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DanG
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Possible Effects of a Magnetic Reversal
"expert opinion" varies greatly, but here are some of the more dooomy ones... 
| Quote From Source: | Compasses would obviously be effected as would all navigational
instruments which depend on them. So shipping, air-flight and all GPS
equipment, including satellites, would be off-line until we figured
out how to cope with the reversal. Global trade would be brought
quickly to a standstill, and the winners would probably turn out to be
those that remembered how to navigate in the old ways, such as nomadic
people and sea-farers on old sailing ships
Migratory birds, fish and animals would become confused. This might
lead to them wandering far from current feeding and breeding grounds,
into areas not suitable for them, and could quite easily be conceived
as leading to mass extinctions, habitat destruction and loss of life,
both animal and human.
While this latter theory is controversial, scientists have already
shown that insects can actually be killed as a result of fluctuations
in magnetic fields around them, and the same experimenters have shown
similar, though smaller, effects in humans, leaving them dazed and
confused. If you consider the number of humans involved in operating
machinery that would be life-threatening in the case of faulty
operation, you can see that global effects would probably be large.
In addition large scale fluctuations in magnetic fields would knock
out power suppliers, and all electro-magnetic communication could
conceivably be disrupted for long periods of time.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=70055
| Quote From Source: | One effect that may occur during a magnetic reversal is that the Earth may not be protected from charged particles streaming from the sun. These particles are called the solar wind, and could be dangerous to life if they reached the Earth's surface. However, the interaction between the magnetic field and these particles deflects them around the Earth. The area around a planet (including Earth) within which the motion of charged particles is affected by the magnetic field is called the magnetosphere. Sometimes the magnetosphere becomes overloaded with particles. When this happens, some particles escape through the magnetosphere and interact with atoms in the upper atmosphere, making them emit light. This is what creates the northern lights (aurora borealis) and the southern lights (aurora australis). If the Earth's magnetic field is weakened during a reversal, more of these particles will get through to the upper atmosphere. This could be a problem, but most likely the atmosphere is thick enough to protect the Earth's surface.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=523
DanG has attached this image:
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posted on 6/4/2007 at 21:12
