Deep Politics Forum

Shift of Earth's Magnetic North Pole Closes Main Runway at Tampa International Airport

January 6th, 2011 Via: Tampa Bay Online:
Scientists say the magnetic north pole is moving toward Russia and the fallout has reached of all places Tampa International Airport.
The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth's magnetic north.
The closure of the west parallel runway will result in more activity on the east parallel runway and more noise for residential areas of south Tampa.
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The Federal Aviation Administration required the runway designation change to account for what a National Geographic News report described as a gradual shift of the Earth's magnetic pole at nearly 40 miles a year toward Russia because of magnetic changes in the core of the planet.
Posted in Environment, Florida

Ed Jewett Wrote:Shift of Earth's Magnetic North Pole Closes Main Runway at Tampa International Airport

January 6th, 2011 Via: Tampa Bay Online:
Scientists say the magnetic north pole is moving toward Russia and the fallout has reached of all places Tampa International Airport.
The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth's magnetic north.
The closure of the west parallel runway will result in more activity on the east parallel runway and more noise for residential areas of south Tampa.
…
The Federal Aviation Administration required the runway designation change to account for what a National Geographic News report described as a gradual shift of the Earth's magnetic pole at nearly 40 miles a year toward Russia because of magnetic changes in the core of the planet.
Posted in Environment, Florida

This one is no conspiracy IMSO....the poles do 'roam' and have throughout all time since the core and mantle cooled enough...and there are atlases of such. The current movement is a very quick one, compared to usual, but not the quickest recorded - there have been times when the poles switched places [almost] in a very short time. I know of NO human source of energy even remotely sufficient for the energy needed for this! This is an energy level equivalent to [likely greater, if you want me to research it] all the energy the sun puts on the Earth in a day - in per day energy output in friction and fluid motions, gyrations, gravitational effects of other celestial bodies, and such - which cause the poles to wander. It will necessitate the recalibration of all GPS systems, however....quite regularly....the North magnetic pole has moved steadily zig-zagging northward at an average rate of 10 kilometers per year since it was first located in 1831. As you can see from the small and poor image, I hope, the rate slows and then speeds up. It is now out at sea, North of all Canadian territory and islands, and heading toward Russia in one of its fast modes.

Goddamit those Russkis are up to no good again.

So what is happening to the south magnetic pole?

Magda Hassan Wrote:So what is happening to the south magnetic pole?

Aha! The suspicious type!....you CONSPIRACY THEORISTS! Damn! It wanders two. In fact they sort of wander in sync [almost] as it is like a giant bar magnet [sort of]...so when one moves North, the other moves [apparent] South. When one moves East, the other moves West. Got it? What interests me more as a mineral collector is the possibility [some geoscientists have speculated] is that at the very center of the Planet's core is a giant crystal! Now we are talking HUGE!!!....but hand's off. In my mineral collection, I already have it claimed, complete with label and collection item number. As the magnetic poles move, so too move the areas that get the better aurora shows at night....

....some geoscientists think the Earth is about ready to reverse the poles - switching polarity - North becoming South and vice-versa. Now, if that happens, watch out!...and hold on to your electronics!.....it does so irregularly, but every few tens of millions of years - and the effects are not pretty! The power of Nature is immense. It usually seems trivial to us, because it [usually] moves slowly for our limited time frames...but we are just along for the ride on a moving Planet, constantly re-arranging itself, reshaping itself...until the sun expands and swallows it up from whence it came. Of course, earthquakes, storms, and volcanoes are some of the quick manifestations we can see. But the BIG stuff is happening deep down at temperatures and pressures hard to imagine. Only the thinnest crust of the Earth is solid - under that is a plastic and under than liquid. There is great debate if the very center is plastic or my crystal.

Its for sale, [the crystal at the center] if anyone out there has the Big Bucks. :mexican: [or Gold Bearer Bonds]......speaking of which...what ever happened to those guys on the Italian/Swiss border...maybe they are interested?!................

Of course, there is the theory that has been around for many, many decades that the poles will switch, and that the likely time for this to happen is 21.12.12.

The end of the world is nigh ladies and gentlemen.

Well, that's enough for me, I'm off down the pub.

For the next two years.

Earth's Magnetic Field Shifts, Forcing Airport Runway Change - Yahoo! News
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/earths-magnetic...5-809.html

Bernice, I'm taking this opportunity to post that article here in full - news articles very often disappear after a few weeks, and I think this one needs t have a permanent home.

The thought that occurs to me, more than the requirement to change runway renumbering - and/or accommodate these changes in other practical ways, is the impact this might have on human behaviour, and what other impacts it might have?

Are we seeing a shift in polarity? What will be the impact of that on us as a species, both physically and psychologically, if any?

Quote:Earth's Magnetic Field Shifts, Forcing Airport Runway Change

The magnetic north pole is currently hovering over the North Sea and moving toward Siberia. This means two Florida airports are renumbering their runways.
Odd as this connection may appear on the surface, the adjustments under way at Tampa International Airport and beginning next week at Peter O'Knight Airport are the result of a natural, ongoing process.
Earth's magnets
The Earth has an iron core, and movement within its outer part is likely responsible for sustaining a magnetic field, which constitutes much of what we measure at the Earth's surface. As a result, the Earth resembles something of a giant magnet with two poles: magnetic north and magnetic south. However, its field is not perfectly symmetrical and has undulations that are always moving around, according to Jeffrey Love, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Geomagnetism Program.
The magnetic poles don't line up with the geographic ones, and the difference between them is an angle called declination. As if this wasn't enough of a nuisance for navigators, the Earth's magnetic field drifts, causing the angle of declination to change over time.
In fact, it drifts about one-fifth of a degree a year at lower latitudes, such as Florida. "So that means if you wait five years, the compass will be off by one degree," Love said.
For long-distance air travel, an error of only a couple of degrees could translate to arriving in the wrong airport, Love said. [5 Real Hazards of Air Travel]
Declination also varies depending on location. At high latitudes, it tends to become larger, and a compass becomes increasingly unreliable. If you were to stand over a magnetic pole, and tried to use your compass, it would not know where to point, Love said. Longitude also factors in.
As the patterns of motion of the molten iron in the Earth's core changes, so does the shape of the magnetic field, he said.
Right now, the magnetic north pole, where the field is vertical, is located at 84.97 degrees North and 132.35 degrees West, above the North Sea and drifting generally north-northwest toward Siberia at about 55 kilometers (34.2 miles) per year, according to Love.
What's going on in Florida?
Travelers have struggled with the complexity of navigating by compass for centuries, and modern American travelers are no exception.
Runways are designated according to the points on a compass, and the drifting magnetic north means that they, periodically, need to be renamed.
"Recently, the drift has caused our runways' orientations to be closer to the next increment on the magnetic compass," Tampa International Airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan told LiveScience in an e-mail.
For example, the west parallel runway, which was named 36Left -18Right to designate compass points of 360 degrees and 180 degrees, is being renamed to 1Left - 19Right, to indicate 10 degrees and 190 degrees, since the runway designations are separated into 10-degree increments.
Adjustments to runways like this and to navigational aids are ongoing, according to Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration's Southern Region. A third airport is scheduled to rename its runways in October; however, the changes aren't necessary for all airports in the Tampa Bay area, she said.
Every five years, federal agencies tabulate and publish a value called magnetic variation, which varies by location. Similar to declination, it correlates true direction to the magnetic compass readings needed for navigation.
These values are used to update navigational aids, such as instrument landing systems and beacons, she said. If there is a change of more than three degrees at any given airport, then runways need to be renumbered, as is happening at the Florida airports, Bergen said.
While aviation in the United States still relies on ground-based radar, which is calibrated to the local magnetic variation, it is moving toward a satellite-based system.
"Runways are still aligned toward magnetic poles. That's not going to change," she said.
A Much Bigger Change?
The same forces that cause the magnetic poles to drift can also cause a more dramatic change by switching the magnetic north pole to magnetic south pole, and vice versa, Love said.
In fact, the physics behind the activity in the Earth's core could just as easily generate a polarity opposite of what exists today, he said.
The poles last reversed themselves 780,000 years ago, and the reversals typically take 10,000 years or more to happen.
"In terms of what kind of havoc it could wreak or effects on humankind, we can't really say because we haven't experienced it," he said. "I don't think it will be the end of the world."

I decided to to conduct a Doh! check just to see if the foregoing essays were accurate. The easiest way was to take a compass reading. Being a boy scout type, I have a Silva compass, which is one of the best available.

Magnetic north is still magnetic north. Maybe a degree or two off where I am used to seeing it, but nothing more than that.

So, is this an April 1st story, or am I short of something on the scientific brawn front?

David Guyatt Wrote:I decided to to conduct a Doh! check just to see if the foregoing essays were accurate. The easiest way was to take a compass reading. Being a boy scout type, I have a Silva compass, which is one of the best available.

Magnetic north is still magnetic north. Maybe a degree or two off where I am used to seeing it, but nothing more than that.

So, is this an April 1st story, or am I short of something on the scientific brawn front?

From Wikipeadia, but correct: Change of declination in time and space

Magnetic declination varies both from place to place, and with the passage of time. As a traveller cruises the east coast of the United States, for example, the declination varies from 20 degrees west (in Maine) to zero (in Florida), to 10 degrees east (in Texas), meaning a compass adjusted at the beginning of the journey would have a true north error of over 30 degrees if not adjusted for the changing declination.

In most areas, the spatial variation reflects the irregularities of the flows deep in the earth; in some areas, deposits of iron ore or magnetite in the Earth's crust may contribute strongly to the declination. Similarly, secular changes to these flows result in slow changes to the field strength and direction at the same point on the Earth.

The magnetic declination in a given area that may (most likley will) change slowly over time, possibly as little as 2-2.5 degrees every hundred years or so, depending upon how far from the magnetic poles it is. For a location closer to the pole like Ivujivik, the declination may change by 1 degree every 3 years. This may be insignificant to most travellers, but can be important if using magnetic bearings from old charts or metes (directions) in old deeds for locating places with any precision.

Simply speaking, true north is the direction in which the north pole is located along the Earth's rotational axis, while magnetic north is the direction toward which the compass needle points.
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Its subtle old boy...it takes time to change, like good whiskey.....so have another. Pour me one, better yet, make mine a double - no ice.

If you were to put that map on a globe or world map with correct 'projection' you would see that from when you purchased your trusty 'ol compass to now the number of degrees change is minor, a degree or two [guessing]. If you have a good Silva, Suuntu or other compass, you can even correct it@!

Oh, by the way the door mat sales are ppppffffft! You took the best part of that partnership by caveat!