North Magnetic Pole Moving East Due to Core Flux

[n2doc]

Richard A. Lovett in San Francisco
for National Geographic News
December 24, 2009
Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says.

The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.

Now, newly analyzed data suggest that there's a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the core's surface, possibly being created by a mysterious "plume" of magnetism arising from deeper in the core.

And it's this region that could be pulling the magnetic pole away from its long-time location in northern Canada, said Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France.

more:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091224-north-pole-magnetic-russia-earth-core.html

[Meldread]

1. It's seems no one has asked the two most obvious questions.

1. What impact will it have on humans and human civilization?
2. What impact will it have on animals? Some sea creatures and birds use the magnetic field for navigation, if I am not mistaken.

[Orrex]

2. We can answer the first question by answering the second:

1. What impact will it have on humans and human civilization?
2. What impact will it have on animals? Some sea creatures and birds use the magnetic field for navigation, if I am not mistaken.

2. "Well, thank goodness that's over. They were a pain in the ass."

[Meldread]

3. It may be a great ironic accident, but...

If I am not mistaken I believe birds use the magnetic field for navigation. I don't think a gradual change in the magnetic field would screw too much with the birds while they are in their current location, the real issue becomes when they need to migrate south for the winter.

...but here is the great ironic accident. Since humans have been feeding birds, they are causing evolutionary splits in bird species. The split is causing birds to change migration habits due to humans feeding them.

If the magnetic field shifts, it could (I'm guessing) lead migrating birds off course, getting them lost... I imagine some of them might end up (for example) flying over the ocean and literally dropping from the sky from exhaustion. Or it could lead them into another environment that is more hostile to them than if they had remained in the same relative geographical location.

So humans could actually be saving some species of birds (well in theory - they evolved, but are similar in nature).

Downside? They become very dependent upon humans for their survival.

----

It's somewhat ironic when you think about it. We generally think of human involvement in the environment as bad. So many people look at human existence as some type of unnatural abomination that is going to destroy everything... but when you think about it, that isn't true at all. What will happen, over thousands and millions of years, is that our actions are merely creating a new ecosystem. Evolution will ensure that those species that are most well adapted to the ecosystem that we create will thrive, while those that don't die off... just as has happened for millions upon millions of years. So really, our actions aren't "bad" per-say, no more "bad" for life than an asteroid hitting the planet... which life seemed to be pretty resilient toward (as we are living testament of). We've domesticated so many different types of species, and this has certainly had a strong evolutionary impact.

The other day I was reading about how dogs had evolved to respond better to communicate with humans through the use of visual cues... as well as to understand human cues (such as pointing with your finger). Cats have evolved similarly as well. For example, it's theorized that they use certain types of purring to manipulate humans; one type of purring known as solicitation purring has the same impact on humans as that of a crying baby.

The more I think about it... humanity has had a profound impact on the evolution of many species. To the point in some cases it might be argued that they've developed a dependency on us for their very survival. Which, to bring us full circle, may be what happens to birds changing their migration patterns to go to bird feeders.

[htuttle]

4. Putin's Giant Head is stealing the North Pole!

[Fumesucker]

5. The magnetic poles have reversed many times in the past..

The ecology has survived each time, odds are it will survive this time too.

Birds have lived through many geomagnetic reversals, if their navigation were solely by magnetism it seems they would not be able to migrate around those times of reversal and the ability to use the magnetic sense would have evolved out of the population.