14 DAY TRIAL // More than 400 years ago, a debate started in the scientific community, which was seeking to uncover the answer to the question “What generated our planet's magnetic field and magnetosphere?.” The latter is the only thing that prevents all life on Earth from being annihilated in an instant, due to massive amounts of supercharged particles coming from the Sun directly impacting the surface of the planet. In the 20th century, experts concluded that movements of current-inducing streams of liquid metals under the crust were responsible for the magnetic field, but a new study completely disregards this theory, and proposes an overall new explanation.
In a scientific paper appearing in the latest issue of the New Journal of Physics, authored by Northwestern University School of Engineering and Applied Science Professor Gregory Ryskin, researchers show that the movements of magma under the thin, solid crust covering our planet may not be responsible for the magnetosphere after all. They believe that the answers lie within the planet's oceans, which are made up entirely of salty water. It's a well-known fact that this type of water is a good electricity conductor, and the scientists say that the global currents may, in fact, be the source of the planet's magnetic fields.
Ryskin is the same author that proposed this month, in the same journal, that the Earth's magnetic poles were also moved around by the force of oceanic currents. The expert believes that the oceanic currents may be carrying the magnetic fields along weak magnetic lines that they themselves generate. In his scientific calculations, the professor was able to prove that the areas on the globe where the movements of the magnetic field were the strongest corresponded to the same places where the oceanic currents were the strongest too. Also, he believes that, as oceanic water flows, it generates weak electric currents inside the planet's magnetic fields, which could, in turn, create secondary “oceanic” magnetic fields.
“This article is controversial and will no doubt cause vigorous debate, and possibly strong opposition, from some parts of the geomagnetism community. As the author acknowledges, the results by no means constitute a proof but they do suggest the need for further research into the possibility of a direct connection between ocean flow and the secular variation of the geomagnetic field,” the Senior Publisher of the New Journal of Physics, Tim Smith, said of Ryskin's work.
“If secular variation is caused by the ocean flow, the entire concept of the dynamo operating in the Earth’s core is called into question: there exists no other evidence of hydrodynamic flow in the core,” Smith added. “It should be kept in mind that the idea Professor Ryskin is proposing in his paper, if valid, has the potential to deem irrelevant the ruling paradigm of geomagnetism, so it will be no surprise to find individuals who are strongly opposed or critical,” Michigan Technological University Atmospheric Physics Professor Dr. Raymond Shaw concluded, quoted by IOP.
The Institute of Physics (IOP) and the German Physical Society (GPS) co-own the New Journal of Physics.