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Taking Bets

Scientists acknowledge that, at this point, trying to predict the field's next move is like trying to predict the stock market's future. So for now scientists, like stockbrokers, have to consider the field as an average over time.

"If it continues like this, the field's intensity will be zero in the next five hundred years," said Lisa Tauxe, which leads many people to suspect that a full reversal is imminent. The evidence, however, hasn't quite convinced Tauxe or Constable.

Tauxe is confident enough that a flip won't happen this time that she has initiated a bet with a colleague albeit a bet that she acknowledges may take hundreds of years to settle.

According to Constable, "It's going to flip, it's just a matter of time." But like Tauxe, she doesn't believe it's heading toward a full reversal right now. They suggest that this is just a brief fluctuation, geologically speaking, and the field will strengthen again before the next reversal, as has happened repeatedly in the past.

Scientists continue to piece together the magnetic field's elusive origins and speculate its future direction. Will scientists ever be able to predict a future reversal?

"Never is a very strong word," said Constable, but she acknowledges there is much to understand in order to reach the point of forecasting a future reversal.

Global models, like Constable's, are the best hope to fully understand the erratic behavior of the earth's magnetic field. Until scientists are able to pinpoint the exact trigger of a full reversal, the field's next move will remain a mystery.

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