<p><font size="2" color="#993366"><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>The magnetic field is doing just fine right now so it is separate from the global warming. I'm afraid we will have to take most of the credit for global warming ourselves. <br />Posted by origin</DIV><br /><br /></font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent, and the deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the Earth.'</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'Although a total flip may be hundreds or thousands of years away, the rapid decline in magnetic strength is already damaging satellites.' </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'Some experts suggest a reversal is overdue. ''The fact that it's dropping so rapidly gives you pause,'' said Dr. John A. Tarduno, a professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester. ''It looks like things we see in computer models of a reversal.''' </font></p><p> </p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'Dr. Charles H. Jackman, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has worked with European colleagues on a computer model that mimics the repercussions. A weak field, they reported in December, could let solar storms pummel the atmosphere with enough radiation to destroy significant amounts of the ozone that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet light. </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">Ultraviolet radiation, the short, invisible rays from the sun, can harm some life forms, depress crop yields and raise cancer rates, causing skin cancer and cataracts in humans. Dr. Jackman said that the ozone damage from any one solar storm could heal naturally in two to three years but that the protective layer would stay vulnerable to new bursts of radiation as long as the Earth's magnetic field remained weak. </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">''It would be significant'' in terms of planetary repercussions, he said in an interview, ''but not catastrophic.'' High levels of ultraviolet radiation would spread down from polar regions as far south as Florida.' </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'The current collapse drew wide scientific attention on April 11, 2002, when Nature, the British journal, published a major paper that detailed its growing weakness. Dr. Hulot and colleagues at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, where he works, as well as the Danish Space Research Institute, called the large drop remarkable. </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">They found it by comparing readings made in 1979 and 1980 by the American Magsat satellite with measurements by the Danish Oersted satellite, launched in 1999 and still operating. In particular, Dr. Hulot and his team discovered a north polar region and a spot below South Africa where the magnetism is growing extremely weak. </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">The finding drew wide attention because the magnetic anomalies seemed consistent with what the computer simulations identified as the possible beginnings of a flip. </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">''We postulate,'' Dr. Hulot and his co-authors wrote, that the new evidence reflects how ''the geodynamo operates before reversing.'' </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">In an interview, he said that the field's southern spot was 30 percent weaker than elsewhere and that some satellites passing over it had already suffered electronic malfunctions when highly charged particles from the sun were able to penetrate the weakened magnetic shield.'</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'Dr. Tarduno said that practical effects on things like satellites and the ozone layer would be the same no matter whether the field reversed or simply weakened and bounced back. A major collapse of the Earth's magnetic shield, he added, could let speeding particles penetrate deeper into the atmosphere to widely knock out power grids, as solar storms do occasionally.'</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">'''It will be interesting to see what's going to happen in that South Atlantic anomaly,'' he said. ''If you want to keep satellites flying, you want to know if the situation is going to deteriorate.''' </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">-Excerpts from article: <u>Will Compasses Point South</u>?, New York Times </font></p><p><font size="2" color="#993366">(Link to story provided by Nimbus.) </font></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>