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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she saw the climate change in Greenland. There she was. All alone - on her little broom…
Sun’s rays to roast Earth as poles flip
Earth’s magnetic field - the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space - is weakening dramatically.
Scientists have discovered that its strength has dropped precipitously over the past two centuries and could disappear over the next 1,000 years. (This info has been updated but is not in this 2002 report. See NOVA’s “Magnetic Storm” Episode #3016)
The effects could be catastrophic. Powerful radiation bursts, which normally never touch the atmosphere, would heat up its upper layers, triggering climatic disruption. Navigation and communication satellites, Earth’s eyes and ears, would be destroyed and migrating animals left unable to navigate.
‘Earth’s magnetic field has disappeared many times before - as a prelude to our magnetic poles flipping over, when north becomes south and vice versa,’ said Dr Alan Thomson of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh.
‘Reversals happen every 250,000 years or so, and as there has not been one for almost a million years, we are due one soon.’
For more than 100 years, scientists have noted the strength of Earth’s magnetic field has been declining, but have disagreed about interpretations. Some said its drop was a precursor to reversal, others argued it merely indicated some temporary variation in field strength has been occurring.
But now Gauthier Hulot of the Paris Geophysical Institute has discovered Earth’s magnetic field seems to be disappearing most alarmingly near the poles, a clear sign that a flip may soon take place.
Excerpted Guardian Unlimited
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday November 10, 2002
The Observer