Would a pole shift affect our weather?

My name is URL

I was just reading an article on National Geographic which detailed how the North Magnetic Pole is moving east due to changes of the Earth's core

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.

Finding North

Magnetic north, which is the place where compass needles actually point, is near but not exactly in the same place as the geographic North Pole. Right now, magnetic north is close to Canada's Ellesmere Island.

Navigators have used magnetic north for centuries to orient themselves when they're far from recognizable landmarks.

Although global positioning systems have largely replaced such traditional techniques, many people still find compasses useful for getting around underwater and underground where GPS satellites can't communicate.

The magnetic north pole had moved little from the time scientists first located it in 1831. Then in 1904, the pole began shifting northeastward at a steady pace of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year.

In 1989 it sped up again, and in 2007 scientists confirmed that the pole is now galloping toward Siberia at 34 to 37 miles (55 to 60 kilometers) a year.

A rapidly shifting magnetic pole means that magnetic-field maps need to be updated more often to allow compass users to make the crucial adjustment from magnetic north to true North.

Wandering Pole

Geologists think Earth has a magnetic field because the core is made up of a solid iron center surrounded by rapidly spinning liquid metal. This creates a "dynamo" that drives our magnetic field.

(Get more facts about Earth's insides.)

Scientists had long suspected that, since the molten core is constantly moving, changes in its magnetism might be affecting the surface location of magnetic north.

Although the new research seems to back up this idea, Chulliat is not ready to say whether magnetic north will eventually cross into Russia.

"It's too difficult to forecast," Chulliat said.

Also, nobody knows when another change in the core might pop up elsewhere, sending magnetic north wandering in a new direction.

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

Would a big enough shift of the poles have any direct affect on our weather?

Danno

Yes

My name is URL

Danno wrote: »

Yes

Well I guessed it would. Can you elaborate on how it would happen and in what way it would present itself in terms of our own weather patterns?

Is it happening already?

Elmer Blooker

google the
MILANKOVICH THEORY - complicated stuff.

Trogdor

Very interesting topic! Unfortunately one i know nothing about though..:o

nilhg

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

google the
MILANKOVICH THEORY - complicated stuff.

More to do with precession of the physical pole than the magnetic though?

nacho libre

on a slightly related note, apparently the moon's moving away from earth could eventually have a extremely dramatic effect on our weather. to the extent that we could see some places on earth having six months of an ice age followed by six months of desert like conditions.

basabe

Danno wrote: »

Yes

Have not considered this before, but can't see why a NMP flip would change weather.... the Earth's relationship with the sun, polar axis and rotation will not have changed?

However would have to consider how much the alignment of the Earth's Magentic Field contributes to global and regional weather.

I do know however, that the NMP pole does rotate around the Geographic NP over several hundred years and I am not aware that this varies weather - unless of course related weather variations are what some prefer to attribute to Global warming. I suppose records are not around long enough to be able to distinguish. Could explain why ice at the North Pole is melting whilst it is increasing at the South pole.

sold

Yep, big problem. Have you seen 2012?

basabe

sold wrote: »

Yep, big problem. Have you seen 2012?

No with you?

My name is URL

sold wrote: »

Yep, big problem. Have you seen 2012?

Were the events in that film caused by polar shifting though? I haven't seen it but after a quick Google it seems that it was caused by solar flares

I am aware that the Mayan prophecy has been linked to polar shifting but I still wouldn't have much faith in all of that..

I doubt it would be a cataclysmic event, but I was just interested to see if anyone had any idea about the effects to weather on a local level

basabe

My name is URL wrote: »

Were the events in that film caused by polar shifting though? I haven't seen it but after a quick Google it seems that it was caused by solar flares

I am aware that the Mayan prophecy has been linked to polar shifting but I still wouldn't have much faith in all of that..

I doubt it would be a cataclysmic event, but I was just interested to see if anyone had any idea about the effects to weather on a local level

Biggest effect would be on animal navigation/migration IMO

My name is URL

basabe wrote: »

Biggest effect would be on animal navigation/migration IMO

But wouldn't the shift allow more cosmic radiation to hit the Earth's atmosphere and perhaps alter cloud formation?

I found an interesting study into the effect of cosmic radiation on clouds here (PDF)

basabe

My name is URL wrote: »

But wouldn't the shift allow more cosmic radiation to hit the Earth's atmosphere and perhaps alter cloud formation?

I found an interesting study into the effect of cosmic radiation on clouds here (PDF)

But we are talking about a magnetic alignment change - not a physical re-alignment?

M.T. Cranium

Okay, a few points here. First of all, the North Magnetic Pole is moving west, not east, actually WNW and to the far north of Canada's arctic islands (which still takes it towards Russia). A little history here, in 1840 the NMP was first reliably located by the Ross expedition, on the Boothia Peninsula on the northern mainland of Canada. From that point on, it was measured regularly and found to be drifting NNW, later NW through Canada's arctic islands, which it finally left around 1980 in the Queen Elizabeth Islands to the west of Axel Heiberg Island (which is that fairly large one west of Ellesmere, which is next to Greenland). So from 1980 to 2007 (last reliable location) it travelled increasingly fast and started curving NW and then WNW and has now reached 84N 110W (approx) which compares to about 68N 90W almost two centuries ago. If it continues on this pace and accelerates a bit more, it could be drifting into the New Siberian Islands north of Siberia by about 2050.

Now, this is not a sign of imminent polar reversal. We only have sketchy ideas where the NMP was located before 1840, the general consensus is that it was in the western Canadian arctic drifting southeast and the Ross expedition just happened to find it at about its most southerly location in recent times. Before that, it could have been almost anywhere, such records as we have found from indirect fossil or pollen evidence tend to point to previous locations north of Scandinavia at some point around the Roman era, so you could imagine that the NMP has perhaps made an irregular circuit of the northern hemisphere over the post-glacial era, and perhaps more than one. So the current activity is no particular cause for alarm.

I say alarm because a reversal of the magnetic poles would be a serious matter on several fronts, not only the weather. But first of all, about the weather ... it's my theory and that of quite a few other researchers that the magnetic poles may distort the hemispheric circulation to at least some extent, in other words, the polar vortex tries to set up in standard locations from climatology but is then pulled out of shape towards a secondary centre near the NMP. This would in fact explain a lot of the recent global warming mystery, since Europe has warmed more rapidly than North America recently, but it was the other way around from 1880 to 1920 (an era when the NMP was rapidly moving away from the subarctic into the arctic). So, you can imagine the atmospheric chaos that might develop if in a reversal episode the poles first weakened and became multiple centres, or even went wildly offset and took up positions in the temperate regions (the two magnetic poles tend to move in sync although not perfectly aligned through the centre of the earth).

So our weather could become quite chaotic and develop new circulation patterns that we might only fully understand once we saw them in progress.

However, that might not even be the worst problem we would face, because the weaker magnetic field during the reversal (a process which probably takes hundreds of years) would allow in more harmful ultra-violet and other radiation, having health impacts and crop impacts regardless of the weather changes. There might also be changes in radio reception and satellite performance during such an episode.

Most credible forecasts of this possibility talk about reversals well into the future but following a continued weakening of the field. Right now, I believe the field is perhaps 20% weaker than its intensity a few centuries back.

I should just mention too, based on reading the discussion above, that the terrestrial poles are not moving around (significantly, they do wander over a very small distance of perhaps 1-2 kms due to second-order orbital variations). So anything to do with standard climatology, sun heating earth, or Milankovitch cycles (which I consider valid but not related directly to geomagnetism) are not part of this concern about magnetic pole wanderings or reversals. If the terrestrial poles shifted, climate zones would shift with them, depending on any given place's new latitude. Given that the continents are drifting and evolving slowly over time, any concept of "polar wandering" is difficult to establish because it's a case of did the pole move or did the continent move? But these processes are much slower than magnetic pole shifts, in fact, the north and south poles have been oriented about where they are now (relative to the main continental features) for at least 30 million years and probably well back towards the Silurian before you would find real changes, and then again, these might have more to do with continental drift than actual orientation changes of the earth's poles (relative let's say to the fixed star background).

I'll check this thread in a day or two and see if there are any questions or follow up comments. In the meantime, happy New Year to you all.

googsy

Is it shifting more quickly than previous years ? I was reading that the main runway in Tampa International Airport in Florida is closed 'till January the 13th to readjust Taxi Way signs cause of it.. Mad stuff !

delw

interesting subject&as nacho posted about the moon moving further away from earth im wundering are they related,also would this effect the auroua borealis


edit: on a lighter note does this mean santy has to move

M.T. Cranium

Anyone new to this thread, see my post (#15) from a year ago for the background details.

The change at Tampa airport is needed because of a 10 degree shift in magnetic declination. That's not surprising given that the NMP has shifted about 20 degrees west in recent decades and Tampa was already at a fairly large magnetic declination. I would imagine most North American airports will need similar changes soon if they haven't already made them.

The magnetic field is weakening slowly and a polar reversal could take place in something like 300-500 years at this rate. Position is not important in that as far as we know, just intensity. The effects on weather would probably be in terms of less organized circulation, so more blocking patterns. The greater concern of course would be increased dangerous levels of radiation getting through the weaker magnetic field and reaching us below.

planetX

I understood that we are overdue for a reversal based on the pattern of past reversals (though overdue could mean anytime within thousands or tens of thousands of years....)
I also read that there have been some links found between reversals and extinction events. Personally I won't be losing any sleep over it though;)

gkell1

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

I should just mention too, based on reading the discussion above, that the terrestrial poles are not moving around (significantly, they do wander over a very small distance of perhaps 1-2 kms due to second-order orbital variations). So anything to do with standard climatology, sun heating earth, or Milankovitch cycles (which I consider valid but not related directly to geomagnetism) are not part of this concern about magnetic pole wanderings or reversals. If the terrestrial poles shifted, climate zones would shift with them, depending on any given place's new latitude. Given that the continents are drifting and evolving slowly over time, any concept of "polar wandering" is difficult to establish because it's a case of did the pole move or did the continent move? But these processes are much slower than magnetic pole shifts, in fact, the north and south poles have been oriented about where they are now (relative to the main continental features) for at least 30 million years and probably well back towards the Silurian before you would find real changes, and then again, these might have more to do with continental drift than actual orientation changes of the earth's poles (relative let's say to the fixed star background).

Take a look at this NASA video or perhaps the sequence of images of Uranus-

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/11/video/b/

http://astro.berkeley.edu/~imke/Infrared/UranusAo/ur_time_2001_2005.jpg

If it appears that the polar coordinates of Uranus are turning to the central Sun it is because it does happen and the same applies to the Earth.The huge distance from Earth to Uranus and the distance from Uranus to the Sun is such that the Earth's orbital motion doesn't influence the perspectiive and we see the daily rotation of Uranus and its orbital characteristics as they actually are.

Like Uranus,the Earth has a daily rotation independent to its orbital motion so looking at the North/South poles of Uranus is looking at a coordinate where there is no daily rotation.As Uranus turns to the central Sun,these polar coordinates spend 42 years in daylight or darkness depending on which pole is entering or exiting the circle of illumination just as the Earth's polar coordinates turn through the circle of illumination and spend 6 months in daylight or darkness.

Apart from the day/night cycle due to daily rotation,the Earth has a single daylight/darkness cycle arising from its orbital motion,at the North/South poles where rotation is residual,they experience that slow and uneven turning of the Earth to the central Sun .In short, scientists must revisit the area of planetary dynamics in explaining why temperatures fluctuate from January to July as presently they are relying too much on 'tilt' and variation in inclination to solar radiation with no reference to the orbital cycle,not even the single daylight/darkness cycle it generates.

The orbital axis stretches across Arctic to Antarctic circle through the center of the Earth and the polar coordinates turn through 360 degrees over the course of a year while maintaining a fixed distance to the points on the polar circles and this is why the polar coordinate turning through the circle of illumination at the Equinoxes go from daylight into darkness or visa versa.An imitation analogy is to use a broom to represent the daily rotation of the Earth and its fixed orientation in space to Polaris and use the line of the body to represent the orbital axis described in this paragraph.Walking around a central object while keeping the broom handle fixed to a spot,a person finds that they are sometimes walking forwards,sideways and backwards to maintain the orientation of the broom to a fixed point.As different parts of the body face the central object/Sun as the person walks/orbits the central object,this represents the single daylight/darkness cycle we experience on Earth where someplace it is orbital noon and somewhere else orbital midnight as a mirror of the daily cycle but with a different orbital 'longitude'.

It takes a bit of work to modify the explanation for the seasons and why natural noon cycles vary as there are two daylight/darkness cycles to consider but it is there as a challenge and that is how I leave it.

up for anything

This is an interesting read on the strange bird deaths and Tampa Airport runway realignments. Puts it all in perspective using maths.

Earth’s magnetic field: still not reversing

Is the Earth’s magnetic field about to flip?