But the reality is that: Multiple magnetic fields would fight each other. This could weaken Earth’s protective magnetic field by up to 90% during a polar flip. Earth’s magnetic field is what shields us from harmful space radiation which can damage cells, cause cancer, and fry electronic circuits and electrical grids.

The prime meridian divides Earth into the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere. The prime meridian is at 0° (0 degrees) longitude.

Prime Meridian

Great circle It divides a sphere into two equal halves, known as hemispheres. One of the hemispheres for a sphere is shown above.

In the context of archaeology and world history, the term “Old World” includes those parts of the world which were in (indirect) cultural contact from the Bronze Age onwards, resulting in the parallel development of the early civilizations, mostly in the temperate zone between roughly the 45th and 25th parallels north.

Read more: The north pole is moving and if it flips, life on Earth is in trouble. When the magnetic field weakens, more cosmic rays enter the atmosphere and transform certain atoms into radioactive carbon-14, raising levels of this isotope.

The south magnetic pole is the point on the Earth’s surface where the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field is vertically upwards. The south magnetic pole is not fixed. Its position moves about 5 km a year. The location of the south magnetic pole in 2020 is 64.07°S, 135.88°E.

Earth’s spin axis – an imaginary line that passes through the North and South Poles – is always moving, due to processes scientists don’t completely understand. The way water is distributed on Earth’s surface is one factor that causes the axis, and therefore the poles, to shift.

42,000 years ago

In the paper, published in the journal Science, experts say there is currently rapid movement of the north magnetic pole across the Northern Hemisphere — which could signal another reversal is on the cards.

This anomaly is far from the only unusual feature of Earth’s magnetic field. Hundreds of times in Earth’s history, our magnetic field has reversed, switching north and south in a planetary flip-flop. Earth’s magnetic North Pole keeps drifting too, stumbling around the Arctic in a chaotic dance.

Magnetic north was drifting at a rate of up to about 9 miles (15 km) a year. Since the 1990s, however, the drift of Earth’s magnetic north pole has turned into “more of a sprint,” scientists say. Its present speed is about 30 to nearly 40 miles a year (50-60 km a year) toward Siberia.

Roald Amundsen