The Earth’s north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America so fast that it could end up in Siberia within 50 years, scientists have said.
The shift could mean that Alaska will lose its northern lights, or auroras, which might then be more visible in areas of Siberia and Europe.
The magnetic poles are different from geographic poles, the surface points marking the axis of Earth’s rotation.
Magnetic poles are known to migrate and, occasionally, swap places.
It’s time to switch to a GPS instead of a compass, anyway.
I’m guessing that magnetic north will move to Utah, directly under SCO’s headquarters. Then they’ll threaten to sue manufacturers and users of compasses claiming that they own it. Darl C. McBride will be quoted as saying, “If you want to point to our headquarters, you’re going to have to pay for our proprietary property.”
That’s nothing. Just think how much people will freak out if we’re still around when the poles switch places.
Maybe the pole is trying to get away from proposed arctic drilling?
Q. How long before the liberals blame the acceleration on Bush?
This must somehow be linked to global warming…
cool – northern lights in Florida
Fish, most everyone else here in Utah thinks its the center of civilization anyway. Why not make it official?
It DOES suck that Alaska will loose the Northern Lights. Makes living there all the more depressing.
Just imagine if the poles shifted suddenly. Any aircraft that still used compasses as opposed to GPS would be having a bad day. Then again, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Northern Lights in Colorado.
Hi, Paul — I think you’d find most geeks working on the computing side of climatology would say 1,500 to 2,000 pieces out of 3,000 are what they’re working with. Of the few paleoclimatologists I frequently discuss this with, one feels we haven’t enough accurate variables tracked for conclusions. But, he got so pissed off at being dumped on for his minority position that he quit most of the study bodies where he’d have access to that kind of dedicated computing.
I won’t post a bunch of links here; but, if you wander over to the website for the Max Planck Institute — they seem to be the latest with the bestest — you probably could find your way into the details of their information processing. You really don’t need someone’s thermometer notes to have an accurate idea of what the climate was over a number of millenia. I’ve known ice geologists back to the days of the International Geophysical Year who did that kind of analysis in punch card days.
Paul T,
Once again you are showing your true disinterest in science. Climatologists are not claiming to predict the exact weather for June 18, 2010 in Jackson Hole WY. Everyone realizes that such would be near impossible. What climatologists can do is make generalized predictions based upon current trends along with reasonable observations. They can also estimate historical weather patterns by measuring glacier ice cores, tree rings, old diaries and logs, and even fossil records. They can compare catastrophic events such as the eruption of Krakatoa to the weather patterns over the next few months. Ancient ice holds many measurable traces that indicate world events. Fluctuation in things like CO2 and dust are tracked and living events are compared.
Not exact, not to 1/8 th degree, not to the hour. But the general trends do become very evident. As more and more evidence becomes available, more scientists from many disciplines become convinced that the earth is warming.
There are many more physicians then climatologists in the world today. And many times as much money is spent on health. Yet even physicians can not predict with much accuracy the course of a disease or even an epidemic. They cannot predict a baby’s exact eye or hair color, or height and weight at maturity.
Your accusation of “scaremongering” by scientists is just garbage. This is the same bull language used by the administration to dismiss those that challenge them. The scientists predictions are based on evidence. The administration’s language is based on fear and manipulation.
I just don’t know. It seems that the global economy and politics is going South faster than the Pole. Maybe they’re related shifts. Perhaps Canadians need to claim sovereignty while we’ve still got it and before it takes OUR beloved lights with it (a small nod to our friends in Alaska). We could time share so many minutes to each dominion that ponied up, perhaps with a discount to those in the Middle East who are fairly confused [entirely different from those in the Mid-West who are VERY certain of the way of things ;^)…] Kind of a Global get-together and warm-up since sooner or later everyone’s bound to get a Pole of their own. Whadda ya say? Eh?
I agree with question #11 by Oana Milhai. I have tried and tried to get updated info on where the pole is currently. The latest info I can find is from 5 years ago. The current news says that the pole is moving NW faster than ever. So, what is the current location for 9/2007? Ed