Posted on 07/12/2004 4:05:31 PM PDT by mkj6080
The collapse of the earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago, the NY TIMES is planning to report on Page Ones Tuesday.
Science reporter Bill Broad has filed a report, according to newsroom sources, which explores how: 'The field's strength has waned 10 percent to 15 percent so far and this deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the earth."
Broad explains: "During a reversal, the main field weakens, almost vanishes, and then reappears with opposite polarity. Afterward, compass needles that normally point north would point south, and during the thousands of years of transition much in the heavens and Earth would go askew."
Broad claims: "A reversal could knock out power grids, hurt astronauts and satellites, widen atmospheric ozone holes, send polar auroras flashing to the equator and confuse birds, fish and migratory animals that rely on the steadiness of the magnetic field as a navigation aid."
Developing...
Two Johns - Flush twice.
;What will Civil War re-enactors do?
Will this have any effect on emancipation ?
George H.W. Bush flew in the back seat of an SR-71 Blackbird
for a secret meeting to persuade Lech Walesa to reverse the Poles.
No, gravity causes weight, you don't even feel a magnetic field, unless you're hanging on to some iron, and even then you couldn't feel the earth's field. The compass in your car can "feel" the field though. Might require a new compass, or you could learn to read the one you have backwards.
The reduction in the strength of the field is presumably only a temporary condition. The field would dwindle to zero and then build up with the opposite polarity.
It's happened before.
And what more proof do we need? It's all Bush's fault.
Magnetic north, by current convention, would be geographic south. "will be" would be more appropriate than "would be" because the poles have reversed before and likely will do so again. When is the question.
Boy it's been stinking hot here in Alaska for the last week, now I know why. Next thing I know it will be cooler down in Texas than here and then I'll have to move back. Just when I thought I had gotten it right.
BTTFL
A flip would kill us all from the death rays, now blocked from the magnetic field. So says William Bryons, in a "Short History of Nearly Everything." I believe him.
(You may be better of asking Mr. Science ;-)
Yawn (sic)
I'll just have to turn my maps upside down so I know where North is.
Ha! I read the article and thought Art Bell would have a fun time with this one.
THE SKY IS FALLING, OH MY GOD THE SKY IS FALLING!
HOW ARE WE TO SURVIVE IF THE WORLD IS FLIPPED UPSIDE DOWN!
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