Earth’s magnetic pole shifting; Alaska may lose northern lights
Earth’s north magnetic pole is drifting from North America at such a clip that it could end up in Siberia in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday.
The Chief had been somewhat aware of ongoing drift of the geomagnetic pole, but not that it was moving quite so rapidly. Alaska losing the northern lights? Bummer.
We occasionally are blessed with the aurora here in the Dakotas – and thery are truly a phenomena of awesome natural beauty. If the pole continues it’s current path, I guess they would be much rarer here as well.
Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth’s fading magnetic field will collapse or that the magnetic poles will flip is remote. But the shift could mean that Alaska may no longer be able to see the high-altitude shimmering displays of colorful lights called the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. But exactly why this happens is a mystery.
Some interesting qualifiers present in this:
“This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada,” said Joseph Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University.
Pole reversals are uncommon, happening at intervals of several hundred thousands years. The last time the poles flip-flopped was about 780,000 years ago.
Note that IT MAY BE part of a normal oscillation. Yes, pole reversals ARE uncommon, but we frankly don’t know why they occur, or for that matter have any basis to predict the next time it will occur.
The Chief finds this all interesting – a major set of phenomena that we don’t really have a handle on yet! One thing is for certain: the geomagnetic field is strongly influenced by solar activity – and in this way the sun also significantly affects a range of technologies including satellite and short-wave telecommunications, electric power grids, long-distance telephonic land-line communications.
As abstract as this area of science may seem at first glance, it has the immediate potential to significantly affect our technological infrastructure, and therefor is well worth being aware of.