Originally Posted by
Asturias56
"f you want to be ultra-pessimistic read Jim Al Khalili's book "Sunfall" which postulates a coronal mass ejection hitting Earth just at the point when the magnetic field passes through a temporary zero. "
highly nlikley - the mag field reversal is quite common (in geological terms ) often less than 100,000 years apart
Possibly you missed the point that it is the close-to-zero magnetic field that is the concern, not the reversal of the magnetic poles, per se. As these pole reversals can take many thousands of years, Earth could be exposed to damaging radiation for a very long time.
And given the long duration of reversals, this present faster movement of the magnetic poles and the weakening of the magnetic filed are likely indicators that the end of this chron is nigh, and reversal is already starting to take place.