TAMPA - Scientists say the magnetic north pole is moving toward Russia and the fallout has reached -- of all places -- Tampa International Airport.
The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth's magnetic north pole.
The closure of the west parallel runway will result in more activity on the east parallel runway and more noise for residential areas of South Tampa.
The busiest runway will be re-designated 19R/1L on aviation charts. It's been 18R/36L, indicating its alignment along the 180-degree approach from the north and the 360-degree approach from the south.
Fully Story @ http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/jan/05/051903/shift-of-earths-magnetic-north-pole-impacts-tampa-/
The shift typically happens every 250,000 years, not 10,000. As much of a nuisance and danger a polarity shift will be when it does happen, the biggest danger is that the magnetic field will be extremely weak, leaving us very vulnerable to solar storms from the sun.
ReplyDeleteThere is no telling how long our magnetic fields will be down, but has been estimated in years to thousands of years. The earth gets blasted by solar storms frequently, but with fields down, this means bad news for us as humans. A solar storm that penetrates the field could cause massive blackouts and render us incapable of doing anything to stop it. With every thing run by electricity, these blackouts could last anywhere from months to years. It's been said that it would be like a global Katrina. A cleansing of the Earth.
Recently, the sun had a the largest filament seen yet (700,000km long), snap. Had this Earth been in the path of this snapped filament, we would have felt the effects of it soon after. Luckily, it snapped away from Earth, allowing us to live our lives oblivious to this close call. Hopefully, we'll be okay in our lifetime, but with 2012 approaching quickly, I have to say we are definitely living in a very interesting time. Educate yourselves on this....and stock up on water and gas, as things could get bumpy in the near future.