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Very weak electromagnetic fields disrupt the magnetic compass used by European robins and other songbirds, which use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate. Neither power lines nor cellphone signals are to blame for the electromagnetic field effect on the birds; [ 89 ] instead, the culprits have frequencies between 2 kHz and 5 MHz.
The magnetic field of a magnetic dipole has an inverse cubic dependence in distance, so its order of magnitude at the earth surface can be approximated by multiplying the above result with (R outer core ⁄ R Earth) 3 = (2890 ⁄ 6370) 3 = 0.093 , giving 2.5×10 −5 Tesla, not far from the measured value of 3×10 −5 Tesla at the equator.
The global electromagnetic resonance phenomenon is named after physicist Winfried Otto Schumann who predicted it mathematically in 1952. Schumann resonances are the principal background in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum [2] from 3 Hz through 60 Hz [3] and appear as distinct peaks at extremely low frequencies around 7.83 Hz (fundamental), 14.3, 20.8, 27.3, and 33.8 Hz.
Study of Earth's magnetosphere began in 1600, when William Gilbert discovered that the magnetic field on the surface of Earth resembled that of a terrella, a small, magnetized sphere. In the 1940s, Walter M. Elsasser proposed the model of dynamo theory , which attributes Earth's magnetic field to the motion of Earth's iron outer core .
An electromagnetic field (also EM field) is a physical field, mathematical functions of position and time, representing the influences on and due to electric charges. [1] The field at any point in space and time can be regarded as a combination of an electric field and a magnetic field .
Typical spectrum of ELF electromagnetic waves in the Earth's atmosphere, showing peaks caused by the Schumann resonances. The Schumann resonances are the resonant frequencies of the spherical Earth–ionosphere cavity. Lightning strikes cause the cavity to "ring" like a bell, causing peaks in the noise spectrum.
The Earth's magnetic field varies over a wide range of timescales. The longer-term variations, typically occurring over decades to millennia, are predominantly the result of dynamo action in the Earth's core. Geomagnetic variations on timescales of seconds to years also occur, due to dynamic processes in the ionosphere, magnetosphere and ...
Illustration of the coordinate systems used for representing the Earth's magnetic field. The coordinates X,Y,Z correspond to north, east, and down; D is the declination and I is the inclination. At a given location, a full representation of the Earth's magnetic field requires a vector with three coordinates (see