Tampa Bay Online
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 Federal Aviation Administration required the runway designation change to account for what a National Geographic News report described as a gradual shift of the Earth’s magnetic pole at nearly 40 miles a year toward Russia because of magnetic changes in the core of the planet.
Found by ECA.
#9 interesting animation there. But how the hell could they have had ANY data about the poles from 1590? And why no data for the last 21 years?
#21 Actually I wondered about the early data. I suspect it may be sort of a hindsight projection.
1590 is 98 years after Columbus. Shipping was a growth industry. Any navigator worth his salt would notice that his compass was in disagreement with his celestial observations. The Royal Navy probably kept up with the declinations for its charts. During the animation London goes from about +5 degrees to -25 degrees.
As for the last 20 years there is the internet.
Get your declination by zipcode
http://ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp
When are the airlines going to switch from relying on something so antique as boyscout compasses, encased in liquid, to navigate multi-million dollar planes?! GPS and radar towers don’t shift with the earth’s magnet poles. Shouldn’t these aircraft be using something the tiniest bit more precise, than compass needles?! Runaway designator numbers are only “ball park” anyway. Accurate to only 10 degrees. Runway 22, means 220 degrees, plus or minus 5 points. Most airports’ multiple runways are way more than 10 degrees different. So how could they be confused by the earth being a few degrees out of calibration? Perhaps they should simply reinvent the “science” of labeling landing strips. Try geographic north, as a fixed reference, rather than magnetic north. And use a GPS system on the planes, to display the headings. Why are we still relying magnetized needles? Damn Tombstone Technology culture.
The polarity of the earth has nothing to do with there being some solid or molten iron at the core. It’s been speculated, but probably never proven, to have to do with convection currents in the molten mass. And other time the currents shift around a bit. Because God didn’t furnish the earth with any guarantee that it would never change. We just foolishly based all our movements, all over the surface, on the premise that magnetic north was the same everywhere. And that it would never change. We know better now.
This not uncommon occurrence, is only big news because they’re building up to another “end of the world” scare. The magnetic poles are shifting, the Mayan calendar is ending, the birds are dropping from the sky. And Oprah is quitting her syndicated Tv show job. We’re all doomed! More all 11pm.
BTW, the last “end of the world” scare, happened in 1910, when Haley’s Comet was thought to hit the earth. But obviously it didn’t. And way back in 1800+ they had some similar fears of earthly doom. Scientists like to predict the end of the world, about every hundred years or so. Just to keep in step with all the religious nuts.
When studying high school physics in the early 1980s, I heard that from Tampa a reading of north on a magnetic compass doesn’t require much “compensation” since it is (was) very close to true north, 90° N latitude. Times have changed.
Many bird species have the ability to sense the earth’s magnetic field. I don’t know if the specie of birds in the recent die offs are some of those species. Some people have this organ also.
#23 Glenn E. –
Great idea with GPS.
“GPS and radar towers don’t shift with the earth’s magnet poles. Shouldn’t these aircraft be using something the tiniest bit more precise, than compass needles?!”
Except in the far north (and south) aviation routes, vectors, runways, navigation aids, instrument approaches, cockpit displays, etc. use magnetic direction. That includes GPS.
The compass itself is usually a backup these days, but magnetic direction is still the basis of aviation navigation.
#28 – the compass is rarely used for approaches by commercial aircraft but it is still used by private pilots.
You have to call the runways something, the choice would either be runway 1, 2, etc – but then you would need a chart.
Or you could name them after local dignitaries, but then you would have to make radio calls like “Aeroflot 147 heavy please go down on Senator Palin” which would cause giggles.
The magnetic direction is really just a less confusing way of saying north, east, etc runway
The reason for using magnetic rather than true is that if all other equipement is screwed you don’t want a pilot looking up the magnetic deviation on a USGS map and trying to remember if it’s map->grid=add or grid->map=add
Yes, runways are +_ 5 degrees, however, runway numbers can be up to 20 degrees off… that is, runway 3 can legally be magnetic 005 thru 055 without requiring a change to the runway #, although this leeway is typically used to allow for things like runway 29, 28, and 27 that are all mostly pointing the same way to get different numbers when on opposite sides of the airport. The only shocker here is the amount of time the airport wants to accomplish this change. Typically this is a closed between 8a and 4p closure to amend… though it may have more to do with the chart issuance (to update the approaches for Instrument flying) and playing it safe assuming they have a spare runway.