[Towertalk] Magnetic North (sorry to start this again!)

[FireBrick]

So...if we own stock in any compass manufacturers, would you advise us to
'sell short'?
----- Original Message -----
From: <kk9a@arrl.net>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 7:41 PM
Subject: [Towertalk] Magnetic North (sorry to start this again!)


> In the future, every compass on Earth may point south
> because the world's magnetic field could flip. However,
> researchers said there's no danger of airplanes, migrating
> sea turtles or other magnetism-dependent navigators
> suddenly getting lost -- this reversal will take place over
> thousands of years, if it happens at all.
>     Molten, flowing metal in the Earth's core generates much
> of the planet's magnetic field. Like any magnet, the Earth's
> magnetic field has two poles -- compass needles point
> magnetic north while their other ends aim south.
>      But within the past 150 years, the Earth's magnetic
> "polarity" has precipitously declined -- the magnetic field
> has not weakened, but compasses are less likely to point
>  north.
>      "This is an amazingly rapid change," said geophysicist
> Peter Olson of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. At its
> current rate of decrease, Olson said polarity would vanish
> "early in the next millennium."
>      Earth's magnetic field has reversed before. However, it
> last happened 780,000 years ago -- soon after the island
> of Hawaii emerged from the sea.
>
>
>
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