Do magnetic pole shifts cause modern climate change and earthquakes? Science says no

Is the Earth’s magnetic field affecting our climate and causing disasters? One claim on social media suggests so.

"Humans are not causing climate change," a Feb. 10 Instagram post’s caption read. "We have no way of knowing when this shift will occur or how quickly but it’s been an earth phenomenon for eons. Magnetic pole shifting is complex and I suggest you do some research as it is causing havoc worldwide in weather, climate, earthquakes, tsunamis etc."

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Images accompanying the post refer to earthquakes in Turkey and Indonesia and to other real phenomena observed by scientists involving the sun and the Earth’s inner core.

Can these crises and changes be attributed to magnetic pole shifts? Experts say no.

The Earth’s magnetic field, called the magnetosphere, protects against the erosion of our atmosphere by solar wind, cosmic rays from deep space and other harmful energy.

In a 2021 blog, Alan Buis of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained why variations in Earth’s magnetic field are not causing climate change.

Buis wrote that the position of Earth’s magnetic north pole has gradually drifted by more than 600 miles since 1831, when it was first precisely located. Although this does affect navigation, he said, "there is little scientific evidence of any significant link between Earth’s drifting magnetic poles and climate."

Pole reversals — when Earth’s magnetic north and south poles swap locations — are common in Earth’s geologic history, having occurred 183 times in the last 83 million years. Hundreds of thousands of years can pass between pole reversals. 

The magnetic field does weaken during a pole reversal, but Buis noted that plant and animal fossils from the period of the last major pole reversal "don’t show any big changes."

At some points in the Earth’s history, there have been "geomagnetic excursions" —  shorter-lived but significant changes in the magnetic field’s intensity. The last one, called the Laschamps event, occurred around 41,500 years ago. At the time, the magnetic field significantly weakened and the poles reversed.

In a study published in Science in February 2021, lead author Alan Cooper, formerly of University of Adelaide in Australia and the South Australian Museum, joined 32 other scientists in arguing that the Laschamps event led to shifts in global climate. The scientists analyzed the rings of ancient New Zealand kauri trees to track changes in radiocarbon levels during the pole reversal.

That research, however, was criticized by other scientists who published a response in Science. Led by researchers from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social in Spain, they argued that "other scientific studies indicate that that proposition is unproven from the current archaeological, paleoanthropological, and genetic records."

"In our view," they wrote, "Cooper et al. have used the archaeological and paleontological data selectively in order to create a narrative that could support the Laschamps as the main driver of a global environmental crisis."

Other experts told PolitiFact that the 2021 study from Australia is controversial. Monika Korte, interim leader of the geomagnetism section at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, said it is "quite disputed among scientists." The current magnetic field changes are much less than what occurred during the Laschamps event, she said. 

Andrew Biggin, a paleomagnetism professor at the University of Liverpool, said that even if someone were to accept the Lanchamps study’s claim that the shift produced changes in the global climate, that event stands apart from what is happening with climate now: "The Laschamps event 42,000 years ago was far, far more severe a geomagnetic event than anything we are seeing today," he said.

"There’s no evidence that Earth’s climate has been significantly impacted by the last three magnetic field excursions, nor by any excursion event within at least the last 2.8 million years," Buis wrote in August 2021. 

Variations in the magnetic field do not affect the Earth’s environment at its surface.

The earthquakes in Turkey and Indonesia were not caused by magnetic pole shifting. According to the United States Geological Survey, electromagnetic variations have been observed after earthquakes, "but despite decades of work, there is no convincing evidence of electromagnetic precursors to earthquakes." 

Korte and Biggin both said magnetic pole shifting does not influence the occurrence of earthquakes. 

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The energy that drives the climate system in the upper atmosphere — where electromagnetic currents exist — is only a minute fraction of the energy that drives the climate system at the Earth’s surface, Buis said. This means it does not have enough energy to influence the climate as we experience it. 

He said there is also no known physical mechanism that can connect the Earth’s weather conditions on its surface with electromagnetic currents in space. 

Experts agree that humans are the more significant contributor to climate change. 

"Solar wind particles entering all the way into the atmosphere might have a small influence in the overall weather and climate system, but their role is definitely much weaker than that of the current man-made climate change from greenhouse gas emissions," Korte said.

Biggin said, "Any current magnetic influence on the climate will be totally dwarfed by the anthropogenic influence of carbon emissions." 

PolitiFact previously fact-checked the claim that humans are not causing climate change and rated it False. 

Scientists trace this phenomenon to the Industrial Revolution, which began in 1760. Since that period, carbon dioxide rose 40% and methane by 150%. High levels of these and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat at the Earth’s surface, warming the planet.

There is wide consensus among climate scientists that the Earth is warming and that humans directly contributed to this change by burning fossil fuels. 

An Instagram post said "humans are not causing climate change" and blamed climate change, earthquakes and weather disturbances on  magnetic pole shifts.

There is broad scientific consensus that the climate is changing and that human activity is responsible primarily because of the burning of fossil fuels.

Pole reversals have occurred several times in the Earth’s geologic history. A 2021 study suggested a pole reversal 41,500 years ago had an effect on the climate. But the study has been subject to debate, with other scientists arguing that the research cherry-picked data and ignored other evidence. 

Either way, experts say changes in the magnetic field don’t affect the weather and climate on the Earth’s surface or the occurrence of earthquakes.

We rate this claim False.