Some are now warning that the Earth’s magnetic poles are about to flip — something that happens every so often. But is there something different about this pole reversal? And is it a cause for concern? Glenn speaks with astrophysicist Hugh Ross, who clears a few things up about how dangerous this would be and when it would really happen. Plus, he discusses whether a massive solar flare would knock out most of the world’s power grids like a massive EMP and why he believes we'll be seeing more northern lights displays throughout the year.
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Hugh Ross, astrophysicist. He is also the founder of Reasons to Believe and Senior Scholar. He's an amazing guy. And he's been on with us before. He did a podcast before with him. He found -- he found Christ. He found God, through looking at the stars. An astrophysicist is somebody who looks deep into the past. And tries to see what the -- what creation was. What was happening millions of years ago.
Hue, thank you so much for being on the program.
HUGH: Oh, my pleasure.
GLENN: So there is something, and I've been reading something about this for 30 years. It's always fascinated me. But, you know, I'm not a -- I'm not a scientist or anything like it. And so I have such a base understanding of it.
Last week, we had -- we had a major solar flare. Solar flares can affect like an EMP. Can affect our power grid, if they're bad enough.
And we're also going through a time period, where, while the sun was at its peak activity, right now. Our magnetic field is weak, because our poles are drifting at about 40 miles per year. Which is pretty extraordinary, isn't it?
HUGH: Yeah. The pole is moving. It's quite a bit faster than it was the previous century. But it's not out of the ordinary.
So when you do get a reversal of the magnetic pole, you do get rapid motion. We're nowhere near that degree of rapid motion yet.
GLENN: And that could be a thousand years. Right?
I mean, rapid for the earth, could be a thousands of individuals years from now.
HUGH: Yes. It could even be a million years from now.
GLENN: Okay.
HUGH: And there have been hundreds of pole reversals in the past. And none have done serious damage to life.
But it is true, that when you approach, you know, a pole reversal, the magnetic field weakens. Our magnetic field weakens about 6 percent per century. But, again, that's not out of the ordinary. Our magnetic field always varies. It either goes down slowly, or up slowly.
Right now, it's going down slowly. And it may actually turn around and actually go up a little bit.
So the variation of the magnetic field. The movement of the magnetic pole. None of that is out of the ordinary. On the other hand, we can't rule out the possibility we're heading towards a magnetic reversal.
GLENN: So what does that mean? The North Pole becomes the South Pole?
HUGH: Yes. Well, what actually happens is the -- you can think of the earth's magnetic field as a far magnetic to the North and South Pole. That's called a dipole field. What happens is when the magnetic field begins to weaken, it transitions from being a dipole to being a multipole, where you have more than two poles. And that could last for a period of let's say a century or two or thousands of years. And it flips around, and it then becomes north and south. But what is north is now south. What is south is now north.
GLENN: So what does that do?
That whole shift. And let's use a thousand-year timetable. Because we don't know. Could it happen quickly? First of all.
HUGH: It could happen quickly. But that's rare. Usually it's a rather slow, gradual onset.
GLENN: Okay.
HUGH: Because they're watching us to see what's happening. But right now, we're not seeing anything that is really outstanding or out of the ordinary.
GLENN: Okay. So what happens as it starts. I assume they drift. And they're not connected, per se.
Because I think the South Pole is actually moving slower that night north.
As they go towards east and west, right?
HUGH: Well, right now, it's moved past the North Pole. They -- the -- the axis. It used to be in northern Canada. And over the past 150 years, it's moved a little bit past the North Pole. And it could switch and go East and West, instead of North and South. You know, physicists have been mapping this polar wandering of the magnetic pole for quite some time.
GLENN: Right.
HUGH: There's been over 100 reversals in the past history of the earth. And we do know that the magnetic field happens when that happens. It weakens by a factor of ten. But even a factor of ten weakening is not devastating the life.
We can't document a single extinction of the species during magnetic reversal. But it could impact health.
I mean, when you got a weaker magnetic field, you got more cosmic radiation coming in. It's like, if you live in Denver, you get exposed to more cosmic radiation. And your average life span gets lessened by three months.
GLENN: And is that because of all the progressive laws that are there?
HUGH: Well, it could be.
You do get a few more cosmic rays if you live at high elevation. But, hey, you have healthier lifestyles.
GLENN: Okay. So I know that we are -- they've had to adjust the GPS system.
And is that because of the poles shifting?
HUGH: Well, you do to have adjust the clocks because the earth is very slowly spinning down.
So, you know, every New Year's, physicists celebrate New Year's Day by adjusting all their atomic clocks by a few micro seconds. That's all it is, just a few micro seconds.
GLENN: So, but okay. But I've heard that it used to be -- anyway, the -- the end of the story is that they're now adjusting them every six months. Is that true?
HUGH: Yep. Well, that's true. And we're going to have a new set of GPS satellites, that will know where you are to within one or two centimeters. In which case, they will have to make even more frequent adjustments. So the adjustments are tiny.
GLENN: So when I was 25 years old, I read this great book. I have no idea if it's scientifically sound or not.
But it talked about a catastrophic polar shift, that the crust of the earth. That some of the continents may have moved.
And their theory was that Atlantis was Antarctica. Et cetera, et cetera.
What fascinated me. And I know you're a religious guy. When it comes to end times. It says, and the stars will fall.
The only way that I could think of, in God's, you know, magnificent math, to make it look like stars fall. Would be some sort of a shift in the continents. As if we would look up, we would be moving. But it would look like the stars are falling. Have you ever thought of that nonsense?
HUGH: Well, the continents move very rapidly. And so the continents move by a few centimeters per year. So I don't think that's what's happening.
The word there for star in Greek is (foreign language). And that could include meteors. So maybe the stars falling is referring to a meteor shower.
GLENN: Okay.
HUGH: Or it could be referring to the stars bending in light. Like if there's widespread forests and grass fires, that would cause all the stars to -- the sun, moon, stars dim by one-third. And that dimming would happen if you were surrounded by smoke.
GLENN: You know, we're -- we're talking to Dr. Hugh Ross. And the thing I don't like about this interview. Is he's so smart, he makes me look like an idiot. Which nobody does. I usually do that on my own. Hugh, so tell me all of the stuff on the aurora, the lights that we're looking at?
There's -- I've read a lot, and I don't know if this is true. That because of the magnetic field. And if we have a massive.
I think we had a -- I don't even know. An X5 solar flare yesterday.
It was not headed in our direction.
That that kind of stuff could blank out everything. It's like an EMP.
HUGH: Yeah. That could happen. 1859. There was a huge solar flare, that struck the earth.
And knocked out telegraph systems.
If that were to happen today, that could knock out most have the world's power grids. And that would mean you would be without electricity, not just for a few hours. But for weeks. Months. Maybe even years.
And that would be catastrophic. Because today, we're very dependent on electricity. Think of refrigeration. You've got no refrigeration. What does that do to your food supply?
GLENN: Right.
HUGH: And that kind of flare happens about once every one or 200 years.
But, hey, it happened in 1859. And I've written a book, making the point. It would be wise for us to protect our power grids.
GLENN: Amen.
HUGH: There is one that is protected. That's in Quebec.
And it got knocked out in 1989. By a flare like the one that happened just this past Friday. But that's the only protected power grid in the world.
GLENN: In the world?
HUGH: Yeah. They were close to the geomagnetic poles. So they took the most damage. It was $11 billion of damage.
And the -- but they -- they now have a surge protector on it. So it's protected. But if we were to get a flare like we had in 1859, the damage to the US alone, would be over $2 trillion. And you would have millions of people dying.
GLENN: Jeez. The -- the sun is reversing its poles as well. But that happens like every 11 years?
HUGH: Yes. We're at solar maximum right now. Every 11 years, you get more flaring activity, more solar activity. More sunspots. So, yeah. For the next year, we can expect to see more aurora displays like we had last Friday.
And hopefully, we won't get a flare hitting us like what happened in 1859.
GLENN: When does the sun start to go into solar minimum?
HUGH: It will start to go into solar minimum, in a couple of years.
It's an 11-year cycle. So for about a two-year period. You're at maximum. Then you head toward minimum.
And then we're at maximum again.
GLENN: And is there any correlation, in your mind, between the solar activity. And maximum and minimum. And global?
HUGH: No.
There's really no connection, between what's happening with the sun.
The sun is getting brighter. But it will be a few million years before you notice a difference.
GLENN: So even if the sun very active, it doesn't affect our temperatures or anything.
HUGH: It has no effect. What's happening here at earth, is what you have to watch. Not what's going on with the sun.