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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Aurora Borealis to take show on road |
| 2005-12-10 |
| Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday. Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth's modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote. But the shift could mean Alaska may no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible in more southerly areas of Siberia and Europe. The magnetic poles are part of the magnetic field generated by liquid iron in Earth's core and are different from the geographic poles, the surface points marking the axis of the planet's rotation. Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. Exactly why this happens is a mystery. "This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada," Joseph Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University, said Thursday at an American Geophysical Union meeting. Al Gore told me it was due to global warming from too much greenhouse gas and George Bush's flat out failure to sign the Kyoto Treaty Previous studies have shown that the strength of the Earth's magnetic shield has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole wandered about 685 miles out into the Arctic, according to a new analysis by Stoner. The rate of the magnetic pole's movement has increased in the last century compared to fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon researchers said. At the present rate, the north magnetic pole could swing out of northern Canada into Siberia. If that happens, The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831 and when it was revisited in 1904, explorers found that the pole had moved 31 miles. For centuries, navigators using compasses had to learn to deal with the difference between magnetic and geographic north. A compass needle points to the north magnetic pole, not the geographic North Pole. For example, a compass reading of north in Oregon is about 17 degrees east of geographic north. In the study, Stoner examined the sediment record from several Arctic lakes. Since the sediments record the Earth's magnetic field at the time, scientists used carbon dating to track changes in the magnetic field. They found that the north magnetic field shifted significantly in the last thousand years. It generally migrated between northern Canada and Siberia, but it sometimes moved in other directions, too. |
| Posted by:Clomorong Floque9564 |
| #5 Appearently the poles also reverse over geological time. No record on how quick it happens or whether or not there is an period of time during the switch when the mag field is down. Now that could be interesting to the local environment when there is no protection from some solar radiation. |
| Posted by: Crolung Omavimp4391 2005-12-10 19:35 |
| #4 In 1990, I flew up to Resolute in my plane. When you get to about 800 miles or so from the North magnetic pole, the magnetic compass is useless, as the horizontal component of the magnetic field is weak. Most of the lines of magnetic field are plunging into the earth. The plane's compass just wanders around aimlessly. As a consequence, navigation becomes more of a problem. I used a sun compass, and some other tricks when I navigated. Now, with GPS, a lot of this is moot, until the GPS unit winks out, heh. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-12-10 12:29 |
| #3 It's all because Bush refused to sign Kyoto. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-12-10 10:07 |
| #2 LOL 3dc...here come the megahertz run for lives |
| Posted by: Red Dog 2005-12-10 01:35 |
| #1 It's running away from the Haliburton HAARP transmitters! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-12-10 01:26 |