part that feeds the nutjobs' doomsday scenarios is the possibility that the poles are preparing for another polarity reversal, which would cause a compass to point south instead of north. "Omigod! Compasses pointing north! It's the sign of the Antichrist! Aieeeee!" 

But hold strain! The quirk is normal and over the past 20 million years has occurred, on average, every 200,000 to 300,000 years. The last one was about 780,000 years ago, so another may be overdue.  

That could lead to a temporary weakening of the magnetic field that protects Earth from cosmic radiation. And that’s where the doomsday scenarios pile in. a world in which the inhabitants get bombarded mercilessly by intense solar and other cosmic radiation - literally baking us to cinders. But it's basically BS.  A form of mutated garbage roughly along the lines of the HAARP conspiracy bollocks and "The Great Awakening"  insanity - on which I will have more to write in the near future.

The specter of an Earth left without a magnetic shield has come up before, notably during the Mayan "apocalypse"  that predicted the world would end in 2012.   But which turned out to be a big boring dud  that I'd even predicted beforehand, e.g.

.http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/no-therell-be-no-mayan-apocalypse.html

Back then, NASA posted a response that explained the science of pole reversals and concluded that “there is nothing in the millions of years of geologic record to suggest that any of the 2012 doomsday scenarios connected to a pole reversal .   Never mind. All the catastrophe obsessives  -  including a number who showed up on the All Experts Astronomy forum, wasting my time  -  wouldn't let it rest. Or accept NASA's rational explanation. Why would they when we know the untutored brain doesn't operate that way.   

In previous posts I have tried to explain the basis for this. For example,  noting that the brain activity of ancient people lacked the sense of metaphor, irony and individual identity that characterizes a more advanced mind. Such mentalities  also lack self-reference and introspection, a facility which enables modern man to not only think but think about his thinking. 

All of this was pointed out in Julian Jaynes masterpiece:  The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind', 1976 )  But in the modern context, it means that too many brains are still operating at an ancient or primitive level. I mean look at Donald Trump for instance. No self-awareness, no introspection and absolutely no sense of irony or metaphor.  (Aspects of his troglodyte nature any Dem presidential candidate will need to exploit)

Now, let's leave the realm of fantasy horrors and get to the real and imminent threat:  In a manner of technical speaking, we  humans are causing the Earth to "wobble."   But not from anything to do with magnetic poles drifting.  Rather, the geographic North Pole, the focus of the planet’s spin axis, is also shifting east.  This is not as striking as its magnetic counterpart, but for the wrong reasons: rapid global warming in the Arctic.  The North and South Poles always wander a bit  (geodesy deals with this and  computes yearly corrections), but the movements have increased, and  climate scientists theorize that the redistribution of mass on Earth, i.e.  as glaciers and ice sheets melt,  is one of the major reasons.

 Several recently published studies warn that ice at both ends of the Earth is melting far faster, and oceans are warming more rapidly than previously thought.  This suggests that scientific estimates of a warming planet have been too conservative. Those are the headlines that should be causing real concern.  This is what global citizens and especially apocalypse-prone Americans - ought to be worried about.  Just like I used to tell questioners on All Experts, i.e.  to worry more about climate change than an exploding star in another galaxy.  So also I keep pressing current readers of my blog to reckon planetary threats rationally,  and not waste time obsessing over remote or improbable ones.

---------------------------------------------
Addendum- Technical Details on Magnetic Poles:

The magnetic flux density defined for the Earth is given as (Hargreaves, The Solar-Terrestrial Environment, Cambridge University Press, p. 150):

B(r,L) = M/r    [ 1 + 3 sin 2 L]  1/2

where M is the dipole moment (M ~  10  25.9 G cm 3, with G in gauss), r the geocentric radial distance and L the magnetic latitude (e.g. 70 deg).

Generically, the vector magnetic field at vector position x due to a magnetic dipole of vector dipole moment m at the origin, is given by:

B = {3(m*x)x - x 2} / ‖ x‖ 3

Meanwhile, the field components in the r and L directions are respectively (Hargreaves, ibid.)

B(r) = - 2M sin(L) / r 3

B(L) = M cos (L) / r 3

The characteristic time for variation of the Earth's magnetic field is given by the differential equation:

dB/dt = B(r, L) /t

Which can be solved using Fourier transforms, at least approximately.

Yes, College Rankings Are A Marketing Ruse - And Joke

The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska -Fairbanks. Most likely you will not find UAF listed in U.S. News & World Report's Annual College Listings - but that doesn't mean it's not a great university.

Frank Bruni's NY Times' Review Op-Ed 'Why College Rankings Are A Joke' (Sept. 18, SR3) merits commendations for exposing the annual college rankings marketing racket.  From numerous points of view Bruni skewers the commonplace trope that a media listing of colleges, universities can provide a seminal insight into quality. And, of course, which schools always end up at the top? Well, the Ivies because they peddle their brand most ardently and invest the time in advertising, and marketing that brand to too many gullible parents- who then join battle with tens of thousands of other parents. All intent on getting Junior or Missy into the "best" school.

But most of this effort is doomed to end up merely with outstanding college debts, and the graduates will leave without having received the specific education they expected. Whereas, if they hadn't been blinded by the brand they might have made a more judicious pick.  As Bruni puts it:

"The rankings nourish the myth that the richest, most selective colleges have some corner on superior education."

Bruni's beef is that this annual high branding exercise fails to recognize excellent public institutions - especially those that may evince superiority in a specific field, discipline. A case in point was the University of South Florida ca. 1968-75 featuring the best quality work in astrometry in the nation, thanks to its Chairman, Prof. Henirich Eichhorn.    Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that deals with accurate determination of stellar positions (in Right Ascension and declination), for the purpose of creating reliable star catalogues. It also entails analysis and determination of the proper motions of celestial objects, as well as highly specific motions including: precession of the equinoxes, lunar libration and astronomic nutation. Prof. Eichhorn also brought in astronomy staff from Yale including Sabatino Sofia, James. H.  Hunter and Carol Williams, launching USF into the top tier of astronomy departments.

Flash forward to the present: if one searches the annual U.S. News rankings for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, for example, the chances are it will not be found. The lame conclusion based on the ranking elite bias will then be it is not a place worth attending, but this would be a gross error. In terms of specific fields, atmospheric science and space physics, there is perhaps none better. We are talking here not only about the quality of the staff but the resources, e.g. available at the Geophysical Institute.

UAF, for example, has been at the forefront of Arctic atmospheric research - much of which is conducted at the Climate Research Center, e.g.

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/


There is also Poker Flat, the world's only scientific rocket launching facility, e.g.

http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu/

The rockets launched from here enable more detailed studies of the aurora, magnetic substorms.

For space physics in general, including the study of the aurora, substorms and solar-terrestrial dynamics it has all the resources the dedicated researcher needs, see  e.g.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/research/space-physics-aeronomy

Given the UAF location and its facilities you won't find a better place for studies in ionospheric, infrasound and magnetospheric physics, as well as space weather. Harvard certainly can't compete in these specialized fields, nor does it have comparable resources.

All of this underscores points I made two years ago concerning a fact too many wannabe collegians and their parents overlook: it makes very little difference which university you attend (assuming it isn’t a ‘for profit’ or online version). It is more the cachet and reputation of the specific department.

From the May 2011 issue of MONEY magazine: "Don't assume an Ivy League education is better than one from a public or state university."

MONEY found that  'bang for the buck' included college graduation rates and post-college success rates - which compared favorably to - or exceeded  - what one obtained from the hallowed Ivies. Alas, this has still not trickled down into the mainstream media where we still find "Best Colleges" lists spread around with the Ivy Leagues on top - then all the rest. So no wonder students and their parents are neurotically driven to believe the Ivies are the  only route to success.

From Bruni's piece, it is highly instructive to see the assorted factors - all highly subjective- that are used to arrive at the rankings.  For example, one is how highly officials at peer institutions rank said school. But as Bruni observes, if they know little or nothing about it (especially for the specific field) why would you expect anything other than a low to mediocre rank?  In such a case it is more plausible they'd go by the "reputation" - but where does that originate? Well, usually from earlier US News rankings! So it's a case of subjective brand incest piled atop more perception incest.

In toto, the cumulative parameters drive perceptions in one direction. To quote Bruni again:

"Intentionally or not, they fuel a frenzy to get into the most selective schools. But they can't adjust for how well certain colleges serve certain ambitions."

What if a high school student then, has an intense interest to study the aurora? Maybe he saw images of it firing up the Arctic sky in a PBS documentary, and now wants to study the physical mechanisms driving it in detail. Will he be able to do this at Harvard, or even MIT? Not very likely. At least to the same extent as actually being in the Arctic and having access to resources such as provided by the Poker Flat rockets, or HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program).  As noted in the Wiki article on the program:

"According to the HAARP team, this (research) will advance the study of basic natural processes that occur in the ionosphere under the natural but much stronger influence of solar interaction,"

My point, and I believe Bruni's, is that it would be a crime to dispatch this student to some university which would not be able to fully satisfy his intellectual curiosity, and provide him a future trajectory for productive work and research. But if his parents only go by selective US News rankings, that negative outcome is very likely.

One of the worst travesties of the annual rankings racket exposed by Bruni is that "many college presidents, provosts and deans of admissions express disdain for the rankings...but participate in them nevertheless."

The Existentialist Jean -Paul Sartre would have a precise word for that: "bad faith". At his Loyola University appearance in 1964 he defined it as a person deceiving himself into being convinced he lacks real freedom of choice, usually because he harbors a fear of potential adverse consequences. Thus, the college provosts, presidents  admissions staff etc. know the 'best college' rankings are just media branding bunkum but nevertheless kowtow to them because they believe their peers will look askance at their hostility, perhaps question their credibility.

Perceptive citizens, especially parents, shouldn't be so hamstrung because they have nothing to prove to anyone else. If they are truly dedicated to the welfare of their charges they will do what is best for them- and that means securing the best college for their particular talents.

New Texas "Campus Carry" Gun Law - As Dumb As Its Open Carry Law

Prof.  Irwin Horowitz, had to enlist security guards for protection last year in his Texas A&M classroom

How crazy does one state have to be to permit students to carry concealed handguns onto a university campus, but will have a coed arrested on the spot if she's found to be carrying a dildo in her purse? Well, pretty crazy, and Texas makes the cut. To put it in context, three University of Texas professors last week were notified they will be "subject to discipline" if they try to ban concealed handguns from their classrooms. This according to Bloomberg News columnist Francis Wilkinson writing in 'Bloomberg View'

As he goes on to write, alerting any who may not have been paying attention:

"Texas is gun country and the state has joined a half a dozen others that guarantee campus carry rights"

But the most vocal objections have emanated from the UT flagship campus in Austin, well recognized as not only a liberal citadel but an elite institution. After all, it features one of the foremost physicists in the world, Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg.   Prof Weinberg has been among the most outspoken critics of campus carry in Texas. He says he will ban guns from his classroom. It’s unclear if such a move could be legally challenged, but campus administrators are concerned that the state might retaliate by tightening the financial reins on the university.

According to a recent Physics Today column (July ) another University of Texas -Austin history professor, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, wrote the following in a letter that was widely circulated among faculty last October:

“Most faculty will think twice before offering courses on controversial topics like race, gender, inequality, religion, slavery, empire, colonialism, etc.,”

In the same article , it was also noted such controversies "may not be a common problem in the hard sciences"  According to Eugene Mishchenko, a physicist at the University of Utah, “We are dealing with technical issues that are right or wrong. Discussions in physics are never too heated”

Easy for him to say because he's probably never taught climate science to deniers, or cosmology with the Big Bang to young Earth creationists. (Think of the Jason Lisle type)

This is why, as the PT article notes, "some topics can be controversial—evolution, cosmology, and the possible health effects of low-dose radiation".

Indeed, Pearl Sandick, a physicist at the University of Utah, says the possible presence of guns is “absolutely” on her mind when she prepares lessons or public talks. She says:

“When you talk about early universe cosmology, or anything that might touch a nerve, you have to give a little extra thought to how students might respond and how those conversations could play out.”

I can definitely verify that, as I've seen students in space physics classes get hysterical when one just brought up the topic of HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program).   See more on this unique investigative program here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program

As noted in the above link:

"HAARP was a target of conspiracy theorists, who claimed that it was capable of modifying weather, disabling satellites and exerting mind control over people, and that it was being used as a weapon against terrorists. Such theorists blamed the program for causing earthquakes, droughts, storms and floods, diseases such as Gulf War syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome, the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, and the 2003 destruction of the space shuttle Columbia. Commentators and scientists say that proponents of these theories are "uninformed", because most theories put forward fall well outside the abilities of the facility "

IN the case of the hysterical student, he actually believed HAARP was "removing the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere".  Trying to convince him otherwise was about like trying to convince climate change conspiracy theorists (think Kort Patterson) that there is no "global warming alarmist conspiracy" to "undermine Western civilization."  Regarding the half-crazed kid in that AK classroom, I am not at all sure he wouldn't have fired off a round to make a point, had he a weapon and the legal right to take it with him.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg author Wilkinson cites the case of Prof. Jennifer Glass who "has specific concerns about her safety and the safety of her students" in one filed complaint.  This complaint state that she "has witnessed in her own classroom  a verbally aggressive student- disappointed in a grade handed out during class- displaying a level of aggressiveness and animosity toward Professor Glass' teaching assistant that, had the concealed carry rule been in place, would have left her hesitant to confront the student in defense of the TA".

And why would anyone do so in their right mind. Then last year we saw the case of embattled Texas A&M prof Irwin Horowitz whose class was being so disruptive that he needed security guards in the room.  According to the prof:

"Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to 'chill out,' 'get out of my space,' 'go back and teach,' [been] called a 'fucking moron' to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught in fights between students,"

How much more aggressive would his students be emboldened to be in concealed carry environment? Fortunately we won't find out as Horowitz had enough, said 'hast la vista'. "I have nothing left," Horowitz told the Houston Chronicle, blaming the school for not enforcing the university's honor code against his allegedly unruly students. "I put my neck on the line for what I thought was the right thing to do."


The PT article also points out other concerns including the temptation for faculty to assign higher grades to appease students, and difficulties that universities could face in recruiting faculty and students. Media studies professor Laura Stein, a member of the roughly 2000-strong grassroots group Gun-Free UT, says it’s unlikely that professors will dole out all As. “But what about the volatile student who has been aggressive and is pushing for a higher grade? That could lead to grade inflation.”

As if today's universities need any more grade inflation to debase their credibility.

And the real kicker in all this? While students are allowed to carry loaded guns they are banned from carrying dildos. Yeah, you heard that right.   Those gun-like looking sexual toys are considered "obscene" and possessing them  is a misdemeanor in Texas. In fact, it's even illegal to ship them across state lines or technically to possess them. But some feisty coeds on the UT campus are considering using their dildos to stake out a protest against the new gun law.

See e.g.  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34507760


According to Jessica Jin, the founder of "Cocks Not Glocks," a student protest group at the University of Texas at Austin:

"The purported benefits of this law are not worth the potential for accidents, suicides, escalating ordinary conflicts to deadly levels, or the brain drain of teachers ."

wOne wishes her and the other dildo protesters success, because the first fallout will indeed be professors leaving in droves, for saner academic pastures.

 eSee also:  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/12/texas-open-carry-law-as-dangerous-as-it.html

See also:either resigning or withdrawing their applications to the university

Did The Solar Wind Really Rip Away Mars' Atmosphere?

Artist's depiction of solar wind shredding Mars' atmosphere.

According to new findings made by the MAVEN spacecraft on Mars, that neighbor planet's atmosphere was ripped away over billions of years by a ferocious solar wind. This is an audacious new hypothesis that needs to be thoroughly tested, and for sure is different from earlier theories.

When I took astronomy at USF  the standard theory for Martian loss of atmosphere was based on the escape of particles  due to reaching escape velocity from thermal effects. Calculations show, in fact, that if the mean molecular speed is as much as one-third the planet's velocity of escape (or 1.7 km/sec for Mars) the planet will lose one half of its atmospheric gas in only a few weeks.

If the mean molecular speed is even one fifth of escape velocity (1.02 km/sec for Mars) the gas will disperse into space in a few hundred million  years. To hold a gas of sufficient atmospheric density to allow standing water-for billions of years - would necessitate a velocity of escape 6-8 times the mean molecular speed of the gas in question.  This is simply not the case for Mars, where one can easily work out the mean molecular speed of  oxygen, say from:

v =  Ö( (3 k T/m)

where k is Boltzmann's constant (1.38 x 10 ^-23   J/K), T is the absolute temperature applicable in degrees K, and m is the mass of a single gas  molecule.  Then compare it to Mars' escape velocity of ~ 5.1 km/sec, as well as to one -third values and one -fifth values of that velocity.

Now fast forward some forty-odd years: MAVEN's probing appears to have revealed at least one other culprit: "winds"  generated by bursts of gas and magnetic energy from the Sun. Maven evidently detected recent solar winds stripping away the planet's atmospheric gases bit by bit, grabbing ions and  dispatching them into space. Maven's detectors show typical solar activity, without storms, can remove Mars' atmospheric gases at a rate of about 100 grams, or a quarter-pound, of particles every second. In the distant past this may have been up to 100  times as much. (The MAVEN   team determined that when a storm hits Mars today, it increases the rate of removal of ions by a factor of 10 to 20 — a rate and speed of particle loss greater than initially anticipated.)  Clearly enough to remove the atmosphere over billions of years.

But is this agency really needed?

I would argue that we need to parse far more data, over extended periods of time. Also, it should be feasible to at least partly replicate the mechanism in terms of near Earth experiments - such as those conducted and observed using the aurora at the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This would be in conjunction with HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program).  As noted in the Wiki article on the program:

"According to the HAARP team, this (research) will advance the study of basic natural processes that occur in the ionosphere under the natural but much stronger influence of solar interaction,"

In other words, it is plausible that the MAVEN data - used in conjunction with HAARP data for processes of solar wind interaction near Earth -  could shed more light on the basic physical processes whereby the solar wind lurches particles from the atmosphere.

One point wifey raised in connection to the findings is: How could a Martian atmosphere even have formed in the first place if the solar wind was so powerful?

Well, the only explanation is that from its origin Mars must have had an intact magnetosphere (like Earth does now) .shielding it from the much greater solar wind. This must have required the existence of an iron core in order to generate a magnetic field strong enough for a viable magnetosphere.  How or when this iron core formed ought to be a serious future field for planetary astronomers,

 To be sure, astronomers estimate that Mars' magnetic field disappeared about 4.2 billion years ago, although they're not sure why.  But again, the real issue and question is twofold: 1) Was there in fact a Martian molten iron core, and 2) What mechanism would have led it to cease activity and the derivative magnetosphere to collapse?

NASA's InSight lander, which will launch early next year to study Mars' interior, might solve some of that mystery.