The magnetic poles on the Sun flip about every 11 years. Since nobody lives there, we really have no idea what the effects would be. On Earth, the major pole shifts that are permanent tend to be in the 720,000 years range. So once again, there was nobody around to record what really happens. I have previously warned that the North Magnetic Pole was moving away from Canada and headed in the opposite direction toward Europe.
For most of the 1900s, the physical North Pole was moving westwards around 10 cm each year towards Canada’s Hudson Bay. Then all of a sudden, in 2000, it changed direction moving 75 degrees eastwards and began moving east at a rate of around 17 cm annually. Nobody has ever witnessed such a change. This is completely unprecedented! Now the North Magnetic Pole is moving rapidly and erratically. Today it is now moving at a pace of 55km PER YEAR!!!!! This is creating a real crisis because the entire world GPS system was based upon a fairly stationary location for the North Pole.
The North Pole was previously in Hudson Bay about 54,000 until 48,000 years ago at 60 N and 83 W. Perhaps it is like lightning and just never strikes twice in the same spot. Now it is instead moving toward the British Isles according to NASA. Magnetic poles are defined in different ways but are commonly understood as positions on the Earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field is vertical. These north and south positions, called dip poles, do not need to be opposite of each other. In 1831, James Clark Ross located the north dip pole position in northern Canada. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) tracked the North Magnetic Pole, which is slowly drifting across the Canadian Arctic, by periodically carrying out magnetic surveys to reestablish the Pole’s location from 1948 to 1994. An international collaboration, led by a French fundraising association, Poly-Arctique, and involving NRCan, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, and Bureau de Recherche Geologique et Miniere, added two locations of the North Magnetic Pole in 2001 and 2007. The most recent survey determined that the Pole is moving approximately north-northwest at 55 km per year.
First of all, there are two types of pole shifts. While the MAJOR pole shifts appear to be 720,000-year cycles, there are also what are known as excursions. The last “excursion” took place around 41,000 years ago and it was also associated with an Ice Age. This excursion was, in fact, a Global Event from all the data and these tend to be just short-term flips that are not permanent. Factoring in that data with the broader more permanent reversals warns that we are potentially in line for such a major event and it may, in fact, line up with the Economic Confidence Model come 2032. This could be an explanation for the extremely cold winters since 2015.
A pole shift can be far more rapid than previously anticipated. I believe that people prefer to assume uniformity rather than a catastrophe. A stalagmite-based paleomagnetic record of the post-Blake excursion reveals details of repeated polarity drifts have occurred during periods of low geomagnetic field intensity at 100,000 years before present. One surprisingly abrupt centennial reversal transition occurred in 144,000 years prior provides unprecedented evidence that raises fundamental questions about the speed of geomagnetic field shifts. Such rapid polarity changes could severely affect satellites and human society in the future if the current geomagnetic field intensity continues to decrease. This sudden rapid movement of 55km a year may be a warning of such a pending shift becoming imminent.
We know that 120,000 years ago the North Pole was in the territory of Yukon in Canada at 63 N and 135 W; then it went to the Greenland Sea at 72 N and 10 E about 84,000 years ago, moved from 54,000 until 48,000 years ago and settle in the middle of Hudson Bay at 60 N and 83 W; it rested there for 30,000 years, then wandered once again from about 18,000 to about 12,000 years ago when it came to its present location. However, there are actually four poles, which most people are never taught in school. Former NASA engineer Maurice Chatelain (1988) argued that during the Hudson Bay period (48,000 to 18,000 years ago) the equator was in fact 30 degrees further south in South America. It most likely passed through central Chile and Argentina. Antarctica was most likely free of all ice. That could explain the existence of the map of Antartica without ice that has been found.
This rapid movement is striking alarm bells everywhere from a navigational perspective. During the past 150 years, the pole shift has been in the same direction. The most astonishing fact is that since 2000, the magnetic North Pole has shifted nearly half of the total distance of the past 50 years! In other words, the pole shift has apparently picked up speed so much so that they have had to re-calibrate airports and their GPS signals so planes can still find them. This rapid movement of 55km a year can really alter transportation.
But the directional change is even more alarming for Europe. The summer in Europe saw many real scorching hot days but the winters are getting colder, therefore, creating volatile swings like a market trying to decide to crash or rally. In 2012, even the waterways in Venice were icing over. Germany relies upon its canal system to move goods and agriculture. In 2012, the canals froze. The canals in the Netherlands were not freezing during the winter during the global warming period. That changed in 2009. Hamburg was frozen to the bone in 2010.
They are calling 2017 the Year without an Arctic Summer. The Greenland Ice Sheet gained near-record amounts of ice. Very little melting has occurred this summer. The Canadian Coast Guard reported that the Atlantic Ice in Canada was increasing in the winter of 2018. The extreme cold temperatures and the high winds have been combining to expand the Arctic ice this season. There is a natural cycle to this and they have reported that the seasonal “freeze up” is occurring three to four weeks ahead of normal and above the 30-year average. This winter is once again extremely cold. It has only been in the 60/70s here in Tampa and the same is true in Abu Dhabi. If next year 2019/2020 is colder still, this will be the fourth year and at then we would decline at a bare minimum very steeply into 2021/2022, where our models on markets are predicting a shocking event.
The migration of the magnetic poles could be a major factor in creating these cold winters. If the former NASA engineer Maurice Chatelain is correct that the equator was in fact 30 degrees further south in South America between 48,000 and 13,000 years ago passing through central Chile and Argentina with Antarctica being ice-free, then I guess I was wrong and did not move far enough south.
We do know that the Sahara Desert was once lush, tropical, and full of animals 6,000 years ago. There is a debate over the true origin of the Sphinx in Egypt. Many consider that it pre-dates the Egyptian culture dating as far back as 10,000BC when a Lion would have faced the constellation, Leo. They argue that the head was recarved eliminating the lion. If Chatelain is correct, then perhaps the movement in the pole also altered the climate dramatically sending the equator 30 degrees lower. It is not likely that we will all just die because of such a pole shift. There are no mass distinctions that have been discovered less than 50,000 years ago. Perhaps the dinosaurs were the victims of a pole shift that caused a volcanic winter or there was an asteroid that hit the Earth according to abundant geological evidence that was about 10 km (6 miles) in diameter and struck the Earth about 65 million years ago. This probably killed roughly 3/4 of all the species that existed at that time. So barring a strike by an asteroid, a pole shift does not appear to create a mass extinction.