Deep within the Earth, a fierce molten core is generating a magnetic field capable of defending our planet against devastating solar winds. The protective field, called the “magnetosphere” extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns.  The magnetosphere is the region of space surrounding Earth where the dominant magnetic field is the magnetic field of Earth, rather than the magnetic field of interplanetary space. The magnetosphere is formed by the interaction of the solar wind with Earth’s magnetic field. This figure illustrates the shape and size of Earth’s magnetic field that is continually changing as it is buffeted by the solar wind.

 

 

It has been several thousand years since the Chinese discovered that certain magnetic minerals, called lodestones, would align in roughly the north-south direction. The reason for this effect wasn’t understood, though, until 1600, when William Gilbert published De Magnete and demonstrated that our Earth behaved like a giant magnet and loadstones were aligning with Earth’s magnetic field.

After several more centuries of investigation, it is now known that Earth’s magnetic field is quite complex, but still, to a great extent, can be viewed as a dipole, with north and south poles like a simple bar magnet. Earth’s magnetic axis, the dipole, is inclined at about 11 degrees to Earth’s spin axis. If space were a vacuum, Earth’s magnetic field would extend to infinity, getting weaker with distance, but in 1951, while studying why comet tails always point away from the sun, Ludwig Biermann discovered that the sun emits what we now call the solar wind. This continuous flow of plasma, comprised of mostly electrons and protons, with an embedded magnetic field, interacts with Earth and other objects in the solar system.

The pressure of the solar wind on Earth’s magnetic field compresses the field on the dayside of Earth and stretches the field into a long tail on the nightside. The shape of the resulting distorted field has been compared to the appearance of water flowing around a rock in a stream. On the dayside of Earth, rather than extending to infinity, the magnetic field is confined to within about 10 Earth radii from the center of Earth and on the nightside, the field is stretched out to hundreds of Earth radii, well beyond the orbit of the moon at 60 Earth radii.

 

 

FIELD WEAKENING DETECTED IN 2014

This magnetic field, so important to life on Earth, has weakened by 15 per cent over the last 200 years. And this, scientists think, could be a sign that the Earth’s poles are about to flip.

Experts believe we’re currently overdue a flip, but they’re unsure when this could occur.

If a switch happens, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of punching holes into the ozone layer.

The impact could be devastating for mankind, knocking out power grids, radically changing Earth’s climate and driving up rates of cancer.

‘This is serious business’, Richard Holme, Professor of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at Liverpool University said. ‘Imagine for a moment your electrical power supply was knocked out for a few months – very little works without electricity these days.’

The Earth’s climate would change drastically. In fact, a January, 2014 Danish study suggested global warming is directly related to the magnetic field rather than CO2 emissions.

The study claimed that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

 

TODAY: COMPLETE COLLAPSE FOR TWO+ HOURS!

This morning, April 22, 2016 at 01:37:05 eastern US Time, which is 05:37:05 UTC, satellites from the NASA Space Weather Prediction Center detected a complete collapse of earth’s magnetosphere!  It simply vanished for just over two hours, resuming as normal around 03:39:51 eastern US time, which is 07:39:51 UTC.

Here is how NASA Space Weather Satellites recorded the event:

 BEFORE the collapse:

 

DURING the collapse:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the Black colored area, the MagnetoPA– USE is the only thing remaining. The boundary between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field is called the magnetopause. The boundary is constantly in motion as Earth is buffeted by the ever-changing solar wind. While the magnetopause shields us to some extent from the solar wind, it is far from impenetrable, and energy, mass, and momentum are transferred from the solar wind to regions inside Earth’s magnetosphere. The interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field, and the influence of the underlying atmosphere and ionosphere, creates various regions of fields, plasmas, and currents inside the magnetosphere such as the plasmasphere, the ring current, and radiation belts. The consequence is that conditions inside the magnetosphere are highly dynamic and create what we call “space weather” that can affect technological systems and human activities. For example, the radiation belts can have impacts on the operations of satellites, and particles and currents from the magnetosphere can heat the upper atmosphere and result in satellite drag that can affect the orbits of low-altitude Earth orbiting satellites. Influences from the magnetosphere on the ionosphere can also affect communication and navigation systems.

Even worse, during this outage of the magnetosphere, the arrows on the image below show complete reversal of Interstellar magnetic flows around earth; the arrows show all the magnetic energy from interstellar space is moving back toward the Sun!

 

AFTER the collapse:

 

 

 

 

Just over two hours later, the Magnetosphere was back and all the Solar wind magnetic energy is once again flowing away from the sun.

DEVASTATING EFFECTS UPON EARTH

This magnetic juggling act can have devastating effects upon Earth.  This is not a small magnetic situation; it is HUGE . . . planetary HUGE.   When something this large happens to earth’s magnetic fields, it can trigger massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, unpredictable ocean currents and tides.  The blast of heat energy that managed to get through the magnetoPA– USE during this time on the dayside of the planet, will have sent a large surge of heat energy into the exposed ocean areas, increasing water temperatures enough to cause severe storms.

Hang-on, folks.  We could  be in for quite a ride over the next few days as this strange occurrence plays out in earth’s weather and seismic events.

 

SOURCE:

NASA (NASA.gov)

Goddard Space Flight Center (gsfc)

Community Coordinated Modeling Center  (cmcc)

Integrated Space Weather Analysis System (iswa)

http://iswa.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/IswaSystemWebApp/index.jsp?i_1=581&l_1=568&t_1=77&w_1=501.333&h_1=334.333&s_1=2016-04-23%2009:27:51.0_1_300_3&i_2=578&l_2=17&t_2=159&w_2=543.333&h_2=507.333&s_2=2016-04-23%2009:27:51.0_1_300_3&i_3=579&l_3=698&t_3=367&w_3=501.333&h_3=334.333&s_3=2016-04-23%2009:27:51.0_1_300_3

 (Corrected from previously erroneous attribution to NOAA . . )

Source: Superstation95