Overview
- Researchers report the weakened geomagnetic region over the South Atlantic grew by an area comparable to nearly half of continental Europe between 2014 and 2025.
- The findings come from a new model by Chris Finlay and colleagues using continuous ESA Swarm magnetic field measurements, published in Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.
- The decline is spatially uneven, with a pronounced, faster deterioration in the sector off southwest Africa linked to atypical core–mantle boundary flow patterns.
- Lower field strength allows more energetic particles to reach satellites, raising risks of single‑event upsets, hardware degradation, and degraded GPS/GNSS performance that operators mitigate through monitoring and operational protocols.
- Recent media claims of a NASA 'maximum alert' and nationwide communication blackouts in Argentina are overstated, as agencies emphasize ongoing monitoring, model updates, and mitigation measures including those coordinated by Argentina’s CONAE.