News to Me! So It Seems the Earth is Heading South

[iLander]

Did anybody else know that the earth's pole is moving south at 40 miles per year? What the heck?

Article from Yahoo:

Earth’s magnetic pole shifts, screws up runway at Florida airport

An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year.

Fox News reports that the international airport was forced to adjust the signs on its busiest runway Thursday because pilots depend on the magnetic fields to navigate. The runway will be closed until Jan. 13, and will re-open with new taxiway signs that indicate its new location on aviation charts.

Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA, says the Earth's magnetic fields are constantly in flux -- but rarely so much so that runway signage needs to be changed. "You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading," he told Fox. "To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes."

"The Earth's poles are changing constantly, and when they change more than three degrees, that can affect runway numbering," FAA spokesperson Kathleen Bergen told Fox News. It's unclear whether any other airports will have to adjust their runways.

Earth's magnetic field, which still flummoxes those who study it, "is thought to be generated deep inside the planet," LiveScience writer Jeanna Bryner explains. "An inner core of solid iron is surrounded by an outer core of molten iron. They rotate at different rates, and the interaction between the regions creates what scientists call a 'hydromagnetic dynamo.' It's something like an electric motor, and it generates a magnetic field akin to a giant bar magnet."

Sometimes, the poles completely flip -- and presumably when that happens, many bigger changes are afoot than modest tweaks to airport signs. The last time the planet experienced a polarity flip was 780,000 years ago.

 

[ksinger]

Yep. I knew that. Magnetic pole moves all the time. No need to . Interesting stuff though. They can tell quite a bit about when the poles have been flipped by looking at the alignment of ferrous metals in rock strata, as I recall. Cool stuff.

However, I will check my super-top-secret source on Monday to see about that runway change. Interesting.

 

[movie zombie]

flip happens actually fairly frequently......had read every 1000 years but there might need to be an extra zero or two on that figure....the memory not being what it used to be....sigh.

i find plate tetonics fascinating....the earth as an ever evolving and changing landscape.

MoZo

 

[dragonfly411]

Ilander - Yep.

Here's the really interesting thing. In our projected future, there will be a year when ALL of the planets in our solar system line up. At this time, it is unknown what might happen. The entire earth could flip rotation, it could flip poles, the planets could get knocked into different orbital locations, or we could all go flying into the black hole that exists in our universe.

When you think about it, with the poles moving, global warming sure does make a lot more sense, as do the animal kills, the weird weather and climate shifts (I don't know who else might have noticed but Winter is a lot later than it used to be. It's December to March for us), the earthquakes in unheard of areas.

Our planet is forever changing. Our solar system is forever changing. It's a great big giant unknown out there, and we are a speck.

Puts things into perspective some.

I for one am gonna live it to the fullest.

 

[kenny]

This must be why I keep losing my wallet and keys.

 

[ksinger]

Ilander - Yep.

Here's the really interesting thing. In our projected future, there will be a year when ALL of the planets in our solar system line up. At this time, it is unknown what might happen. The entire earth could flip rotation, it could flip poles, the planets could get knocked into different orbital locations, or we could all go flying into the black hole that exists in our universe.

When you think about it, with the poles moving, global warming sure does make a lot more sense, as do the animal kills, the weird weather and climate shifts (I don't know who else might have noticed but Winter is a lot later than it used to be. It's December to March for us), the earthquakes in unheard of areas.

Our planet is forever changing. Our solar system is forever changing. It's a great big giant unknown out there, and we are a speck.

Puts things into perspective some.

I for one am gonna live it to the fullest.

OK, let's inject a bit of reason here, really.

From an article about the last big alignment (2002) that we had (that nobody paid any attention to because not surprisingly, like all the other big scary planetary alignments, it was a non-event as far as apocolypse is concerned):

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/planets_align_020402-1.html

"Some people have suggested that the combined gravity of various planets lined up could tug at Earth and create colossal tides or even earthquakes. Scientists say there is no basis for this.

In May 2000, a similar planet line-up occurred. In its advance, there were numerous astrological predictions of earthquakes, floods, wars and other disasters. Despite all the ballyhoo, absolutely nothing abnormal or unexpected happened that was in any way tied to the alignment, scientists say.

"The planets in the night sky are always shifting in and out of celestial liaisons," says Ed Krupp, Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. "Astronomical amnesia allows us to forget the last time we saw them assembling for such a performance. We also usually fail to recall that none of the influential magical thinking attributed to the previous event ever materialized." "

And the poles shifting have nothing to do with global climate change, at least if one is to believe the science put forth by the people who study climate change. Earthquakes can and do, occur pretty much anywhere, since there are fault lines all over the place. Uncommon doesn't equal unheard of.

I'm a big BIG fan of reason and the idea that "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances". When the most cursory "research", whether in a book or on the web, can give me a reasonable explanation of the natural phenomena and their effects, there is no need to resort to magical thinking. The natural world is quite wondrous enough to make me want to live life to the fullest. I don't need to indulge in flawed reasoning to get there.

 

[dragonfly411]

Ksinger - First of all, I was simply offering that we don't have any FULL GRASP on what could or could not change, including you.

Second of all, if our poles change, then yes, climates are going to change. If the earth's rotational axis changes then the areas that are touched more and less by the sun will change and the weather and climates will change. I mean, we did have an ice age, and we did have a time where the entire earth was mostly tropical forest or high heat places.

Inject a little bit of reason based on past movements of the planet, how about it?

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Some have claimed that the poles will switch in 2012 and that will be the end of the world!!!

(But there are other ways the world can end too...Dh has a book that lists them all!) lol

 

[MichelleCarmen]

flip happens actually fairly frequently......had read every 1000 years but there might need to be an extra zero or two on that figure....the memory not being what it used to be....sigh.

i find plate tetonics fascinating....the earth as an ever evolving and changing landscape.

MoZo

MZ - magnetic reversals don't happen that often, IIRC, and they're considered fairly significant in the scheme of things, or at least from the sources I've read. I tend to gravitate (no pun intended) to the books which make things much more exciting than they possibly are. I love geology but not enough to have moved beyond the first intro classes in college so I haven't read the more dry scientic sorts of info.

 

[ksinger]

Ksinger - First of all, I was simply offering that we don't have any FULL GRASP on what could or could not change, including you.

Second of all, if our poles change, then yes, climates are going to change. If the earth's rotational axis changes then the areas that are touched more and less by the sun will change and the weather and climates will change. I mean, we did have an ice age, and we did have a time where the entire earth was mostly tropical forest or high heat places.

Inject a little bit of reason based on past movements of the planet, how about it?

Absolutely true. None of us knows what is going to happen in the next 5 minutes, either. Not having a full grasp on what will happen - hardly a new state of things - in the future, is not license to avoid checking what you can, or for jumping to the most outrageous speculation possible, like falling into a black hole due to a planetary alignment, for instance. But people just do love to scare the crap out of themselves, which is a powerful incentive to do just that I suppose. It's why we hardly ever speculate that one day friendly aliens will dump M&Ms from the sky I guess.

The simplest supported explanation for a phenomenon is the most likely to be correct. It is to be accepted until the situation requires a more complex explanation. Global climate change as we see it NOW, is very likely caused by or the very least, exacerbated by OUR actions. Our actions are the 900 lb gorilla in that room. The day may come when that explanation no longer suffices in the light of more evidence, and it may change it's true, but for now, I'm not going to speculate beyond what the scientific community is overwhelmingly telling us.

Occam's Razor. Apply it often.

 

[movie zombie]

as i mentioned, add another zero or two......actually, add more than a few zeros!

http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/reversals.html

also, take a look and find there is more than one "north" pole: who knew?! not me.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-earth-has-more-than-one-north-pole

MoZo

ps this is more science than my poor brain can handle at this time of the morning.

 

[ksinger]

Some have claimed that the poles will switch in 2012 and that will be the end of the world!!!

(But there are other ways the world can end too...Dh has a book that lists them all!) lol

Try this. It's a list of what the "experts" think is possible. Great stuff.

http://survive2012.com/index.php/2012possibilities.html

 

[MichelleCarmen]

as i mentioned, add another zero or two......actually, add more than a few zeros!


ps this is more science than my poor brain can handle at this time of the morning.

MZ - yeah, same. My kids went to a movie and so I'm on my third diet cola and still can't think straight enough to read the technical jargon. lol

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Some have claimed that the poles will switch in 2012 and that will be the end of the world!!!

(But there are other ways the world can end too...Dh has a book that lists them all!) lol

Try this. It's a list of what the "experts" think is possible. Great stuff.

http://survive2012.com/index.php/2012possibilities.html

Yah, thanks for the link! Appears a lot more ideas have sprung up since I last read. DH and I watched a show about volcanos the other night and it said something about yellowstone being a major threat to us all. It's located only a few states away from me...AHHHH!