North Pole Heads South

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.'"

Comments

this is news?

[v1]

The magnetic poles have been moving for what, millions of years, and science has known about this for many years now. Magnetic history found in rock has shown the poles have actually completely switched places several times in the past.

Re:Pole Reversal?

[Max von H.]

Is it true that we are overdue for a reversal in the polarity of the Earths magnetic field? Would this be a Bad Thing for us humans if it happened soon?

Yes, it would be a Very Bad Thing (tm) because when a reversal happens, we're left without the Earth's magnetic field, which protects us from lethal cosmic rays which are high enery/DNA disruptive stuff, such as gamma rays among other niceties.

Magnetic field reversals coincide with mass surface life extinctions, I'll bet it won't do us any good if it happens in our lifetime.

Re:Make perfect sense to me.

[TallMatthew]

That's uberliberal to you.

I never understood conservatives' problems with environmental issues. Things like global warming, the eventual depletion of fossil fuels, deforestation ... why is it stupid to consider this issues like this? I mean we live on this planet, don't you think we should look out for it? We're not going to get another shot at this. Once we fuck it up, we're extinct.

Politicians have a good reason to be anti-environment because they and their friends make serious bank by drilling oil, cutting down trees, running industries that pollute and the like. I can understand their point of view. But why does their profit mean anything to you? You realize that by supporting their point of view, you're just making them rich at the expense of the planet's (finite) resources, right?

Re:Pole Reversal?

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

not true. even when flipping there is enough of a field to protect us. plus the magnetic field does nothing to protect us from gamma rays anyway. if a gamma ray burst happens anywhere in our neighbourhood and is aimed at us, then we're fucked field or no field. there are cosmic rays passing through us every second anyway.

Rubbish

[mrRay720]

Gamma rays are photons - i.e. light. They are not affected by the weak magnetif field surrounding the earth. Loss of the magnetic field would be devestating long term because it would make it easier for solar winds to slowly strip away the upper atmosphere.

But... a weakened field for a few decades will not send us all to early graves. The biggest impact of a changing magnetic field would be to:
- Navigation. I guess we all have to adjust to GPS and similar.
- Animal navigation. Sadly birds, fish, etc. haven't yet implemented and learned how to use GPS. They'll have loads of trouble.

In terms of dangers it poses to us in the next hundred or so years, should this be a continuation of the existing decrease/beginning of reversal in field strength, it's importance is way below things like climate change, oil reserves running out, etc.

Nuisance for us, a bitch for animals that rely on it to migrate, but as a race, the danger from it is effectively zero.

Re:Rubbish

[Alioth]

It's unlikely birds etc. will have a real problem at all. Or even people who use compases to navigate their small boats.

The poles have been moving around since before life began - and has certainly shifted around significantly whilst birds that can use it have existed. In any case, a compass can only really provide you with rough navigation - a bird won't be using the magnetic pole as its sole navigational system (if it did, then normal day to day weather changes would screw them up much more than a pole that takes 50 years to move to Siberia - 50 years being many times longer than most migratory birds lifespans). Birds will at most use their in built compass to tell them the general cardinal direction they are travelling in, and will refine it by other means to take them to their exact destination - and they'll adapt quite happily as they have done during the many times the pole has moved around while migratory birds have existed.

Re:Rubbish

[SnapShot]

Birds don't live for decades.

The Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo can live for up to 100 years. And, according to this article, "The [Albatross] is a survivor. It flies 1,900 kilometers (1,100 miles) per day, with pinpoint navigation, and returns to its nest repeatedly over its 50-year lifespan."

Re:Rubbish

[whopis]

The GPS satellites are in a very high orbit, far above the region where comsats and space stations live; I doubt the Earth's magnetic field gives them any significant protection at that altitude.

The GPS satellites are in a low-earth-orbit. The communication satellites that are in geosynchronous orbit are much further out. The inner Van Allen belts fall inside the geosyncronous orbit, but they actually don't provide much protection from radiation. In fact, when they become amplified, they have been known to damage satellites.

Re:Rubbish

[aclarke]

Oh no. Now you've gone and disproved evolution. I'd say the "migratory bird lifespan observation" was its strongest proof yet.

That's the only place it can go

[Narcogen]

Actually, since the North Pole is the northernmost point there is, no matter what direction it moves in, it's going south. So it was inevitable.

Re:Pole Reversal?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a word, no, we aren't clearly "overdue". The average time between reversals in the last few million years is about 250 000 years. The most recent reversal (the Brunhes-Matuyama chron boundary) was about 780 000 years ago. Aha, people say: therefore we are "overdue".

Don't believe a word of it. The timings for the last 5 million years (borrowed from the Wikipedia page on geomagnetic reversals) are: 5.25 5.01 4.89. 4.81 4.64 4.47 4.29 4.17 3.59 3.33 3.22 3.12 3.05 2.59 2.14 2.08 2.00 1.78 1.19 1.06 0.90 0.78 million years. Do the math, and you'll see that extrapolating "we are due" from intervals with such a high variance (some intervals are 40 000 years) is rather suspect, though it is true that the most recent "normal" interval is the longest of that time period (problem is: if you go back further, you find plenty that are even longer).

The field varies in alot of additional ways -- pole position on the surface, various measures of total field strength, that kind of thing -- in addition to polarity flips. There is a good rock record of these sorts of variations too, and they demonstrate that what we are experiencing now is "normal". However, there are *hints* that we *might* be creeping closer to the potential of a magnetic pole flip sometime in the next few centuries or millenia (which is relative soon as the scale of these things go), but I wouldn't say it is clear-cut yet. Suggestive, but give it another century or so of monitoring, and there will probably be better answers. For all we know, the weakening trend for some total field parameters that has been observed for the last century will simply reverse, as it has many times before, and the field will re-strengthen.

Would it be a bad thing for the magnetic poles to flip? In some ways. It would increase solar and cosmic radiation flux at the surface for the time it takes for the new field to become established with the opposite polarity (imagine the effect as if you lived near the current magnetic poles, where the protection offered by the field is less). Some animals would be affected (e.g., some animals navigate using the Earth's field as a compass or variations in magnetic field strength as landmarks).

But it wouldn't be the real "wrath of God" stuff, like cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria, or that kind of thing.

Note that there are some crazy people out there who confuse magnetic polarity reversal with some kind of bizarre and physically impossible geographic pole flip, but this is pure crankology.

Ecology vs economy, round infinity

[geekpuppySEA]

It's the ages-old assertion that any change in policy that benefits the environment must come with economic costs, and vice versa.

It all comes down to individual costs vs. group costs. The Left is more concerned with long-term group costs - not to say that they're not concerned with individual costs, but they're more willing to pony up for stuff that makes long-term sense. Conservatives, for the most part AFAICT, can't be bothered with worrying about the group costs.

I'm not going to say that not worrying about group costs automatically makes you greedy and evil, although the Left would love everyone to think that (and I would too, insofar as it might get the system changed before we're all choking to death.)

But I DO claim that being concerned about individual costs more than group costs makes sense from an evolutionary perspective - the individual mind must be more concerned with its own survival rather than everyone else's too. One lone organism can persist to reproduce, etc even if all its clan are killed off. Clearly, this kind of mentality had to evolve prior to group selection.

However, it's been said repeatedly that the history of modern morality and cultural evolution describes an expanding circle, in which more and more people are encompassed within the region of "people we need to care about and grant rights to." In modern times this has surpassed individual humans and expanded to include the whole environment.

So conservatives aren't wrong, they're just not caught up with the rest of the world.

Now, is it going to make sense when those on the Left who are crazies (don't deny it, every side has got 'em) - when they start targeting oil executives (why aren't those pansies doing that shit yet anyway!), is that going to change how people think? Probably not - but it sure would make those revolutionaries feel better. Not that I'm advocating that - it would be better if they'd just realize the error of their ways and start giving a shit about other people. That'd make all that x-tian rhetoric all the more realistic...