Without the Earth’s magnetic field, our way of life could not exist. In fact, without it life on our planet could not exist at all. The magnetosphere is essentially a shield that protects us from the charged particles from the Sun that are constantly bombarding us. Unfortunately, that protective shield is steadily getting weaker. In fact, scientists tell us that every ten years it is getting about 5 percent weaker. Needless to say, that has enormous implications for our future. In addition, the Earth’s magnetic field is becoming more unstable, and there are many that are speculating that an episode of instability may have caused the electrical blackout that we just witnessed in Spain and Portugal.
Officials openly admit that they still don’t know exactly what caused the blackout, but we are being told that it “may have been” caused by a phenomenon known as “induced atmospheric vibration”…
Preliminary reports out of Europe about the massive blackout that left millions powerless say the cause may have been something called “induced atmospheric vibration,” a rare phenomenon where weather changes affect power lines.
The outage was centered in Spain on Monday, where the lack of power caused widespread chaos. Renfe, Spain’s national railway company, said on social media that the “entire national electricity grid was cut off” at 12:30 local time.
It brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill, grounding planes, halting public transport, and forcing some hospitals to suspend routine operations.
Induced atmospheric vibration can happen when there are very rapid changes in temperature or wind speed.
But many have pointed out that temperatures were very normal in Spain when the blackout occurred.
So there is a lot of skepticism about the narrative that we are being given.
This blackout was extremely unusual, and as Michael Shellenberger has pointed out, it looks like we were literally seconds away from “a continent-wide blackout”…
This is truly bananas: all of Europe appears to have been seconds away a continent-wide blackout.
The grid frequency across continental Europe plunged to 49.85 hertz — just a hair above the red-line collapse threshold.
The normal operating frequency for Europe’s power grid is 50.00 Hz, kept with an extremely tight margin of ±0.1 Hz. Anything outside ±0.2 Hz triggers major emergency actions.
If the frequency had fallen just another 0.3 Hz — below 49.5 Hz — Europe could have suffered a system-wide cascading blackout.
At that threshold, automatic protective relays disconnect major power plants, and collapse accelerates.
And it’s disturbingly easy to imagine multiple scenarios where that could have occurred…
What could have caused an event of this magnitude?
Many are suggesting that a hole in the Earth’s magnetic field could have been responsible.
The only reason why we are able to have operational power grids in the first place is due to the protection that the magnetosphere provides. If you are not familiar with the importance of the magnetosphere, the following is a pretty good summary that comes from NASA…
Unlike Mercury, Venus, and Mars, Earth is surrounded by an immense magnetic field called the magnetosphere. Generated by powerful, dynamic forces at the center of our world, our magnetosphere shields us from erosion of our atmosphere by the solar wind (charged particles our Sun continually spews at us), erosion and particle radiation from coronal mass ejections (massive clouds of energetic and magnetized solar plasma and radiation), and cosmic rays from deep space. Our magnetosphere plays the role of gatekeeper, repelling this unwanted energy that’s harmful to life on Earth, trapping most of it a safe distance from Earth’s surface in twin doughnut-shaped zones called the Van Allen Belts.
If the Earth’s magnetic field suddenly disappeared, the atmosphere of our planet would soon be stripped away and we would no longer have any air to breathe…
Our protective magnetic “bubble,” known as the magnetosphere, protects us from harmful space weather such as solar wind. Without the magnetosphere, the solar wind would erode our atmosphere, devoiding our planet of the life-giving air we breathe.
According to NASA, the magnetosphere also protects Earth from large quantities of particle radiation emitted during coronal mass ejection (CME) events and also from cosmic rays — atom fragments — raining down on Earth from deep space. The magnetosphere repels harmful energy away from Earth and traps it in zones called the Van Allen radiation belts. These donut-shaped belts of radiation can swell when the sun’s activity increases.
After reading all that, you should definitely be very thankful for the magnetosphere.
Unfortunately, as NASA has pointed out, the protective bubble above our heads “isn’t a perfect defense”…
But Earth’s magnetosphere isn’t a perfect defense. Solar wind variations can disturb it, leading to “space weather” — geomagnetic storms that can penetrate our atmosphere, threatening spacecraft and astronauts, disrupting navigation systems and wreaking havoc on power grids. On the positive side, these storms also produce Earth’s spectacular aurora. The solar wind creates temporary cracks in the shield, allowing some energy to penetrate down to Earth’s surface daily. Since these intrusions are brief, however, they don’t cause significant issues.
Yes, “temporary cracks” in the Earth’s magnetic field are happening all the time.
And as you just read, some energy does make it through those “temporary cracks” to the Earth’s surface on a daily basis.
Is this what happened in Spain?
Did a temporary hole in the Earth’s magnetic field allow enough energy to get through to cause a massive disruption of the power grid in Spain?
Interestingly, just days before the blackout a “giant coronal hole” that was about a million kilometers wide opened up on the Sun…
The Northern Lights may be visible in the U.S. on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 22/23 due to a large hole opening up in the sun’s atmosphere. Visible to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, the giant coronal hole measures about 600,000 miles (1 million kilometers); geomagnetic storms could be the result — causing displays of aurora in around 12 U.S. states.
Did that coronal hole have anything to do with the blackout?
At this stage, we just don’t know.
But I think that we will see a lot more episodes like this in the future, because the Earth’s magnetic field is steadily getting weaker. We are being told that the magnetosphere is “losing approximately 5 percent of its strength every decade”…
This isn’t the first research to show that Earth’s magnetic field is changing. Our magnetic field has always been in flux, and over the past few years it’s become clear that the invisible bubble that protects our planet from the harsh conditions of outer space has been getting weaker and weaker.
According to scientists’ best estimates, the field is now weakening around 10 times faster than initially thought, losing approximately 5 percent of its strength every decade. But they don’t really know why, or what that means for our planet.
I asked Google AI about this, and I was told the following…
Yes, Earth’s magnetic field is indeed weakening, and at a faster rate than previously estimated. Scientists have observed that the field is weakening by about 5% every decade, which is 10 times faster than the previously thought rate of 5% per century.
Eventually, the magnetosphere will get so weak that it simply will no longer be able to protect us sufficiently.
This is yet another reason why the clock is ticking for humanity.
In addition, Google AI says that the Earth’s magnetic field is also becoming increasingly unstable…
Yes, there’s evidence that Earth’s magnetic field is becoming unstable, including weakening in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) and a general trend of weakening over time. This instability is related to the Earth’s natural processes, including pole reversals and the complex dynamics within the Earth’s core.
As a result, temporary cracks in the magnetosphere could be a lot more common in the days ahead.
Needless to say, that could mean big trouble for our power grids.
So I hope that you have a plan for that.
The quote above mentioned the South Atlantic Anomaly, so I thought that I should get into what that is.
According to earth.com, it is essentially a “dent” in the Earth’s magnetic field that “stretches from South America to southwest Africa”…
Something strange is happening in Earth’s magnetic field, and it has caught NASA’s attention. A massive region of lower magnetic intensity, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), has appeared above our planet.
This dent in Earth’s magnetic field, or “space pothole,” stretches from South America to southwest Africa. The mysterious anomaly has puzzled scientists for years.
In this particular area above our planet, the magnetic field has gotten significantly weaker…
As satellites and spacecraft traverse this region while orbiting the Earth, they are exposed to the weakened magnetic field within the anomaly.
The reduced field strength allows charged particles from the Sun to assault the vehicles, potentially causing technological systems onboard to malfunction or even short-circuit.
These unexpected high-energy proton strikes typically result in minor glitches. However, they can also cause significant data loss or irreparable damage to key components.
At first, scientists believed that this anomaly was relatively static.
But more recent research has determined that the anomaly is actually “drifting” and that it is beginning to divide into two different parts…
Research led by NASA heliophysicist Ashley Greeley in 2016 revealed that the South Atlantic Anomaly isn’t stagnant; it’s drifting slowly. This drift was confirmed through subsequent tracking from CubeSats in a 2021 study.
Moreover, the anomaly seems to be splitting into two distinct cells, each representing a separate center of minimum magnetic intensity within the greater anomaly. The implications of this division, however, remain unknown.
The more we learn about the Earth’s magnetic field, the more alarmed scientists have become.
It is steadily getting weaker and more unstable, and we have no replacement for it.
And once it is gone, life on Earth will no longer be possible.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.