Slashdot Mirror
The Recent Changes In Earth's Magnetic Field (esa.int)
Europe's Swarm constellation of satellites have documented bigger-than-expected changes that have been occurring in the Earth's magnetic field. Earlier this year SpaceWeather.com reported that the data show clearly that "the field has weakened by about 3.5% at high latitudes over North America, while it has strengthened about 2% over Asia. The region where the field is at its weakest -- the South Atlantic Anomaly -- has moved steadily westward and weakened further by about 2%. These changes have occurred over the relatively brief period between 1999 and mid-2016."
Science writer Robert Zimmerman reports: It was already known that the field has weakened globally by about 10% since the 19th century. These changes appear to be part of that generally weakening. Some scientists have proposed that this is the beginning of an overall flip of the magnetic field's polarity, something that happens on average about every 300,000 years and last occurred 780,000 years ago. At the moment, however, we have no idea if this theory is correct.
Science writer Robert Zimmerman reports: It was already known that the field has weakened globally by about 10% since the 19th century. These changes appear to be part of that generally weakening. Some scientists have proposed that this is the beginning of an overall flip of the magnetic field's polarity, something that happens on average about every 300,000 years and last occurred 780,000 years ago. At the moment, however, we have no idea if this theory is correct.
Nobody has ever said that it is only man who is causing climate change
Actually the tsunami of climate change bollocks in the media and on most websites 24/7 implies precisely that.
No, you inferred it; they didn't imply it.
Nobody talks about natural variation at all.
What would you like them to say about it? It's not like we can petition the world to stop changing. However, the rate that the world is warming is way above what might occur naturally. Just because the climate could change naturally doesn't mean that we should be make it worse. Besides, don't deniers like to say that global warming is good because we should actually be moving into an ice age and that this warming actually stops that? You can't have it both ways! Is the "natural" climate change supposed to be getting hotter or colder?