Abstract
Integral laws describing the evolution of the kinetic, magnetic, and orientational energy in the liquid core of the Earth, which are also valid in the interiors of the other terrestrial planets, are derived, simplified, and analyzed. These laws are coarsely approximated by a system of ordinary differential equations with a given energy of the convection. The characteristic velocities, magnetic fields, periods, and scales as the functions of the power of the convection are estimated for the states beyond and close to the reversal or excursion. With the assumed simplifications, the convection power should be close to a certain value in order to enable a relatively short reversal or excursion; significant deviation of the convection energy from this value will render the system into a long-term steady state. Here, two types of steady state are possible: the codirectional state with the magnetic field oriented along the velocity vector, and contradirectional state with the opposing orientations of the magnetic field and velocity. These states are not symmetric with respect to each other since, other factors being equal, the energy support of the convection and the average intensity of the magnetic field are typically higher in the contradirectional rather than codirectional state. The total duration of codirectional states is somewhat shorter than contradirectional states in the case when the convection power grows with time; in the case of a long-decreasing convection power, the situation is opposite. This asymmetry in the duration of steady states is confirmed by the paleomagnetic data on the timescale of the magnetic reversals. The length of the average interval between the reversals is controlled by the turbulent, thermal, electromagnetic, and visco-compositional diffusion. The predominant type of the diffusion can be in many cases identified from the dependence of the reversal frequency on the intensity of the magnetic field based on the paleomagnetic data. The existing data coarsely testify to the predominance of thermal processes.
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Original Russian Text © S.V. Starchenko, 2015, published in Fizika Zemli, 2015, No. 4, pp. 111–118.
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Starchenko, S.V. Orientational, kinetic, and magnetic energy of geodynamo, reversals, and asymmetries. Izv., Phys. Solid Earth 51, 566–573 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1069351315030179
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1069351315030179