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Science

Earth's Magnetic North Pole Changes Time Zones, Just Keeps Drifting (forbes.com) 108

Posted by EditorDavid from the tracking-Santa dept.
pgmrdlm tipped us off to an unprecedented scientific phenomenon. Forbes writes: Earth's magnetic north pole has been moving East at an unusually fast pace, heading from the Canadian Arctic toward Russia. The rapid change of the magnetic poles has caused concern over navigation, GPS systems, military operations, etc. The northern magnetic pole has been drifting toward Russia at a speed of 34 miles per year (55 kilometers per year) but has slowed recently to 25 miles per year (40 kilometers per year).
Popular Mechanics writes: The magnetic poles have drifted and entirely changed places dozens of times in Earth's history, but this time it seems to be happening very fast, and within a shorter overall time interval than it did in prehistory... [S]witches happened thousands or millions of years apart and took thousands of years for the poles to physically move enough to switch. This is the first time scientists are observing drifting magnetic field activity in real time and measuring the rate of change as well.
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Earth's Magnetic North Pole Changes Time Zones, Just Keeps Drifting More

Earth's Magnetic North Pole Changes Time Zones, Just Keeps Drifting

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  • Holy smokes, it must really be moving a long way! I have to drive hours to get to another time zone!
    • If the magnetic pole was really smart, it would stay at the true pole where all time zones are one!
      • I know you're joking, but do you have any idea of why it is just so disturbing that the magnetic field of Uranus is inclined at 59deg to the rotation axis and is not symmetrical about the centre of the planet? It shouldn't do that. If our theories of how magnetic fields form in planets were anything like complete. So, clearly, our theories are not complete. Or Uranus is being malicious.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Simple solution: move the magnetic north pole to the geographic north pole. Then it would be in all time zones at the same time!

      • Re:Changed time zones! (Score:5, Funny)

        by dissy ( 172727 ) on Saturday December 21, 2019 @03:10PM (#59545304)

        Simple solution: move the magnetic north pole to the geographic north pole.

        Now we need to start a fake news article about Russias new uber powerful supervillian electromagnet that they are using to steal our magnetic north pole.

        We could probably get millions of dollars as military contractors to provide a solution to get our rightfully owned pole back!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          We'll spread the rumor that they're the runs behind HAARP.

        • Now I'm picturing a giant horseshoe magnet (painted red, of course) just outside of Moscow, windings smoking slightly, with a few Ladas stuck to the poles...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      Funny. When you're at the north pole all you have to do is walk in a circle. You can visit all the time zones easily within a minute or less.
      • If you're at the North Pole, you can only visit the integer timezones (GMT+1, +2, +3 etc). If you walk from 60 degrees to 90 degrees, you'll only walk through zones +4, +5, +6.

        There are more timezones than the integer ones. For example there is a GMT+5 1/2 timezone that cannot be visited at the north pole (Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal etc).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
          Unless you're there at Christmas, in which case I believe there's a special Santa Claus granted power that allows you to declare yourself Time King of the North Pole for a few minutes. As King you can temporarily shift time at the North Pole forwards or backwards up to 59 minutes, in which case you could also visit the time zones you mentioned. But this costs you one Christmas present if you celebrate Christmas. If you don't celebrate Christmas because you're another faith, Santa will still give you the pow
        • More relevant to most Slashdot readers, Newfoundland is at UTC-3.5 hours. But not the rest of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

  • Earth's magnetic north pole has been moving East at an unusually fast pace, heading from the Canadian Arctic toward Russia.

    This explains their massive electromagnet installation above the Arctic Circle.

    • If the magnetic pole is moving from the Canadian Arctic toward Russia, then it's moving WEST.

      Since the story originated in Forbes, I guess they can be forgiven for getting the science wrong. Even crossing the Prime Meridian doesn't make the direction of travel switch to easterly.

      ---

  • I understand some runways have had to be re-numbered due to magnetic pole drift.

    But if the poles actually flipped wouldn't that scramble a lot of navigation equipment that relies on magnetic pole orientation? Many car GPS I have seen uses a compass input to guess which way the car is pointing when it is sitting still.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by olsmeister ( 1488789 )
      I for one am looking forward to living in South America.

      • I for one am looking forward to living in South America.

        Okay, now I understand Trump's, very forward-thinking, reasoning for renaming NAFTA ... :-)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pedz ( 4127433 )
          Doesn't matter what the topic ... "Trump" always gets thrown in somewhere somehow.

    • But if the poles actually flipped wouldn't that scramble a lot of navigation equipment that relies on magnetic pole orientation?

      Never mind that, there will be a more devastating crisis:

      Our toilets will start flushing in the wrong direction, like they do in Australia!

      And the Australians will not be prepared to see their toilets flushing in the right direction.

    • Renumbering runways is relatively routine. Magnetic North has always drifted - I recall Heathrow's being renumbered in - er, was it the late 70s? - though as they're rounded to the nearest ten degrees there's plenty of time for the paint to dry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        The paint is also the least of your worries. The pilots generally don't care what number is painted on the runway so long as it's the correct one, their instruments agree, and they are lined up with it. Hell some of them even land on taxiways [ainonline.com]...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        Renumbering runways is becoming more common now. It's a very expensive proposition also. Besides the time and expense to renumber a busy runway, verything has to be republished as well. I read that there is debate over whether to continue using compass bearings for the runways, or to switch everything to just use true bearings since all commercial aircraft have GPS instrumentation and that could become the basis for course plotting. However compass use is such an integrated part of aviation, and general a

        • Most of the time a commercial airliner is landing, it is tilted sideways because of wind. That means the true bearing of the nose is more or less never the true magnetic nor the true geographic bearing. However as runways usually are parallel, and not randomly placed of the field, it does not really matter how good your "compass reading" matches, it is unlikely that there is another option in a 30Â or 45Â off direction.

    • Re:A crisis? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday December 21, 2019 @02:14PM (#59545112)
      The bigger concern during a pole flip will probably be the increased influx of charged particles from the sun reaching areas they normally don't. Right now they are directed by the Earth's magnetic field towards the poles, where they create the pretty aurora when they hit the atmosphere. Nobody is really sure what will happen if the magnetic field temporarily collapses, allowing the particles to strike the Earth directly. It could range from no effect, to really bad sunburns for a few years/decades, to our upper atmosphere starts to deteriorate and change composition. Also, most of the near-earth satellites eschew hard radiation shielding because the worst of the radiation is kept out of their orbits by Earth's magnetic field [wikipedia.org], so there's a good chance a lot of them could fry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        Australia might even catch a break! They're currently still the world leaders in skin cancer and no one is sure why, though magnetic/atmospheric phenomena are suspected.

        • They're currently still the world leaders in skin cancer and no one is sure why

          What do you mean no one is sure why? How about a country where the UV index is 10 almost year around, where the population isn't black or latino, and where the most beautiful beaches in the world entice people to lie in the sun and roast themselves as a national pastime. That and our general healthcare is excellent which leads to a large and rapid diagnosis rate so there's an element of reporting error compared to the many other countries in our latitude.

        • More UVB/UVC because there the ozone layer is damaged, and: during Australian summer, the earth is at its closed distance to the sun (makes less than 1% difference, though).

      • Magnetic field reversals happen frequently - every several hundred thousand years, on average - and the statistical correlation between magnetic reversals is such that we can be highly sure what the average effect of a field reversal is : nothing.

        Also, we have good grounds to think (next paragraph) that a magnetic field reversal does not happen instantaneously, but that over a period of a century or several the field gets weaker, then gets stronger in the opposite direction. And around the zero field perio

    • Many car GPS I have seen uses a compass input to guess which way the car is pointing when it is sitting still.

      It's possible to account for changing magnetic declination, though I don't know if e.g. Android actually does this except with new versions...

  • ... in geological terms, still thousands of years, well outside of human timescales.

    For fun, a snail moves at about 0.03 miles per hour, or 260 miles per year, 10 times faster than the poles are moving.

    • Re:'Very Fast' (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wycliffe ( 116160 ) on Saturday December 21, 2019 @01:08PM (#59544884) Homepage

      In geological terms, 34 miles per year is huge. For reference, continental drift is only about 1 inch per year.
      At 34 miles per year, that's 3400 miles every 100 years which, if it moved in a straight line, would put it at
      the equator in 183 years and would likely cause major problems way before then.

  • I will adjust the time zone setting in my compass now.

  • Just in time for Christmas (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday December 21, 2019 @01:01PM (#59544864)

    Fox News Headline:

    "Russians Steal North Pole"

  • The most likely culprit is AGW, the rising cumulative amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources, but more research needs to be done to confirm this hypothesis.

    • That's no more idiotic than some of the other "plans".

    • Our next AGW/magnetic pole boondoggle should be on some lovely island at the height of the season. We can use other people's money to rent the whole place for 3 weeks, fly in on private jets from around the world and discuss where we'll go for the emergency AGW conference the year after that one. In fact, AGW is such an emergency we should do this twice a year! Before it's too late and we all die and the earth turns into Venus!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Mr307 ( 49185 )

      If you published that and claimed 'Scientists say', doomers would eat it up and regurgitate the nonsense all over the world while wagging fingers at everyone else about 'something something save the magnets you hater'.

      For even more effect have the headline say 'Scientists say X is happening TWICE as fast as ever before in history' well after cutting off any inconvenient portions of historical record of course.

      • There's a definite correlation between the increase in anthropogenic CO2 and the recent increase in movement speed of the magnetic pole, it merely now needs to be investigated to see if they are related. Of course they are.
        • Y'all are wrong! It was obvious done by Trump Industries. That's why Nancy is sitting on the impeachment articles--she's going to open them back up and add this addition crime against Gaia before sending them to the Senate.

  • Either global warming is having an effect on Earth's core or it's a damn fine coincidence that it's happening just as we started turning up the heat. I know we're due for a polar switch but it seems like we triggered it. Just a hypothesis for now but eventually we'll know the truth when we have planets to experiment with. I'm sure global warming will be an important case study in geoengineering.

    • LOL. The funny part is you posted this drivel directly below a comment that said the same thing tongue-in-cheek. Too stupid.

    • Re: overheating core? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Saturday December 21, 2019 @01:38PM (#59544962)
      Omg, seriously? The rest of us are joking about this being AGW. Do you have ANY idea how fucking huge the planet is and how utterly insignificant the surface temperature is to the inner workings of the core of the planet? Oh my god. We learned about the earth in third grade. The surface could be any temperature just short of the whole planet turning to plasma with no impact on the core. Holy fuck. The ignorance. Where do you guys get this shit? Go look at a grade school level web page on the make up and layers of the earth. You should be embarrassed to post such a thing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        So you say global warming is too small of a change to have any effect on the planet?

        • I want you to tell us that you think it is possible that AGW is causing the magnetic field to drift. That way we can all laugh at you.

          • I want you to tell us that you think it is possible that AGW is causing the magnetic field to drift.

            HA! We fooled ya! AGW is causing the axis [nasa.gov] to drift. Now watch the magic!

          • I want you to tell us that you think it is possible that AGW is causing the magnetic field to drift. That way we can all laugh at you.

            I think it's possible, thought I think the probability is very small. The mechanism would likely be the redistribution of surface mass: water. As another commenter pointed out, we suspect that this redistribution of water is causing the spin axis to change. That could in turn change the currents in the core.

            As I said, I think it's unlikely, but it's not completely impossible. If you know of some reason that alterations to the spin could not induce changes in the interior currents that generate the mag

            • if you know of some reason that the it's impossible that

              You cannot shift the burden of proof. If you think something, it's incumbent upon *you* to prove it.

              • if you know of some reason that the it's impossible that

                You cannot shift the burden of proof. If you think something, it's incumbent upon *you* to prove it.

                My claim is that it's conceivable, and I offered a clear mechanism with no obvious weaknesses. That's sufficient to prove my claim, unless someone else can come up with some reason my mechanism either (a) isn't actually occurring (see this [nasa.gov]) or (b) can't affect the magnetic field, which we know is created by currents in the metallic core, which in turn seem very likely to be affected by changes in the axis of rotation.

        • It could also be the other way around. The moving poles will have an effect on incoming radiation and could just as easily be another independent and natural climate variable with feedbacks modelers had not even considered.

          I know a lot of people like to think "science" knows exactly how the climate works. Myself I think it would be naive to discount the likelihood of significant unknown unknowns.

        • No. The post said the surface temperature cannot affect THE CORE. Obviously the surface temperature CAN affect the surface.
        • You left out "core of the". And the answer to that would be "Yes."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      I guess you're the kind of person that gets really freaked out when thunder rolls exactly after someone says something important, or if the light burns out the moment you flick the switch... There's a name for that: superstition.
      • The light blowing the moment you flick the switch isn't superstition, it's a surge current. The cold filament (incandescent lamps ; fluorescants and LEDs use more sophisticated power supplies) has the full peak-to-peak voltage of the mains applied to it (325V for a 230 V RMS mains) and can't handle the current. If the filament survives the first half-cycle of the mains, it has heated up enough to reduce the current passed considerably. Oblig wiki link. [wikipedia.org]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

          The light blowing the moment you flick the switch isn't superstition,

          You explained why it happens. I don't disagree - this is a well known phenomenon. However the superstition part is believing it has some sort of significance in the person's life. That has nothing to do with the mechanism you pointed out.

  • Article isn't quite accurate (Score:4, Informative)

    by Alwin Henseler ( 640539 ) on Saturday December 21, 2019 @01:20PM (#59544914)

    (from link at bottom of the summary)

    Do you know planets spinning is also why they're roughly spherical?

    Ehm.. NO. It's gravity. If a celestial body is small, its gravitational force is weak. Thus it can include structures that give it a very irregular shape. As it grows bigger so does the gravitational force. Too high a mountain & it will collapse, the material erodes and carries off into surrounding area, or it'll push & sink into the main body (especially if interior is liquid like on earth). Too deep a depression, and material from surrounding area or the body's interior will fill it in.

    Net result is a limit to how much the height of surface structures can deviate from a sphere. The bigger the body, the more it will have to look like a perfect sphere. Spinning makes for the flattened sphere aka ellipsoid.

  • It's 6m or 20ft per hour!

  • That always works, right? But it's the law!

  • Steal the north pole and sell it back to the world for 1 gillion dollars?

  • I get tired of this alarmist crap about how everything is going off the rails, as if the world runs by the clockwork mechanisms we wish it did. From Wikipedia:

    Reversal occurrences are statistically random. There have been 183 reversals over the last 83 million years. The latest, the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, occurred 780,000 years ago

    a 2019 paper estimated that the most recent reversal, 780,000 years ago, lasted 22,000 years

    Okay, so that directly contradicts Popular Mechanics.

    And...

    Studies of 15-million-year-old lava flows on Steens Mountain, Oregon, indicate that the Earth's magnetic field is capable of shifting at a rate of up to 6 degrees per day.

    That's 415 miles in a single day that the field has changed in the past.

    Thank God no one has been able to pin any causes of this on humans or we'd never hear the end of it (OR.... maybe the electromagnetic radiation from all our cell phones combined is canceling out the earths magnetic field!

    • a 2019 paper estimated that the most recent reversal, 780,000 years ago, lasted 22,000 years

      Oh, I'll have to read that one. New to me.

      Open access, paper here [sciencemag.org]. Off to read.

  • With the North Pole wandering around, what movement has the South Pole been doing?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I've been flying small aircraft for almost 40 years, and recently I've seen a rash of runway renumbering. Runway numbers are assigned according to the magnetic heading of the runway (degrees), rounded to the nearest 10 degrees and divided by 10. So, a runway on a heading of 217 degrees magnetic would be called runway 22. As the Earth's north pole moves, it changes magnetic headings too. Runway numbers at airports near me have changed recently due to the magnetic field shift associated with the eastward

  • has been moving East at an unusually fast pace, heading from the Canadian Arctic toward Russia.

    This first had me confused, since moving East from Canada would typically make me think Greenland, and eventually Europe. But of course most of us grow up with the Mercator projection maps as the basic learning tool.

    So instead I looked other projections often used for maps of the polar regions, such as Orthographic Projection [winwaed.com].

    Thing is, even with a map of the polar regions, I don't see how moving East from Canada

    • Why don'z you simply look on a map?
      Oh .... you did, and did not grasp it.

      Hint: there is a 0 meridian. Things east of that are ... well east.
      And Canada is west.

      Or look at it that way: buy a globe, preferred one made from wood. Cut it into two pieces along the 0 and 180 meridian.
      The piece with Canada on it, is west, the other one east.

      No idea why no one on /. grasps that.

  • First they steal Crimea, then they steal our 2016 election, NOW they steal our North Pole! Is there NOTHING that Putin cannot do?

  • "The rapid change of the magnetic poles has caused concern over navigation, GPS systems, military operations, etc."

    The only people relying on the magnetic North-Pole nowadays are boy scouts.

  • Can the changing field be significantly contributing to climate change? It's got to be deflecting incoming radiation in a slightly different way from year to year, no?

    • No. Please don't be one of those alarmists who knows little science but only understands sensationalist popular articles by journalists who studied basket weaving in college.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Puuuuutin!!!! [Shake fist at sky]

  • 34 miles per year is about 20 feet 5 3/4 inches per hour. About 10 1/4 inches per minute, or an inch in a tad under 6 seconds. About the speed of the tip of the minute hand on a clock about 6 1/2 feet in diameter or the second hand on one 3 1/4 inches across.

    You could see motion that fast. (If it was the motion of something visible, of course.)

  • "... The rapid change of the magnetic poles has caused concern over navigation, GPS systems, military operations, etc. ... " In how far today's navigation or military operations (relying on GPS, which is utterly independent on the earth magnetic field) would be affected by a shift of the magnetic pole will probably remain the concerned people's secret. Likewise, how would the time zone where the magnetic pole happens to be located affect _anything_? This is 2019. Only magnetic compasses will be affected,

  • This is a great example of the whole messed up global warming/climate change debate.

    Yes, the climate/globe changes. We know this! 99.9% of the people acknowledge it.

    The debate is really over how much we want power complexes (government political systems) trying to mandate/control things because of it.

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