Posted on 07/10/2008 1:53:24 PM PDT by hripka
Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says.
"What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.
The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said.
The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the planet's magnetic field.
The study, published recently in Nature Geoscience, modeled Earth's magnetic field using nine years of highly accurate satellite data.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Whales ‘led astray by magnetism’
by Dr David Whitehouse
http://www.oceania.org.au/soundnet/features/led.html
That was a good thread....where is Fred....maybe he has something to add to this thread...
Mysteries of the Equator
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/equator/5264326.stm
‘Line-crossing ceremony’ — Portuguese adventurers and explorers of the early 15th century would never have passed the headlands of Northwest Africa had they believed the myths of monsters and boiling seas which were so widespread in western Europe at the time. The “line-crossing ceremony” - a seafaring tradition dating back to the Middle Ages - commemorates a sailor’s first crossing of the equator and is still practised - to an extent - aboard some naval ships today. It was originally created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long, rough times at sea. Traditionally presided over by “King Neptune and his Royal court”, the ceremony was part of an initiation into “The Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep”. In the 19th century and earlier, it was quite a brutal event and would sometimes involve sailors being beaten with wet boards and ropes, and then occasionally throwing these men overboard.
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/Edu/newcor.html
[snip] Under extremely controlled conditions, this can cause water to flow out of a container counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere, but your kitchen sink is not so controlled. Things like leftover spin from filling the sink (even when the water looks still, it’s rotating slowly for a long time after it seems to stop), irregularities in the construction of the basin, convection currents if the water is warmer or colder than the basin, and so forth, can affect the direction water goes down the sink. [end]
[ add “sleight of hand” to the list ]
I’m surprised National Geographic didn’t blame it on global warming.
Or faithful Christians.
Don't we have to have some ceremony where we have wear costumes and act like morons?
http://www.maztravel.com/maz/explain/coriolis.html
[snip] We’ve all heard the stories about cruise ship passengers who sail south of the equator and report that after crossing the equator the water started going down the bathtub drain in the opposite direction from the northern hemisphere. There have even been TV stories on this phenomena, with (I must say gullible) reporters led down the garden path by “pseudo scientists.” ... w is 2 * 3.14 / (24*60*60) = .000072 revolutions (actually radians) per second, and water drains at around 1 foot per second, so the acceleration of the water is about .000072 feet per second per second. At that rate it would take almost a minute (47 seconds) for the water to be deflected one inch. In comparison to the other forces at work in a draining bathtub, this is almost insignificant, and no experiment that you could do on a cruise ship or in your bathtub could detect a force of this magnitude. The water near the drain is already gone in a matter of a second or less, so there just isn’t any time for a force of this magnitude to do any real work on the water. This effect has been demonstrated under laboratory conditions... [end]
Wog Day
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=935522
...Bucket Watch. Wog is issued a bucket, a funnel, a quantity of water and a spoon. Wog then pours water into funnel and reports which way water goes down the funnel. (This is supposed to look for an change in direction due to the Coriolis Effect. I told you, very scientific.)...
LOL, I went through that once, I still have my shellback card.
I was rolled out at 4:30 AM, ate the typical pollywog breakfast (didn't want to wear it all day), crawled on the nonskid deck, I slid through the garbage chute, kissed King Neptune's belly, with all the rest of the crap thrown in at one time or another during the day, and had the all you can eat steak and lobster supper.
And yes, we did get beaten by wet "ropes", actually lengths of firehose soaked in salt water, and bruises were left. It was all part of crossing the equator on a Navy ship.
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html
[snip] Incompetence from PBS (USA) — Fakery of the first water (so to speak). There are charlatans operating at a tourist trap in Nanyuki, Kenya. In this little town, located right on the equator, a local mountebank works for tips as he glibly cons busloads of tourists into believing that the rotation of the Earth causes water draining from a container to spin clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere. (Yes, you read that correctly, the charlatan fakes it backwards. You would think that if he were going to sucker people, he would at least get his directions the same as what really happens in large weather systems.) This man’s nonsense was captured (and endorsed) by Michael Palin in one episode of his BBC TV special, From Pole to Pole, which is often aired on PBS... And now we have Michael Palin acting as a shill for bad science -— and on PBS, no less. [end] (Palin also shills for terrorists in his Africa miniseries))
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_161.html
:’) As long as I don’t forget to salute the commode door.
There is one, this year, August, in Denver...
LMFAO, we were the "Commode Door's" flagship for about three years. We pulled dockside EVERYWHERE we went.
Ever been dockside in Hong Kong? Sure beats waiting for one of those water taxi boats they provide, especially when you're three sheets to the wind.
“Don’t we have to have some ceremony where we have wear costumes and act like morons? “
Program reviews. I wear a suit and bark like a trained seal while pointing with a stick to pictures projected on the wall. At big program reviews I add a vest and use a green laser to point at the inane pictures, some of which are bar graphs or pie charts. I don’t need to wait for crossing the galactic equator.
:’D
I think the changing magnetic field already got Australia. We’re doooooooooooomed!!!
If it happens we can all bitch at what a slow response we had from FEMA.
After all, we are the ones letting the North Pole move to Russia, and we are not doing a darn thing to stop it.
LOL.
I’m for anyone who makes use of the NP..and doesn’t just let it sit there cold and alone.
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