NYT: Collapse Of The Earth's Magnetic Field Accelerates..

[zavvy]

http://drudgereport.com<br /><br />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 NY TIMES is planning to report on Page Ones Tuesday. <br /><br />Science reporter Bill Broad has filed a report, according to newsroom sources, which explores how: 'The field's strength has waned 10 percent to 15 percent so far and this deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the earth."<br /><br />Broad explains: "During a reversal, the main field weakens, almost vanishes, and then reappears with opposite polarity. Afterward, compass needles that normally point north would point south, and during the thousands of years of transition much in the heavens and Earth would go askew."<br /><br />Broad claims: "A reversal could knock out power grids, hurt astronauts and satellites, widen atmospheric ozone holes, send polar auroras flashing to the equator and confuse birds, fish and migratory animals that rely on the steadiness of the magnetic field as a navigation aid."<br /><br />Developing... <br />

 

[igorsboss]

I saw a science documentary on this recently on TV. I think it was NOVA... I'll have to track it down.<br /><br />Anyway, some fellow created and ran a detailed computer model for the Earth's magnetic field. He started the model, and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough, his model predicted magnetic field reversals.<br /><br />However, the field didn't reverse itself all at once. It was quite chaotic, actually, like nothing we poor humans would have expected.<br /><br />Precursors to the reversal included "islands" of reversed magnetic field which appear at middle-to-high lattitudes. These come and go chaoticly, until the entire field winds up reversed. The interim field isn't completely absen, but if you were to create a surface map of it, you would find a chaotic magnetic landscape.

 

[commander_keen]

I worry what kind of affect this would have on humans. I know that at the very least there'll probably be increased cases of skin cancer reported between the Magnetic Field but nothing much else...

 

[tom_hobbes]

There were a few excellant MagRev threads on the forum before the crash.<br /><br />An advanced search in google (search returns only from url - uplink.space.com - type 'magnetic pole reversal') and you should find them all. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[odysseus145]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/<br /><br />This is the link the the NOVA site about reversals. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

Ouch! The list of events poised to extinguish human civilization is getting longer. Nuclear holocaust, killer comet (or asteroid), nearby supernova, killer epidemic (natural or man-made), global warming and/or ice age, and now this: Collapse of the Earth's magnetic field!<br /><br />No wonder SETI hasn't found any advanced cilvilizations out there. Mmmm... I think I'll post this in the SETI forum and see what they think. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mooware]

<font color="yellow">"Collapse of the Earth's magnetic field"</font><br /><br />The article didn't say anything about the collapse, it metioned weakening and reversal, and probably not for a very long time.<br /><br />There is also no evidence that this will have a detrimental effect on human civilization.<br /><br />I wouln't be so quick to put it on your list of Doomsday Scenarios just yet.

 

[centsworth_II]

Did I get caught going 'over the top'? <img src="/images/icons/blush.gif" /><br /><br />Here's a link from newyorkdude over in the SETI forum in response to my post:<br />http://www.xs4all.nl/~mke/exitmundi.htm<br />An interesting list of end-of-the-world senerios including some I hadn't heard or thought about. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Anyway, some fellow created and ran a detailed computer model for the Earth's magnetic field. He started the model, and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough, his model predicted magnetic field reversals.<br /><br />However, the field didn't reverse itself all at once. It was quite chaotic, actually, like nothing we poor humans would have expected. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I read about that too! Yeah, it's pretty wild. But although it's unexpected, it's echoed by something else that wouldn't have been expected fifty years ago but which is inconvertible today -- the chaotic nature of the Sun's magnetic field. The most recent issue of National Geographic had a great article with some lovely illustrations on the topic. The Sun's magnetic field reverses much more frequently than the Earth's does. In fact, it reverses every eleven years (roughly), during the solar maximum. The field lines get amazingly distorted and chaotic. I'm not too surprised that the Earth's pole reversal could occur in the same way, or that the Earth's field is more dynamic than we'd ever thought likely.<br /><br />Just as a sidepoint, there are regions within the field which aren't perfectly smooth and wonderful. The South Magnetic Anomaly is a good example -- it's a spot over the South Pacific (if memory serves) where the field is curiously weak. I'm not sure if a satisfactory model exists to explain it, apart from the nonspecific "we know the field isn't going to be perfect because the Earth itself isn't totally uniform". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[igorsboss]

<font color="yellow">I wonder how long it will be before </font><br /><br />Too late.

 

[zavvy]

<font color="yellow">The article didn't say anything about the collapse</font><br /><br />Here's the entire article. (I'm posting it now because after a week NYT makes you pay for them...)<br /><br /><br /><b>Will Compasses Point South?</b><br /><br /><i>By WILLIAM J. BROAD<br /><br />Published: July 13, 2004</i><br /><br />LINK<br /><br /><b>The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field</b>, 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. <br /><br />During a reversal, the main field weakens, almost vanishes, then reappears with opposite polarity. Afterward, compass needles that normally point north would point south, and during the thousands of years of transition, much in the heavens and Earth would go askew.<br /><br />A reversal could knock out power grids, hurt astronauts and satellites, widen atmospheric ozone holes, send polar auroras flashing to the equator and confuse birds, fish and migratory animals that rely on the steadiness of the magnetic field as a navigation aid. But experts said the repercussions would fall short of catastrophic, despite a few proclamations of doom and sketchy evidence of past links between field reversals and species extinctions.<br /><br />Although a total flip may be hundreds or thousands of years away, the rapid decline in magnetic strength is already damaging satellites.<br /><br />Last month, the European Space Agency approved the world's largest effort at tracking the field's shifts. A trio of new satellites, called Swarm, are to monitor the collapsing field with far greater precision than before and help scientists forecast its prospective state.<br /><br />"We wan

 

[jatslo]

The Poles are moving.

 

[micro10]

What do you think would really happen if the Earth did actually lose it's magnetic field.. Explain your theory and why?