Magnetic north shifting by 40 miles a year, might signal pole reversal
The magnetic pole is moving faster than at any time in human history, causing major problems for navigation and migratory wildlife.
By Bryan NelsonMon, Mar 07 2011 at 4:35 AM EST
POLE POSITION: Magnetic north is moving so fast that it is hampering navigation. (Photo:Calsidyrose/Flickr)
The magnetic north pole is currently shifting at a faster rate than at any time in human history — almost 40 miles a year — and some experts believe that it may be the beginning of a complete pole reversal, according to the Independent.
The changes are beginning to cause major problems for aviation, navigation and migratory animals that use the Earth's magnetic field to orient themselves. Some airports have had to change the names of their runways to better correspond to their current direction relative to magnetic north.
Ever since the magnetic north pole was first discovered in 1831, geologists have been tracking its progress. Unlike true north (which is marked by the Earth's axis),magnetic north is constantly on the move due to changes in the planet's molten core, which contains iron. Throughout most of recorded history, the pole has been positioned at or around Canada's icy Ellesmere Island, but if it keeps moving at its current rate, it won't be long before it sits above Russia instead.
The thing that really makes the pole's current movement so unusual, however, is the speed that it is shifting. In the last decade alone, movement has increased by a third, throwing off compasses by roughly 1 degree every five years.
Changes that fast have already caused major headaches for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
Tampa International Airport in Florida has just spent a month renaming all of its runways, which are named after the degree at which they point on a compass. Similar changes were recently made to runways at Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, and across the country runways now need to be renamed at least once every five years.
Tampa International Airport in Florida has just spent a month renaming all of its runways, which are named after the degree at which they point on a compass. Similar changes were recently made to runways at Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, and across the country runways now need to be renamed at least once every five years.
The shifting pole may also become a grave concern for migratory wildlife, such as birds, turtles and other sea creatures that use Earth's magnetic field to navigate over great distances. It's unclear if these animals are capable of recalibrating their navigational instincts to compensate for the changes.
The rapid shifting of the pole's position has prompted some experts to speculate that the Earth's entire magnetic field may be preparing to "flip," whereby all compasses invert and point south instead of north. It may sound radical, but in geological time, pole reversals are relatively common. Though they typically occur once every 400,000 years or so, it's been 780,000 years since the last flip.
Scientists disagree on how a pole reversal would effect ecosystems around the world, but some alarmists warn of a planet-altering catastrophe, whereby earthquakes and monumental tsunamis threaten the Earth for decades. Though such radical doomsday prophecies cannot be completely ruled out, the vast majority of scientists are tempered by calmer predictions.
"Reversals typically take about 10,000 years to happen," said Jeffrey Love of the U.S. Geological Survey . "And 10,000 years ago civilisation did not exist. These processes are slow, and therefore we don't have anything to worry about."
Magnetic declination is the angle between magnetic north (the direction the north end of a compass needle points) and true north. The declination is positive when the magnetic north is east of true north. The term magnetic variation is a synonym, and is more often used in navigation. Isogonic lines are where the declination has the same value, and the lines where the declination is zero are called agonic lines.
Somewhat more formally, Bowditch defines variation as “the angle between the magnetic and geographic meridians at any place, expressed in degrees and minutes east or west to indicate the direction of magnetic north from true north. The angle between magnetic and grid meridians is called grid magnetic angle, grid variation, or grivation. Called magnetic variation when a distinction is needed to prevent possible ambiguity. Also called magnetic declination.”
Change of declination in time and space
Magnetic declination varies both from place to place and with the passage of time. As a traveller cruises the east coast of the United States, for example, the declination varies from 20 degrees west (in Maine) to zero (in Florida), to 10 degrees east (in Texas), meaning a compass adjusted at the beginning of the journey would have a true north error of over 30 degrees if not adjusted for the changing declination. In the UK it is one degree 34 minutes west (London), and as the country is quite small that figure is fairly good for the whole of the country. It is reducing, and in about 2050 it will be zero.
In most areas, the spatial variation reflects the irregularities of the flows deep in the earth; in some areas, deposits of iron ore or magnetite in the Earth's crust may contribute strongly to the declination. Similarly, secular changes to these flows result in slow changes to the field strength and direction at the same point on the Earth.
The magnetic declination in a given area may (most likely will) change slowly over time, possibly as little as 2–2.5 degrees every hundred years or so, depending upon how far from the magnetic poles it is. For a location closer to the pole like Ivujivik, the declination may change by 1 degree every three years. This may be insignificant to most travellers, but can be important if using magnetic bearings from old charts or metes (directions) in old deeds for locating places with any precision.
Simply speaking, true north is the direction in which the north pole is located along the Earth's rotational axis, while magnetic north is the direction toward which the compass needle points.
North Magnetic Pole Moving Due to Core Flux
Blue lines show Earth's northern magnetic field and the magnetic north pole in an artist's rendering.
Picture courtesy Stefan Maus, NOAA NGDC
December 24, 2009
Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says.
The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.
Now, newly analyzed data suggest that there's a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the core's surface, possibly being created by a mysterious "plume" of magnetism arising from deeper in the core.
And it's this region that could be pulling the magnetic pole away from its long-time location in northern Canada, said Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France.
Finding North
Magnetic north, which is the place where compass needles actually point, is near but not exactly in the same place as the geographic North Pole. Right now, magnetic north is close to Canada's Ellesmere Island.
Navigators have used magnetic north for centuries to orient themselves when they're far from recognizable landmarks.
Although global positioning systems have largely replaced such traditional techniques, many people still find compasses useful for getting around underwater and underground where GPS satellites can't communicate.
The magnetic north pole had moved little from the time scientists first located it in 1831. Then in 1904, the pole began shifting northeastward at a steady pace of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year.
In 1989 it sped up again, and in 2007 scientists confirmed that the pole is now galloping toward Siberia at 34 to 37 miles (55 to 60 kilometers) a year.
A rapidly shifting magnetic pole means that magnetic-field maps need to be updated more often to allow compass users to make the crucial adjustment from magnetic north to true North.
Wandering Pole
Geologists think Earth has a magnetic field because the core is made up of a solid iron center surrounded by rapidly spinning liquid metal. This creates a "dynamo" that drives our magnetic field.
Scientists had long suspected that, since the molten core is constantly moving, changes in its magnetism might be affecting the surface location of magnetic north.
Although the new research seems to back up this idea, Chulliat is not ready to say whether magnetic north will eventually cross into Russia.
"It's too difficult to forecast," Chulliat said.
Also, nobody knows when another change in the core might pop up elsewhere, sending magnetic north wandering in a new direction.
Chulliat presented his work this week at a meeting of
The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.
Now, newly analyzed data suggest that there's a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the core's surface, possibly being created by a mysterious "plume" of magnetism arising from deeper in the core.
And it's this region that could be pulling the magnetic pole away from its long-time location in northern Canada, said Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France.
Finding North
Magnetic north, which is the place where compass needles actually point, is near but not exactly in the same place as the geographic North Pole. Right now, magnetic north is close to Canada's Ellesmere Island.
Navigators have used magnetic north for centuries to orient themselves when they're far from recognizable landmarks.
Although global positioning systems have largely replaced such traditional techniques, many people still find compasses useful for getting around underwater and underground where GPS satellites can't communicate.
The magnetic north pole had moved little from the time scientists first located it in 1831. Then in 1904, the pole began shifting northeastward at a steady pace of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year.
In 1989 it sped up again, and in 2007 scientists confirmed that the pole is now galloping toward Siberia at 34 to 37 miles (55 to 60 kilometers) a year.
A rapidly shifting magnetic pole means that magnetic-field maps need to be updated more often to allow compass users to make the crucial adjustment from magnetic north to true North.
Wandering Pole
Geologists think Earth has a magnetic field because the core is made up of a solid iron center surrounded by rapidly spinning liquid metal. This creates a "dynamo" that drives our magnetic field.
Scientists had long suspected that, since the molten core is constantly moving, changes in its magnetism might be affecting the surface location of magnetic north.
Although the new research seems to back up this idea, Chulliat is not ready to say whether magnetic north will eventually cross into Russia.
"It's too difficult to forecast," Chulliat said.
Also, nobody knows when another change in the core might pop up elsewhere, sending magnetic north wandering in a new direction.
Chulliat presented his work this week at a meeting of
the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Magnetic North Pole Shifts, Forces Runway Closures at Florida Airport
Published January 06, 2011
FoxNews.com
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A computer simulation shows the Earth's magnetic field lines and two poles, with blue lines directed inward and yellow lines directed outward. (Gary A. Glatzmaier / UCSC)
The planet's northern magnetic pole is drifting slowly but steadily towards Russia -- and it's throwing off planes in Florida.
Tampa International Airport was forced to readjust its runways Thursday to account for the movement of the Earth's magnetic fields, information that pilots rely upon to navigate planes. Thanks to the fluctuations in the force, the airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to change taxiway signs to account for the shift, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The poles are generated by movements within the Earth's inner and outer cores, though the exact process isn't exactly understood. They're also constantly in flux, moving a few degrees every year, but the changes are almost never of such a magnitude that runways require adjusting, said Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA.
The magnetic fields vary from place to place. Adjustments are needed now at airports in Tampa, but they aren't immediately required at all airports across the country.
So just how often is something like this necessary? "It happens so infrequently that they wouldn't venture a guess," Takemoto told FoxNews.com. "In fact, you're the first journalist to ever ask me about it."
Takemoto was quick to point out that the change, which also was required at Tampa's smaller Peter O. Knight airport, will have no effect on passenger safety.
"You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading," he pointed out. "To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes."
Kathleen Bergen, another spokeswoman for the FAA, explained that runway designations and charting rely upon geomagnetic information. "Aviation is charted using latitude and longitude and the magnetic poles," she told FoxNews.com.
The busiest runway at Tampa International will be re-designated 19R/1L on aviation charts. It had been 18R/36L, indicating its alignment along the 180-degree approach from the north and the 360-degree approach from the south, explained an article in the Tampa Tribune detailing the changes. Later this month, the airport's east parallel runway and the seldom used east-west runway will be closed to change signs reflecting their new designations as well.
"The Earth's poles are changing constantly, and when they change more than three degrees , that can affect runway numbering," Bergen said.
While rejiggering the runways is a very extreme event, the fields are constantly in flux and constantly being remapped, explained Lorne McKee, a scientist with the geomagnetism division of Natural Resources Canada.
"Since the fields change relatively slowly, they're marked out at 10 degree increments," he explained. The field has swung from approximately 10 degrees east in the late 16th century to 25 degrees west in the early 19th century -- before returning to a current value of about 3 degrees west.
It wasn't immediately clear when or even if changes would be required at other airports. And even the rate of change is inconsistent, McKee said, noting that it's changing much more quickly at the poles themselves.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/06/magnetic-north-pole-shifts-forces-closure-florida-airport/#ixzz24ytXz4HI
Pole Shift Threatens To Cause Weather Chaos
Will paying billions of dollars in carbon taxes to Al Gore and his cronies solve the problem?
According to some experts, the world’s weather is about to get even more chaotic as a result of natural climate change that we can do absolutely nothing to prevent – and even though global warming alarmists may exploit the consequences to advance their own political agenda, paying a carbon tax to Al Gore will not lessen the impact of a potentially catastrophic magnetic polar shift.
In layman’s terms, the most apocalyptic outcome of a polar shift would come as a result of the the poles flipping, with the south pole becoming the north pole and vice versa. The good news is that on average this only happens every half a million years, but the bad news is that it hasn’t happened in roughly 780,000 years, with some experts warning that the planet is overdue. Pole flips have been known to happen only 50,000 years apart.
If it happened, a complete pole shift would cause “superstorms in the future with winds as high as 300 to 400mph…which “would totally destroy anything they came into contact with on land,” writes Terrence Aym for Salem-News.com.
“In between these flips, the magnetic field can become quite weak and chaotic, causing “turbulence” in the field, which can effectively cause weaker gaps in the magnetosphere,”writes Mike Adams.
“These magnetic gaps or weaknesses can allow outside influences that normally would not penetrate the magnetosphere to reach deep into that magnetosphere, theoretically all the way down to where birds fly at very low altitude,” adds Adams, making a case that pole shifts are to blame for recent mass bird die-offs.
However, it’s important to note that the process of reversal in the earth’s magnetic field can take around 5,000 years to be completed. This isn’t going to happen overnight, which is why frenetic claims that it is part of some pre-ordained 2012 Mayan apocalypse are in the same league as hysteria about Planet X.
The more likely scenario is that the ever-changing tug of war between the sun and the earth’s electromagnetic fields will continue to cause significant, but not apocalyptic storms like those recently witnessed in Australia and the United States, and that alarmists will continue to exploit such events to push their completely discredited global warming dogma.
The fact that the planet’s northern magnetic pole is drifting slowly but steadily towards Russia is causing airports to adjust the coordinates of their runways so they match up with sensitive airplane instruments.
The consequences of geomagnetic movement in the poles is undoubtedly an important issue and will have a direct impact on our lives. However, given the level of coverage, and in some quarters outright hysteria, being afforded to a complete pole reversal event that is less probable than a cataclysmic asteroid strike, we’re more worried about the threats to the environment that are already unfolding on the planet, and not by some unknown outside threat that we cannot even do anything to prevent anyway.
The impact of chemtrails, the poisoning of our water supply with sodium fluoride, heavy metals, drugs and other harmful chemicals, along with the threat posed by the industrial rollout of genetically modified crops should be of far greater and more immediate concern.
However, since the planet is so sensitive to the behavior of the sun and how it affects the poles, don’t be surprised when global warming alarmists hastily exploit extreme weather events that are attributable to natural causes and blame them on human CO2 emissions while assuring that the only solution is to pay Al Gore and his globalist cronies billions of dollars in carbon taxes.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
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