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

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.