Tampa Bay Online
TAMPA – 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 pole.
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.
Found by ECA.
It’s climate change! Call Al Gore! We need to set up a Magnetic Credit Exchange! We have to be at fault!
How long does a magnetic “flip” actually take to accomplish? I’ve googled this several times and haven’t found an answer. I assume it could take several hundred years. But probably much longer as obviously birds are able to adapt to the change? From memory, the history of the flip is written in sea bed lava flow showing a flip every 50K years or so? God laid this record down to communicate to us that that was his “plan” for us going into the future. That is how omniscient god is: he’s got all the details worked out to the last detail. Come to think of it, he must have programmed the birds to adapt to this expression of his will as well.
God: my best friend, and your’s too if you will just let him into your heart.
Runways are numbered to the nearest first two digits of the magnetic heading.
180 = 18
But so does 176, 178,179,181,182,183,183 & 184
So if that runway was one degree off the switch over for the last [LARGE NUMBER] of years then this isn’t news.
40 miles per year? That would be 4000 miles in 100 years, 1/3 of the way to the South Pole. Why isn’t this a bigger issue than global warming? Is it moving in a circle or spiral?
I can’t answer for the USA, but UK maps have information on how the magnetic variation (from true north) changes over time.
This has nothing to do with climate change, polar flip, aliens, government conspiracies or even any forthcoming end of the world.
Presumably, the closer you are to the (north or south) pole, the greater the variation and the more it changes.
Are there any pilots here? I believe airports have been doing this for a long time.
Magnetic compasses are surely just a back up device nowadays. GPS is everywhere, then there is INS and RDF.
“Why isn’t this a bigger issue than global warming? Is it moving in a circle or spiral?”
– Man has no impact on this shift. We did not cause it, nor can we change it.
On a related note…Al_Yea – shut your trap, you moron.
Holdfast==the iron core that forms the Magnetic North Pole floats around in the top part of the molten middle of the earth. It is closer to the geographic North Pole and therefore changes in its position there create larger changes at the poles where the lines of latitude converge.
I think your presentation confuses the change in this variation with the “history” of the change. I have never seen a map showing the “rate” of change of variation: no reason to. Aviation maps are issued quite often ((I want to say every six months, but I could be wrong)).
I don’t know what a polar flip is but the flip of the magnetic poles is totally relevant. At the time of flip, whatever that actually means, the magnetosphere stops deflecting radiation from the sun. That would argue for a short time of flip duration otherwise there should be massive die-offs every 50K years, and I don’t have that in mind.
Well, shoot. Time for the google.
Not really all that straight forward.
1590 to 1990
Nothing to see here. Please move on.
The Russkies are STEALING THE NOTRH POLE !!! Call Issa, we must have a Congressional Investigation !!! Maybe Issa can subpoena Putin !!! We might even have to send Blackwater “Contractors” to STEAL IT BACK !!!
Fuckin’ Magnets!! How do they work?
Bobbo bloviating on GOD? Miracles really DO happen apparently.
# 2 bobbo, “How long does a magnetic “flip” actually take to accomplish?”
According to one NASA scientist, 400,000 years.
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/question/?id=4912
However, the last one (the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal) was about twice that long ago.
In any case, I can’t document it right now but I’m sure when I was learning navigation for my pilot’s license, they taught is the magnetic poles wander. It may be moving toward Russia right now but it might start heading for San Diego soon.
#5 Holdfast – Yes, EVEN in the USA we update our navigational data every few centuries. Sheesh…
Whew, that was close. I still need to google magnetic flip, every 50K years or 75K years as I recall. NOT THE SAME as continental drift that you are confusing it with. Although, magnetic flip and continental drift are both caused because we have a liquid/molten/radioactive center allowing for both phenomenon: the statistically impossible universe. With your example shaming me, I will do a quick google: ………yep, right there with a different name. My answer is in the last paragraph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
Glad you got home Animby.
This guy is falling. Ten times. Fast.
Bobbo #16 – Not sure what you think I was confusing. The man says, “…the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly with a magnetic reversal roughly every 400,000 years on average.”
Not that it really matters. It’s gonna be a long time,yet. The wandering northern polarity is unlikely to hit Antarctica for a while, yet.
Thanks. I had a good trip. Weather wasn’t great but that’s only important to me when there isn’t a bright sun, I forget to slather on the sunscreen. I am sooo white. Worst is the top of my follicularly-challenged head bobbing in the ocean waiting for the pickup boat. One guy was wearing a baseball cap. I may have to learn to dive that way. Had a close encounter with a whale shark and saw my first ever “herd” of hammerheads.
Damn. Why do I have to work? There are so many better things to do…
I don’t remember much of my training in navigation since I’ve been out of the Navy for fourteen years, but I do recall speak of gyroscopes to tell direction. This is especially handy near the actual magnetic north pole since a magnetic compass will no longer point North near the magnetic north pole.
The magnetic north pole will probably screw up all kinds of ocean charts too because they do have a notation saying how far off true north is from magnetic north.
Starting now, let’s use the SOUTH pole and everything will be fine!
#9 interesting animation there. But how the hell could they have had ANY data about the poles from 1590? And why no data for the last 21 years?
#21 Actually I wondered about the early data. I suspect it may be sort of a hindsight projection.
1590 is 98 years after Columbus. Shipping was a growth industry. Any navigator worth his salt would notice that his compass was in disagreement with his celestial observations. The Royal Navy probably kept up with the declinations for its charts. During the animation London goes from about +5 degrees to -25 degrees.
As for the last 20 years there is the internet.
Get your declination by zipcode
http://ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp
When are the airlines going to switch from relying on something so antique as boyscout compasses, encased in liquid, to navigate multi-million dollar planes?! GPS and radar towers don’t shift with the earth’s magnet poles. Shouldn’t these aircraft be using something the tiniest bit more precise, than compass needles?! Runaway designator numbers are only “ball park” anyway. Accurate to only 10 degrees. Runway 22, means 220 degrees, plus or minus 5 points. Most airports’ multiple runways are way more than 10 degrees different. So how could they be confused by the earth being a few degrees out of calibration? Perhaps they should simply reinvent the “science” of labeling landing strips. Try geographic north, as a fixed reference, rather than magnetic north. And use a GPS system on the planes, to display the headings. Why are we still relying magnetized needles? Damn Tombstone Technology culture.
The polarity of the earth has nothing to do with there being some solid or molten iron at the core. It’s been speculated, but probably never proven, to have to do with convection currents in the molten mass. And other time the currents shift around a bit. Because God didn’t furnish the earth with any guarantee that it would never change. We just foolishly based all our movements, all over the surface, on the premise that magnetic north was the same everywhere. And that it would never change. We know better now.
This not uncommon occurrence, is only big news because they’re building up to another “end of the world” scare. The magnetic poles are shifting, the Mayan calendar is ending, the birds are dropping from the sky. And Oprah is quitting her syndicated Tv show job. We’re all doomed! More all 11pm.
BTW, the last “end of the world” scare, happened in 1910, when Haley’s Comet was thought to hit the earth. But obviously it didn’t. And way back in 1800+ they had some similar fears of earthly doom. Scientists like to predict the end of the world, about every hundred years or so. Just to keep in step with all the religious nuts.
When studying high school physics in the early 1980s, I heard that from Tampa a reading of north on a magnetic compass doesn’t require much “compensation” since it is (was) very close to true north, 90° N latitude. Times have changed.
Many bird species have the ability to sense the earth’s magnetic field. I don’t know if the specie of birds in the recent die offs are some of those species. Some people have this organ also.
#23 Glenn E. –
Great idea with GPS.
“GPS and radar towers don’t shift with the earth’s magnet poles. Shouldn’t these aircraft be using something the tiniest bit more precise, than compass needles?!”
Except in the far north (and south) aviation routes, vectors, runways, navigation aids, instrument approaches, cockpit displays, etc. use magnetic direction. That includes GPS.
The compass itself is usually a backup these days, but magnetic direction is still the basis of aviation navigation.
#28 – the compass is rarely used for approaches by commercial aircraft but it is still used by private pilots.
You have to call the runways something, the choice would either be runway 1, 2, etc – but then you would need a chart.
Or you could name them after local dignitaries, but then you would have to make radio calls like “Aeroflot 147 heavy please go down on Senator Palin” which would cause giggles.
The magnetic direction is really just a less confusing way of saying north, east, etc runway
The reason for using magnetic rather than true is that if all other equipement is screwed you don’t want a pilot looking up the magnetic deviation on a USGS map and trying to remember if it’s map->grid=add or grid->map=add
Yes, runways are +_ 5 degrees, however, runway numbers can be up to 20 degrees off… that is, runway 3 can legally be magnetic 005 thru 055 without requiring a change to the runway #, although this leeway is typically used to allow for things like runway 29, 28, and 27 that are all mostly pointing the same way to get different numbers when on opposite sides of the airport. The only shocker here is the amount of time the airport wants to accomplish this change. Typically this is a closed between 8a and 4p closure to amend… though it may have more to do with the chart issuance (to update the approaches for Instrument flying) and playing it safe assuming they have a spare runway.