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North Pole Heads South

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the change-in-latitudes dept.

blamanj writes "Things are not looking good for Santa. First, news that it's getting warmer at the North Pole, and now, scientists report that the (magnetic) pole itself is on the move. 'Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting from North America at such a clip that it could end up in Siberia in the next 50 years.'"

6 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. No piccies by DavidHOzAu · · Score: 5, Informative

    But this site sure has them and this site has some too.
    Read them. They are worth it.

    It looks like there are two magnetic norths on the planet. Our current one looks like it is just the additive of the major and minor magnetic fields of the earth with their collective strengths oscillating over time... hence the apparent movement.

  2. Re:Pole Reversal? by stupid_is · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yes it is (both). This article goes into some speculative detail. Upshot is, possibly damaging a shed load of electrical devices, disruption to electrical grids, etc....

    Could be interesting times (mental note: buy manual tin opener)

    --
    -- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
  3. Magnetic North Pole by metlin · · Score: 4, Informative

    The magnetic North Pole has never been a single point.

    It has always been a general area, and at any given point of time, the *actual* North Pole would be somewhere in that area.

    So, given that, this is not really surprising.

  4. Re:By definition by Bazzalisk · · Score: 4, Informative
    Ah, no.

    The geographic north pole is north by definition, the magnetic north pole is not - so it can head south.

    --
    James P. Barrett
  5. Re:Interesting fact by Mendokusei · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, there's two ways of looking at it: either the Earth's magnetic poles are labelled wrongly, or EVERY OTHER MAGNET IN ALL HISTORY is labelled wrongly. Take your pick.

    Compasses aren't labelled incorrectly. The North side of a bar magnet in a compass is labelled North because that is the way it points, not for its magnetic pole. They aren't saying, "Hey, this is the North pole of this magnet," they are saying "Hey, this side of the magnet always points North." Those are two completely different meanings.

  6. Re:Yeah, by cervo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have you read the NASA article that you linked? It says nothing about mass extinction events and polarity reversals in earth's history, it appears to be talking about mars. Now if you look at this link http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/RevScience .html you would see that field does not coincide with mass extinctions. Furthermore when the last one happened paleontologists said there were no major changes in plant an animal life. So your mass extinction seems like a leap of imagination.