Earth’s inner core stopped turning and could go into reverse, study suggests | Hacker News Reader

Earth’s inner core stopped turning and could go into reverse, study suggests

cnn.com

35 pointsgraderjs40 comments

“The inner core doesn’t come to a full stop,” he said. The study’s finding, he said, “means that the inner core is now more in sync with the rest of the planet than a decade ago when it was spinning a bit faster.”

“Nothing cataclysmic is happening,” he added.

Just in case you were concerned.

I wonder if the inner core going in reverse would flip the poles due to its interaction with the outer core. Still not cataclysmic, but potentially problematic for a while. I also wonder if we'll find out in my lifetime.

the earth's magnetic poles have already flipped at least 10 times in the past few million years. I recall reading that there could be a long period of increased solar radiation affecting life and causing a lot more cancer during the period that the actual reversal takes place but it's all theoretical.

I doubt there would be that much extra cancer. The estimates I saw were merely a 25% reduction in field strength. The predictions I saw were more concerned about technology failures. A slight increase in solar radiation seems like small potatoes compared to all the other potential carcinogens we live with, but it does seem like it could be significant for our electronics.

I don't understand from the article what "rotating in reverse" would mean. Referring to the crust? If it rotates around the axis just slower than the crust then it would look from here like going on reverse. Or they mean really rotating in reverse in reference to the axis? To some normalized axis assumed stable somehow?

They aren't clear, but I assume they mean the inner core would be rotating slower than the outer core and crust. In either case, the rotation would be the opposite of what it had been in relation to the outer core and crust. My understanding is that the magnetic field is a product of the interaction between the inner and outer core. I have no idea how this change would affect the field though. Just a guess.

Apparently there's evidence for increases and decreases in speed of propagation. The difference is really small, on the order of 0.1 degrees per year, which is something like 7 miles at the surface and much less at the core.

Some models claims it goes from 0.1 degree faster to slower, every 35 years or so.

As if in a cataclysmic situation there would be anything we could do about it.

Nuke it?

A little more cheepnis, please.

Cue Aerosmith Ben Affleck romance montage.

More like Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank

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

Pardon me sir but Ben Affleck is for comets, Aaron Eckhart is for Earth's Core.

The movie The Core begs to differ.

Wasn't there a post a few days ago from the actual paper saying that the core used to rotate a tiny bit faster than the rest of the Earth, and now rotates a tiny bit more slowly? Like, order of fraction of degree per year differences?

This is literally the plot of The Core -- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/

Yeah, I loved that movie when I was a kid. In the mid 90s to early 00s there was no shortage of movies where a team of scrappy underdogs were tasked to stop a world ending event.

3 large hurricanes bring such cold that it flash freezes on contact. Survivors hide in a library and have to burn all the books to fend of the flash freezing. Effed up symbolism right there. Love those movies.

I loved that scene (in Day after Tomorrow), they're arguing along the lines of "no you can't burn Shakespeare it's a crime against humanity" or something, then in comes a supporting character wheeling in a ton of tax law books, which of course nobody had any problem burning.

Thank you for that. I forgot the distinction. Like T-rex eating the lawyer hiding in the toilet in Jurassic Park.

Nowadays it's extra-legal billionaire vigilantes with magical powers that save the world. Did we go wrong somewhere?

Batman's pushing 90 and he wasn't the first rich vigilante.

Batman, and superheroes in general, have always been a bit of campy fun. The target audience was children, like the comic books they were based on. It wasn't until The Dark Knight that anyone took Batman seriously. That really seemed to break the seal on the "gritty, realistic superhero" genre. The trouble with that is that in the real world, the existence of superheros would be horrifying (an observation satisfyingly deconstructed by The Boys). Perhaps we can overlook that for a movie or two, for the novelty, but after a decade and a half of wall to wall "gritty, realistic" media depicting violent anarchistic ubermensch as the good guys, one has to wonder if this is entirely healthy.

>There’s actually disagreement about what the study published this week in Nature Geoscience really shows.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2023/01/25/no-earths-i...

"Study suggests", I generally avoid or at least read with more speculation as well as source checking with buzz word terminology such as this, facts support evidence, suggestions assume. Also n=1 study "suggests" lack of other supporting material.

https://youtu.be/zocutif0cQY?t=49

The Why Files did a video on this... pretty entertaining, and pretty scary if things actually happen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3fkTq_p0o

Isn't this a world shattering event? Why is no one talking about this?

What happens if our magnetic field disappears for a while? The end of the digital age?

> What happens if our magnetic field disappears for a while?

Magnetic compasses stop working, the aurora are visible everywhere except for light pollution, elevated levels of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36, satellites need a bit more rad shielding, otherwise very little.

No way man, magnetic field does way more than this: without its shielding our bodies and electronics are damaged by (possibly lethal doses) of radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field#cite_...

If significant parts of the global grid went down, we can't pump oil and water, can't grow food, can't ship freight. We're fucked in that case. Humanity I mean. Nobody knows how to live off the land in most cities, right? Not a good prognosis. Let's hope it does not disappear. Definitely not "very little" !! :P :) xx ;p

There is a lot of air between you and space, unlike the moon and space. We'd be fine. And the power grid isn't going to be taken down by just the magnetic field switching off, even CMEs are only a risk to the grid because of how they react with the magnetic field (and even then we could prevent that but for the politics).

Plus we could fairly trivially make a replacement magnetic field. The numbers I've seen were for Mars, but the requirements were so small it would be a rounding error for the economy here on Earth.

  There is a lot of air between you and space, unlike the moon and space.

True. But the magnetic field is not insignificant.

  We'd be fine.

False.

  And the power grid isn't going to be taken down by just the magnetic field switching off, even CMEs are only a risk to the grid because of how they react with the magnetic field (and even then we could prevent that but for the politics).

Where are you getting this stuff man?

  Plus we could fairly trivially make a replacement magnetic field.

Hahaha. Yeah right! As if

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

Early research assumed reversals have a period with no magnetic field at all, and demonstrated that the atmosphere was still sufficient. The magnetic field has definitely dropped to 5% of it's current value while humans have been around.

• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruth-Bamford/publicatio...

Conclusion (for Mars):

> We have shown that the currents required are between ~0.2-0.5 GAmps in one or many solenoid loops. Whilst the power requirement will depend upon the material used, it can be estimated to be between 0.1 and 100 GW which is between less than one but up to 50 typical 2 GW power stations. While not trivial this is not unimaginably large,

Even the big number is about half the annual installation of PV on Earth.

Thank you! Interesting. Do you watch Suspicious Observers? What do you think? They cover many studies talking of the interactions of solar radiation, the galactic current sheet, and Earth phenomena.

> Isn't this a world shattering event?

Quote from the article: "“Nothing cataclysmic is happening,” he added."

> Why is no one talking about this?

We are? It is an article on CNN. A lot of people are talking about it. In fact there were multiple previous posts with a lot of comments in the past few days about this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34495334

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34490701

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34502058

Mostly because they have not managed to come up with a narrative which blames humanity for the core's fickleness and as such don't see how it can be exploited just yet. Once they come up with something it will spread like wildfire and quasi-religious core-mancers will chastise those living in the developed world for their sins against the planet, urging them to give up whatever has been deemed causal. Others will claim the reversed core will be especially harmful to certain identity groups who should be compensated since it is after all the fault of {white men|capitalism|the west}. The narrative will flourish for a bit until it is thoroughly debunked and - important - a new scare has been found. Those who drove the narrative will not lose face nor will they be reprimanded in any way - indeed, they have found a new looming disaster which to blame upon anyone but themselves.

Or not.

"Nothing cataclysmic is happening,”

Definitely the start of a B grade Hollywood movie

bs clickbait title

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