I caught wind of an article recently of a tree discovered in New Zealand estimated to be about 42,000 years old, remarkably preserved. Remarkable enough that it tells the tale of a reversal in the earth’s magnetic field during that time.

Apparently scientists believe “Over the last 5 million years, the Earth’s magnetic field reversed itself at least 20 times. Over the last 20 million years, the reversal happens about every 200 thousand to 300 thousand years; however, it is very difficult to predict when a reversal will occur… Before the Earth’s magnetic poles switch, the magnetic field slowly gets weaker, fades out, and then reappears with the poles reversed.”

On a time scale a bit closer to now, more recent technology allows us to map changes in the earth’s magnetic field that occur constantly and the World Magnetic Model (WMM) is updated every five years which is critical for navigation and GPS. In fact, it was just updated on December 17, 2024

Are these shifts predictable? Not at all. Quoting from Nils Olsen:

“The magnetic field changes in a chaotic manner, and we do not know why it changes in the way it does nor how it will evolve in the future… There is no periodic behavior, and it is therefore rather difficult, if not impossible, to predict how the magnetic field evolves over time. We can just observe how it has changed in past and what it looks like today.”

Overall, however, various NASA articles agree with other scientific measurements that Earth’s magnetic field has been decaying about 5 percent over the past century, and about 9 percent over the last two centuries which indicates a near-linear overall decline unaffected by the short-term measured chaotic changes in the earth’s magnetic field. The complexity of what that decay would do is overwhelming and uncertain. Yes, it would allow more UV penetration through a deteriorated ozone layer but that has both positive and negative effects as well as consequential effects of those effects and so on. No models exist that can predict the outcome over hundreds or thousands of years. All we can do at this point is draw correlations and hypothesize in true DoE (aka “scientific”) fashion.

For one example, recall we’ve seen that same very slow (0.06 inches per year) linear rate of rise in global sea levels measured over the last 140 years unaffected by the exponential rise in petroleum and natural gas usage and spikes in temperatures measured here and there, hurricanes, floods, and all the things that “science” would tell us are indicators of “climate change.” Coincidence? Maybe not... just postulating a hypothesis.

Other researchers believe that the health of the ozone layer and our climate greatly depend on the magnetic field strength and orientation. From an article published in 2023:

“The ozone layer damage caused by the severe weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field during the Laschamp event (42,000 years ago) may have led to drastic changes in weather patterns. These changes may, in turn, have led to the extinction of most megafauna species and perhaps even the Neanderthals.”

On a different subject, did humans and CFCs have anything to do with that hole in the ozone layer observed in the 1970s, or was it just a consequence of the unpredictable and chaotic geomagnetic excursions? Perhaps we’ll never know, because we didn’t have the tools back then to understand short-term localized changes in the earth’s magnetic field that we have today, but the “science isn’t settled” on this, and nobody’s talking about it anymore because it seems that “hole” is healing.

Even though government-paid people with engineering degrees (I won’t call them “scientists”) still think CO2 is an evil gas that’s going to kill us all, some are admitting that “changes in the Earth's magnetic field are more relevant for climatic changes in the upper atmosphere (about 100-500 km above the surface) than previously thought.”

A study published in 2016 agrees that the impact of earth’s magnetic field on the climate cannot be ignored:

• Magnetic field changes from 1900 to 2000 cause significant changes in temperature and wind in the whole atmosphere system (0–500 km) in DJF
• Direct responses form in the thermosphere and propagate downward dynamically, initially via the gravity wave-induced residual circulation
• In the middle atmosphere, changes in planetary waves become also important, but these may not be correctly represented in the SH

However, our own beloved NASA seems intent on ignoring the very real possibility that fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field have anything to do with “today’s climate change.” Yes, during periods in earth’s history of a reversal of the magnetic field there may not have been mass extinctions because some life survived while others perished, some evolved and some didn’t, but then to turn around and draw the conclusion that me driving my ICE pickup truck is going to cause the oceans to swallow up Barack Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard mansion in the next few decades and driving an EV is the solution is just scientifically hypocritical.

This adds yet another layer of suspicion onto the millions of things we know nothing about that is not included in those “climate models” and because of its inherent unpredictability, it never will.

True science demands that we continue asking questions, not drawing conclusions and burying our head in the sand.

Image: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service