Josh First's Blog

A mighty wind

Astute followers of weather may have noticed the past few years have been marked by strong winds, each and every year. Usually around seasonal changes. Really strong winds. Howling.

Silly people will jump to the conclusion that this is yet more evidence of “global warming,” or “climate change,” because God knows, everything that happens is “evidence” for these theories, no matter what.

But the truth is actually much more interesting and compelling. The cause of these winds is Planet Earth’s changing polarity.

Our planet’s magnetic polarity switches every 100,000 years, or so, give or take.

This means that what is now the North Pole becomes the South Pole, and vice versa.

The magnetic field surrounding our planet is responsible for our existence here, because it provides a shield against cosmic rays and radiation, including from our own sun. Mars was once a watery oasis, a lot like Earth, but when its magnetic shield weakened, solar radiation stripped the planet’s surface of water and everything else needed for life. Including its atmosphere.

Because Earth’s magnetic shield is so strong, we survive. However, our magnetic shield is weakest when the polarity shifts. It’s like trying to walk when you’ve bent over with your pants around your ankles…you can kind of shuffle forward, but you won’t be winning any running or walking competitions.

As a result of our weakened magnetic shield, it is kind of like Star Wars ship-to-ship fighting scenes, where some of the laser bolts get through and kind of rock the ship. It is alarming, but not really damaging.

Oh, people can be damaged by the unusually strong sun’s rays, if they are out without clothes. But we already know that is foolish behavior.

But more than anything is the effect on our climate, and the resulting winds. Though it is not totally understood, the increased heat and solar radiation on our planet’s surface definitely causes temperatures to rise, and it can cause what feels like rough weather, though it is probably relatively calm compared to other planets.

There is nothing we can do about this polarity shift, and the resulting mighty winds, other than batten down the hatches and try to adapt.

More than anything, watching this happen reminds us of how tenuous life on Planet Earth is, and what a narrow window it was that opened to permit us to move forward technologically and materially.  We have perhaps foolishly built high rise buildings and overhead power lines during a relatively narrow window of relative calm, but it is what it is. We cannot go back over all our infrastructure and rebuild it, though we are seeing the benefits of buying up private property along floodways to prevent further material destruction.

With these strong winds, we are just going to have to get used to them, and hope the polarity shift doesn’t poop out halfway through. Because then we’d all become Martians.