A TikTok theory that the Earth’s climate is going to shift dramatically due to a change in the planet’s magnetic fields has exploded in popularity in recent months.
The only problem? It’s not true – at all.
What is the Adam and Eve climate theory?
It all seems to stem from several TikTok videos which promoted this “Adam and Eve” theory. It claims that the Earth’s magnetic poles will soon shift, meaning the planet moves and extreme weather follows (in a very apocalyptic way).
This has been climbing in popularity, even though it is based on a 1960s essay published by Chan Thomas, called “The Adam and Eve Story: The History of Cataclysms.”
The work was initially classified by the CIA but 50 pages of it were declassified in 2013, and a book was later released detailing the theory in full.
Anyway, Thomas – reportedly a former US Air Force employee – claimed that the Earth’s magnetic poles flip every few thousand years by 90 degrees, and that’s why various ancient civilisations have been wiped out.
Thomas suggests that the first flood happened with Adam and Eve, the second with Noah and the Ark – and that the third one is looming.
Why is everyone talking about the theory now?
While it was a more minor conspiracy theory, it then made its way onto Joe Rogan’s ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast back in January, where he discussed theories and myths with YouTuber Jimmy Corsetti.
Rogan asked his guest: “I watched the Adam and Eve video this morning. How much of that is agreed upon? That there could be a time when the magnetic poles actually shift?”
Corsetti, The Bright Insight presenter, claimed the theory was actually “science”, pointing to Thomas’s work.
Corsetti explained the concept further, alleging that the magnetic pole swap means “the Earth essentially does a standstill – the sun will basically stay in the same spot, causing heating like we’ve never experienced”.
He added: “And that the wind and the waters continue with the momentum because the wind travels at 1,000 miles at the equator.”
Extreme weather events like tsunamis are then supposed to follow.
This conversation was then repeatedly clipped back on TikTok, meaning it reached even more viewers months after the clip first went up online – but raising questions about how the platform can be used for misinformation.
In fact, a report from the nonprofit organisation Media Matters for America claimed the theory (including clips from Rogan’s podcast) received more than 20 million views between January and April.
How do we know it’s false?
Where’s the evidence?
Experts say there is absolutely no evidence to back this theory up.
As Martin Mlynczak, senior research scientist at the NASA Langley Research Centre, told The Verge: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And there’s no proof and no science and no physics behind any of the claims about the magnetic field change being associated with climate change.”
He said that if this “flip” happened every 6,500 years, “we would certainly see it” because of the amount of energy required to bring about such a change.
A blog on NASA’s website also hammers home this point, arguing: “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.”
And, fossils do not show that major pole reversals caused big changes – no doomsday events, like a “flood”.
What would be the trigger?
Scientists have no reason to think that a sudden pole reversal is looming any time soon.
The Earth’s magnetic poles do shift, and magnetic north and south poles do change over time. They can flip locations too, according to NASA, but this is all gradual.
NASA explained: “Since the forces that generate our magnetic field are constantly changing, the field itself is also in continual flux, its strength waxing and waning over time.
“This causes the location of Earth’s magnetic north and south poles to gradually shift, and to even completely flip locations every 300,000 years or so.”
There is “little scientific evidence of any significant links between Earth’s drifting magnetic poles and climate”, NASA concluded.
How long would it take?
The impression from TikTok is that this change would happen rapidly, but scientists dispute this, too.
NASA notes that Earth’s magnetic poles have reversed 183 times in the last 83 million years, and at least several hundred times in the past 160 million years.
It’s not clear when the next one might happen, but they take place over hundreds to thousands of years – not overnight.
Could it even physically happen?
For the planet to flip, there would need to be several physical factors.
At the moment, there’s insufficient energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere for anything like that.
The air also does not contain iron so there’s no known physical mechanism capable of connecting weather conditions at Earth’s surface with electromagnetic currents in space.
And, electromagnetic interactions only affect the Earth’s ionsphere – which is around 600 miles above the surface. It does not affect surface weather and climate.
A Berkeley News report from 2014 said that even if the magnetic fields did switch and happened across a human’s lifetime, it would not trigger disaster – only damage to electrical grids.