"The anomalies have already reduced the overall strength of the planet's magnetic field by about 10 per cent. If they continue to grow at the same rate, the Earth's dipole will disappear within just two millennia."

Uh-oh, I knew I should have bought those bracelets last night.

PS: On the other hand, the North Pole could end up in Alaska in fifty years.

<font size=-1>[PS]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GrapesOfWrath on 2002-04-13 16:15 ]</font>

<a name="20020416.2:0"> page 20020416.2:0 aka :"EPOSODIC EVENT":
On 2002-04-13 16:01, GrapesOfWrath wrote: To: April2002

Amoung the Earth Events {obscure} i imagine
theres one that has a time interval
measured in just thousands of years
its main feature around here are
flood plains of which in this river valley
there are several. & the cause [to me] [appears to be]
an uplift of the whole Pacific Coast of perhaps
three hundred fifty feet. For the Central valley {80 miles inland}
PS: On the other hand, the North Pole could end up in Alaska in fifty years.
the uplifts are only about 180 feet. and 250 mile at the Alvord Desert
they are only 20 feet per Eposodic Event, however
they are more easily observed there as its
a smaller scale to try to comprehend..
My guess that it takes about 400 of the 2000 years to mark an event, and that one has just begun? {plenty iffy stuff}

The North Pole is in Canada and we will fight like demons to keep it here. Santa prefers the Canadian public health care system and doesn't want to live in Alaska.

Good points, HUb'

I was just out in Oregon's coast range (just about dead center: Siuslaw River, Smith River) looking at all the sandstone. My understanding is that a chunk of seafloor got isolated when the subduction fault shifted offshore, and then the whole thing got elevated as one (and tilted, fractured some too, but not crumpled and beat to heck like the stuff in California's coast ranges).

You guys are nuts, North Pole Alaska is a small town just outside of Fairbanks Alaska. <grin>

Seriously though. We know the protection given to earth by the magnetosphere. Do we know what happens to the magnetosphere during a pole flip? What happens if the magnetosphere disappears, even for a few minutes? Catastrophy? or Just another Y2K panic for nothing?

Now for the big question, why can't we pump a few megawatts of power into the earths core and beef up the magnetosphere? Would doing so help or hurt us?

Just something to stirr the pot.

Dan

Interesting question. The Van Allen radiation belt which is composed mostly of ionized hydrogen atoms is suspended in place by the magnetosphere. (http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wradbelt.html) If the magnetosphere were to just switch off, would the radiation belt start to fall into the Earth? And what would happen when all that hydrogen plasma hits the oxygen of our atmosphere? Some hellish scene like out of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"? (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0055608) {Not a great film, but adequate for my reference.}
When the poles do their flip like they've done so many times in the past, will it be a sudden flip like hitting a switch? Or will it be gradual, with a brief downtime when there would be no protective magnetosphere?
Given that the magnetosphere is powered by the rotation of the Earth's solid/molten iron-nickel core (http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/education...etosphere.html) {exactly how it works I don't really know}, I doubt we could any more affect it than we could the rotation of the planet. I'm betting it would take quite a few controlled asteroid fly-bys to kick up the angular momentum of the Earth's spin to make any appreciable difference.

Sorry to disagree, no not really, I kind of like disagreeing, makes it more fun. Here are some links which explain the magnetosphere in a way more to my liking. The plasma in the upper atmosphere is related to the size of the magnetosphere which is governed by the molten iron core of the earth, but the strength is related to the magnetism itself which should be governable by inputting an electrical charge, possibly even a small man made generator could do the trick. These links show what the big guys are doing. But I have personally made magnetic fields far stronger than that of the earth. I think the size could be increased by using a long wire as they are in these experiments which are aimed at using a mini-magnetosphere for space transportation.

<a href=http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/prop19aug99_1.htm> Grant for M2p2 </a>

<a href=http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/SpaceModel/M2P2/theory.html> Better details of m2p2 </a>

<a href=http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/SpaceModel/M2P2/> More m2p2</a>

Well, it isn't exactly a parallel, but the Sun's magnetic field does flips all the time. It might give us a hint as to what's happening.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm

http://www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~forsyth/reversal/


I always thought the Earth's magnetic field was what generated the Van Allen belts, which trap the harmful radiation and shift it away towards the poles. If the field disappears for a considerable length of time, then there would be no VA belts and the solar wind would be allowed to rain over the whole Earth.

At the very least, I'm sure it would make some interesting aurorae in unlikely places (like the Equator).

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Excellent link, and thanks! Very informative.

IIRC The Earth's magnetic field does not disappear completely. The dipole (one north and one south pole) breaks down, leaving only higher order (quadropole, etc) fields. How this would affect the Van Allen belts, I haven't a clue.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

There are some concepts where the magnetic poles are there, but it just moves from the north to the south. It already moves around a lot. We have to update the magnetic declination maps every few years. The south atlantic anomaly used to be over Africa, I seem to remember. This is different from the sun where the pole stays in a north south location, but then changes in strength going to zero at solar max and then changing sign and increasing in strength until solar min. The sea floor spreading data shows flips in the earth's field, but I'm not so sure it shows that the magnetic field disappears? Can somebody help here?

Acutally humanity is short of having enough power to do this by a couple of hundred thousand power plants. We are currently doing exactly as you suggest with our electric power plants. Every megawatt generated goes right back into the Earth and, to date, has had no noticable effect. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
The electric powwer network in the United States alone, has several 10's of thousands of miles of wire. Again, having no noticeable effect.

There are several things working against humanity having any affect on the Earth's magnetics. 1) Capacitence: The Earth's capacitence is on the order of 10^9 farad, which is about 10^8.9999 farad more than we'll ever hope to saturate. 2) Wattage: While just about anyone can generate gause potential higher than the Earth's locally, doing it on a global scale is a whole other matter. On a second by second basis, the amount of power represented by the magnitosphere is probably 10 magnitudes more than humanity will ever generate.

As you may be aware, it takes several thousand trillion tons of iron rotating with a differential velocity WRT the rest of the planet to generate the field we've got. Anything humanity could do would amount to spit in the ocean. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

__________________
It's just one of those damn things of which there are many few. -- Dan Blocker

another PUSH to 1 Near Sun Spot #


On 2002-04-18 00:23, dapted wrote:
The plasma in the upper atmosphere is related to the size of the magnetosphere which is governed by the molten iron core of the earth, but the strength is related to the magnetism itself which should be governable by inputting an electrical charge, possibly even a small man made generator could do the trick.
[/quote]
Acutally humanity is short of having enough power to do this by a couple of hundred thousand power plants. We are currently doing exactly as you suggest with our electric power plants. Every megawatt generated goes right back into the Earth and, to date, has had no noticable effect. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
The electric powwer network in the United States alone, has several 10's of thousands of miles of wire. Again, having no noticeable effect.

There are several things working against humanity having any affect on the Earth's magnetics. 1) Capacitence: The Earth's capacitence is on the order of 10^9 farad, which is about 10^8.9999 farad more than we'll ever hope to saturate. 2) Wattage: While just about anyone can generate gause potential higher than the Earth's locally, doing it on a global scale is a whole other matter. On a second by second basis, the amount of power represented by the magnitosphere is probably 10 magnitudes more than humanity will ever generate.

As you may be aware, it takes several thousand trillion tons of iron rotating with a differential velocity WRT the rest of the planet to generate the field we've got. Anything humanity could do would amount to spit in the ocean. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[/quote]

Well, I'll ask my Marine Geology teacher about it and see what I get.