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oalfonso t1_j5ziow8 wrote

I wonder if this has some impact on the magnetosphere, the tides and the climate.

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Gutotito t1_j5zuh7v wrote

"Some," yes, but almost certainly nothing we'd notice. The core is still spinning, it's just the differential between the crust and the core that has decreased.

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InGenAche t1_j615hw5 wrote

I'm no planetcoreologist but I reckon a planet sized spinning blob of molten metal slowing noticeably over a mere decade might be cause for a smidge of concern?

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DCDHermes t1_j616j20 wrote

It happens every couple decades. It’s a nothing story, cool to scientists, conspiracy bait to laymen.

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AmateurAviator t1_j61hmiv wrote

So you’re saying this is all because of some US government secret experiment that has chemically castrated us all and polluted our oceans?

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NWTboy t1_j61w8vd wrote

Have you not seen the documentary “The Core”? Scary stuff man

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recoveringcanuck t1_j6287fb wrote

This guy got unlimited hotpockets and Xena tapes in exchange for the cover up.

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b4dhabits t1_j62n84l wrote

Yeah it's called the industrial revolution

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haevne t1_j645sgc wrote

So you're saying I should panic and buy toilet paper?

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fernser t1_j61ffi5 wrote

Is the mechanism that causes this comparable to how a pendulum with a spring instead of a string goes from bouncing up and down to swinging side to side?

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zeeblecroid t1_j61shho wrote

"Noticably" doesn't mean a lot, on a human scale, when it's 21st-century scientific equipment doing the noticing.

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Zachtpres t1_j61837f wrote

We do underestimate how one minor variable could turn a usual occurrence into a catastrophe. Whether that change is immediate or over a longer period of time, we could only guess.

Unfortunately, we are going to have to face the elephant in the room - eventually. Our lives are in the hands of statistical anomalies and strange nonsensical occurrences, time for us is not endless .

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EasterBunnyArt t1_j622xct wrote

You wouldn’t notice from a nature standpoint, but our tech might notice it.

The reason why we have never noticed it is because during the Roman times the poles switched sides.

I forget the archeological report from maybe a decade ago but supposedly looking at the overall iron matters in old clay remains and they noticed the alignment of the iron minerals having slowly shifted when comparing them over a few hundred years.

I think it was the earliest historical confirmation after we discovered that the poles move every ones in a while a bit around.

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Apostastrophe t1_j64id4d wrote

Do you have any evidence about the poles switching times during the Roman era? As far as I was aware the last time it happened was like half a million years ago or something, which certainly was not during the Roman era.

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EasterBunnyArt t1_j64ks9c wrote

Honestly I will have to look into it, but as I said this was over a decade ago and on some Discovery channel or History channel documentary from when they actually still showed scientific material.

So basically this information might be massively outdated or having been disproven by now. Which was why I had mentioned the date of the information / when I learnt about it.

It could have been just a sensationalist documentary and then never retracted.

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Druggedhippo t1_j67kt1u wrote

There is no credible evidence for a total geomagnetic pole reversal during Roman times. The last one was at least 780,000 years ago.

There is however research that talks about localized evolution in the geomagnetic field, for example this one in Iberia

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EasterBunnyArt t1_j67x6q0 wrote

Ah thank you for the links and the second link might be what I was thinking of.

Interesting reads, even if half of it is a bit beyond my normal comprehension.

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Rokku0702 t1_j606dg3 wrote

Why would it effect the tides? Tides are lunar based are they not?

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JustAPerspective t1_j63vlzi wrote

Magnetic North has been wandering around a lot the last decade or so. Might be related, though doubt it's causal.

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DidaskolosHermeticon t1_j642m63 wrote

It's got to be related. I'm very much not any kind of expert; but the Magnetosphere is generated by the motion of the liquid iron core, the North Pole is determined by the geometry of that motion relative to the surface, and we are measuring these processes in tandem. There may be a black-box of complex math between these two things, but I feel like it's certain they are related.

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JustAPerspective t1_j64obtr wrote

It's easy to be confident when there's limited information available.

While what you're saying is highly probable based on our current understanding, these two phenomena may be related - it is not absolute. Assumption precludes, and oft forgets, discovery.

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SeriousPuppet t1_j62vrxd wrote

How do they know the spin of the core? (ie the pace, direction, etc)

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JustAPerspective t1_j61kq5f wrote

There's even supposition it may reverse direction, and researchers are looking for evidence of past impacts.

Thing is, humans didn't even know the core-as-a-core existed 60 years ago. They were still thinking that all the surface stuff was one big shell. So while it's fascinating to learn new things, figuring out what this means will take time.

And NOBODY knows for sure what's next. It's outside of our control, let's enjoy the mystery.

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Sharlinator t1_j6287vm wrote

“Reverse” as in start rotating slightly slower than the rest of the Earth, which I guess is “reversing” in a frame corotating with the planet. The same goes for “stopping”, those are really misleading terms to use because the core is very much rotating indeed at about one turn in 24 hours as expected! There’s absolutely nothing that could make it actually stop. Unfortunately, popular media is as clueless as always.

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Kenshkrix t1_j62fw1v wrote

>There’s absolutely nothing that could make it actually stop.

Nah the Earth's core could theoretically be stopped.

Just throw several moons/planetoids at it. The first one or two to blast the surface out of the way, the next to counteract most of the angular momentum, and maybe another one to really fine-tune things.

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Sharlinator t1_j62quod wrote

You’d have to be gentle enough not to blast away too much of the core in the process. so I’d think many, many smaller bodies over a longer period of time could work better.

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JustAPerspective t1_j63ge95 wrote

>There’s absolutely nothing that could make it actually
>
>stop
>
>.

The limits of human imagination in no way apply to reality.

Also, a magnetic engine can cease to function rather quickly when specific criteria change, so you may want to throttle back on "Absolutely".

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Sharlinator t1_j63i31s wrote

It’s not a “magnetic engine” in any relevant sense. It’s a huge rotating ball of iron and nickel and conservation of angular momentum is a thing! Truly ludicrous amounts of momentum would have to be transferred somewhere else for it to stop rotating.

(Now, to be fair, a mechanism does exist that slowly bleeds off Earth’s rotational momentum, and has done so for billions of years: the moon and its tidal forces. In the far future Earth would become tidally locked with the moon, and rotate very slowly, if the sun didn’t become a red giant first. But somehow only slowing down the core? That would require magic.)

Anyway, my use of “absolutely” should be taken in the context of the discussion, just like everything else. There’s no reason to add some sort of an “except via magic” to every other sentence, pedantic Redditors notwithstanding.

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JustAPerspective t1_j63vchz wrote

>It’s not a “magnetic engine” in any relevant sense.

Preposterous. Relevance is a matter of perspective; your prerequisite appears to be something along the lines of "if it ain't human-made it ain't real"?

​

>It’s a huge rotating ball of iron and nickel and conservation of angular momentum is a thing! Truly ludicrous amounts of momentum would have to be transferred somewhere else for it to stop rotating.

...humans think.
See, until the 1960s, the existence of the core-as-a-core wasn't known. So the "obvious reality" you're assuming is younger than television.

​

>(Now, to be fair, a mechanism does exist that slowly bleeds off Earth’s rotational momentum, and has done so for billions of years: the moon and its tidal forces. In the far future Earth would become tidally locked with the moon, and rotate very slowly, if the sun didn’t become a red giant first.)

Yes, that's how an engine operates on a timescale different from the ones humans focus on. You came that closet to getting the idea.

​

> But somehow only slowing down the core? That would require magic.)

Magic is, by definition, merely reality: Magic is defined as a "supernatural force which influences reality" and "supernatural" merely means "attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature" - and the "laws of nature" were written by humans who do not know everything.

See the one constant limitation here? Human understanding.

​

>Anyway, my use of “absolutely” should be taken in the context of the discussion, just like everything else.

No - your use of a word will be taken at face value - the only use words have in true information exchange. If you are unable to use the words accurately or sincerely, that's your concern to manage.

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nim_opet t1_j60nu02 wrote

Sounds exactly like something the lizard people would say. /s obligatory

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One_Impression_5649 t1_j61y417 wrote

Everyone knows the earth is hollow!! and the Nazis are riding dinosaurs down there and they’re up to some no good shenanigans

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DidaskolosHermeticon t1_j64ixhi wrote

Hey man, do the crazies some justice!

The hollow earthers still believe in the iron core and the mantle and all that, they believe that the lithosphere is pocketed with vast cavernous areas of habital land

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laz21 t1_j62ecgp wrote

Dont worry nothing to see here..is this the precursor to the poles shifting?

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nooshdog t1_j62iyxw wrote

Only way to speed it up again is to place nukes and detonate at specific times. We just need a drill tank.

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phunkydroid t1_j63zmg4 wrote

Finally a sane headline about this, not saying it's reversed direction

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GuiGeeKang t1_j64ctqz wrote

That wouldn’t even matter, we’ll just have to adjust out directions to the fact that North and South have flipped.

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grishno t1_j620kfc wrote

Am I the only one who is hella skeptical about this?

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Sharlinator t1_j628isz wrote

What’s there to be skeptical about? The core used to be slightly superrotating, ie. rotating a bit faster than the rest of the planet, now it has slowed down a bit and rotating at about the same rate as everything else, and it seems to be natural variation.

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SeriousPuppet t1_j62w1mr wrote

If we get all the hamsters on their wheels and hook the wheels up to the core we can get it spinning again.

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james_randolph t1_j634orq wrote

So it was spinner faster a decade ago…will it be even slower a decade from now? Would that be significant in anyway? People are worried about global warming because they feel the effects won’t be there until we’re all dead anyway but this shit seems a little more short on the time window.

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phunkydroid t1_j6409pd wrote

It might be slower a decade from now, and then the fact that it's slower than the rest will make it speed back up again. It's likely just a slow oscillation between faster and slower as the moving liquid outer core stops it from ever being truly in sync.

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RawbeardX t1_j634wy9 wrote

we will be long gone before it has any effect

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SyntheticSlime t1_j6aa4bk wrote

Is this why days have been shortening slightly? We used to need leap seconds at regular intervals, but they’ve been less common recently.

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SpearPointTech t1_j61tmhb wrote

Isn't that what they believe is the actually cause of Mars' death.

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funkykittenz t1_j61y4pl wrote

Perfect headline. This is the kind of headline everyone who should use. The one on the news I saw made it sound so alarming.

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songsfrombeyond t1_j62fz76 wrote

Couldn't possibly be the sign of a catastrophic pole-shift that happens periodically and that the Earth is due for, no way

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