Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 17 submissions in the queue.

Earth’s Magnetic Field is Acting up and Geologists Don’t Know Why

posted by martyb on Sunday January 13 2019, @02:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the Magnetic-north!=north-pole dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move.

On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.

The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Earth’s Magnetic Field is Acting up and Geologists Don’t Know Why | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 30 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @08:29PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @08:29PM (#785995)

    Until recently sunscreen selectively blocked only the wavelengths that caused sunburn, but not skin cancer. Since people's bodies werent able to warn them they were getting dangerous amounts of exposure, people got too much sun with too little tan. So skin cancer rates have skyrocketed. It is almost exactly like the obesity epidemic caused by advocating low-fat (ie, high carb) diets. So watch out.

    In the U.S. in 1935, one’s estimated lifetime risk of melanoma was 1 in 1,500 [4]. In the U.S. in the year 2000, the lifetime risk of melanoma was estimated at 1 in 75 persons. In Australia, the lifetime risk has been estimated at 1 in 25 [4]. These stark numbers have placed melanoma in the category of an “epidemic.”

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20541680 [nih.gov]

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @07:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @07:44AM (#786344)

    Until recently sunscreen selectively blocked only the wavelengths that caused sunburn, but not skin cancer.

    citation required