Friday, January 7, 2011

Magnetic North Moving at greater speed

I was listening to Brian Williams on NBC News tonight and he was talking about how the magnetic north is now moving in the direction of Russia. It has already moved so much that Airports all over the U.S. are having to move their co-ordinate signs and change the designations because they now might be several miles off of where they were.

When I was a child my parents would often talk to me about a polar shift. At that time I visualized that the planet would suddenly turn upside down. But scientists now say that that isn't how a polar shift works. They say that where magnetic north is now or where it will be when it shifts will somehow become magnetic south.

Now I know this sounds kind of nuts and depending upon how and when this actually happens(if it happens) will tend to indicate whether all electrical devices on earth continue to work when that happens or if they have to be modified or redesigned for them to work. For example, GPS navigation might have originally been based upon Magnetic North and Magnetic South but now I believe maybe it is based upon major landmarks as a calibrating factor worldwide. So, since the GPS satellites that allow planes, boats and ships and hikers in the wilderness use to figure out where they are exactly on earth might not (at least at this stage of development technologically) be affected by magnetic north moving now towards Russia at 40 miles per year at this point.


North Magnetic Pole Moving Due to Core Flux

To read full national geographic news article click "North Magnetic Pole Moving" above.

begin quote from above website:
Blue lines show Earth's northern magnetic field and the magnetic north pole in an artist's rendering.
Blue lines show Earth's northern magnetic field and the magnetic north pole in an artist's rendering.
Picture courtesy Stefan Maus, NOAA NGDC
Richard A. Lovett in San Francisco
for National Geographic News
December 24, 2009
Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says. end quote.

This might be one of the reasons thousands of birds are dying all over because it is likely that birds navigate long distances using magnetic north as their primary reference. With magnetic north moving so fast it could cause them to run into things because their previous stationary magnetic north is moving so all their instinctual navigational biological equipment is no longer completely functional like it was for thousands of years. Until enough birds that migrate learn to adapt to all these changes it is likely we will see many more large die-offs of birds if this is one of the causes.

So, it is possible that the birds dying just can't adapt to all the changes in their environment fast enough to survive.

I know, for example, that all humans have a bone in their nose that is magnetic which allows us to navigate using magnetic north. This is how humans navigated through dense forests or fog in ancient times. I know this sounds funny but doctors and scientists have discovered this. It is likely that birds also use a magnetic bone sensitive to magnetic north in their forward skull to navigate as well.

I found this next quote that shows how much the magnetic north moves. It says here that the magnetic south pole moves similarly to the north magnetic pole.


HowStuffWorks "Why does the North Pole move?"

To read above article click on "Why does the North Pole move?" above.


begin quote from above article.


Image courtesy Kenai National Wildlife

The Earth's magnetic poles move. The magnetic North Pole moves in loops of up to 50 miles (80 km) per day. But its actual location, an average of all these loops, is also moving at around 25 miles a year [ref]. In the last 150 years, the pole has wandered a total of about 685 miles (1102 kilometers). The magnetic South Pole moves in a similar fashion.end quote.

However, this last year it didn't just move 25 miles forward in one year it moved 40. So, if we average the amount of distance the magnetic north moves per year it is about 4.56+ miles per year. So, given this average the amount of distance magnetic north is moving per year appears to be increasing significantly.

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