Magnetic shield over North America is losing strength ‘exceptionally fast’: PLA scientists

Chinese scientists find the natural barrier over the eastern hemisphere is strengthening, possibly because of a shift in the geomagnetic poles

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The Earth’s magnetic field over North America has weakened significantly over the past 30 years. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 3:04pm, 8 Nov 2024Updated: 3:07pm, 8 Nov 2024

The magnetic field over North America is weakening at an unusually rapid rate, while the field over the eastern hemisphere, including China, is strengthening, according to a study conducted by Chinese military researchers.

Scientists are still trying to determine the cause but an initial guess is that it may be related to the shift of the geomagnetic poles from the western to the eastern hemisphere.

“The geomagnetic field is a natural barrier to protect the Earth,” wrote the project team led by Professor Fang Hanxian with the National University of Defence Technology in a peer-reviewed paper published last month.

The field blocks deadly cosmic rays from reaching the ground, according to the team said, “playing a crucial role in maintaining environmental stability”.

In 2018, a study by scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico found that decades of “low geomagnetic field strength prevailed at the Maya area just before the so-called Mayan Collapse”, according to their paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Similarly, in 2006, researchers with the Paris Institute of Planetary Physics found that the sudden changes in the magnetic field might be linked to the downfall of ancient civilisations in Iran and Syria some 4,000 years ago.