Earth’s northern magnetic pole is moving quickly away from the Canadian Arctic toward Siberia. This movement has forced NCEI’s scientists to update the World Magnetic Model (WMM) mid-cycle.

Typically, a new and updated version of the WMM is released every five years. With the last release in 2015, the next version is scheduled for release at the end of 2019. Due to unplanned variations in the Arctic region, scientists have released a new model to more accurately represent the change of the magnetic field between 2015 and now.

This out-of-cycle update before next year’s official release of WMM2020 will ensure safe navigation for military applications, commercial airlines, search and rescue operations, and others operating around the North Pole.

Uses of the WMM

The military uses the WMM for undersea and aircraft navigation, parachute deployment, and more. Other governmental organizations, such as NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Forest Service, and many more use this technology for surveying and mapping, satellite/antenna tracking, and air traffic management.

Smartphone and consumer electronics companies also rely on the WMM to provide consumers with accurate compass apps, maps, and GPS services.

Airport runways are perhaps the most visible example of a navigation aid updated to match shifts in Earth’s magnetic field. Airports around the country use the data to give runways numerical names, which pilots refer to on the ground.

“The declination has changed just over 2.5 degrees over the past 22 years since Denver opened,” Heath Montgomery, the international airport’s former spokesperson, said after the last update.

This map shows the location of the north magnetic pole (white star) and the magnetic declination (contour interval 2 degrees) at the beginning of 2019. Courtesy of NOAA NCEI/CIRES.

Compasses use declination (the difference between true north and where your compass points) to help correct navigation systems for a wide variety of uses. As Earth's magnetic field evolves between the 5-year release schedule of the WMM, these predicted values can become off as the rate of change in Earth's magnetic field evolves due to unpredictable flows in Earth’s core. The north polar region is experiencing one of these erratic changes.

For more information please visit:</s>With the Earth's magnetic north pole drifting around 34 miles each year, scientists have just updated the pole's location one year ahead of schedule.

Knowing the precise location of the Earth’s magnetic north pole is something which is absolutely necessary for those who rely on compasses — or who operate airplanes and boats — and with its excessively fast shift, scientists have just updated the location of the magnetic north pole well ahead of schedule.

According to Phys.org, because the super fast drift of the magnetic north pole is something which has been occurring for decades now, absolutely precise navigation today is an impossibility. With this in mind, on Monday scientists decided to give an updated location for the magnetic north pole — one whole year ahead of when they had originally planned to.

If you’re wondering just how far the magnetic north pole is currently drifting, the answer is a lot. With each passing year, this pole has been found to shift around 34 miles. In fact, in 2017, it even managed to cross the international date line. The north pole is migrating, well on its way to Siberia right now.

While the swift shift of the Earth’s magnetic north pole isn’t interfering with GPS in any way — as this system is based upon satellites — it is a super big deal for the military, who need to nail the position down for navigational purposes — and also to plan reliable parachute drops.

NASA, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Federal Aviation Administration also rely on it too — so knowing its precise location is a pretty big deal for many people.

When the magnetic north pole was first officially measured back in 1831, it was located in the Canadian Arctic. However, it has drifted substantially over the past year, inching over a total of 1,400 miles towards Siberia.

Perhaps alarmingly, this speed has increased dramatically over recent years. For instance, with the pole moving at a rate of around nine miles per year from 1831 up until the year 2000, after 2000 the magnetic north pole was discovered to be drifting at a rate of 34 miles per year.

The reason for this sudden shift is due to turbulence which is currently taking place deep within the liquid outer core of the Earth. As University of Maryland geophysicist Daniel Lathrop explained, “It has changes akin to weather. We might just call it magnetic weather.”

Because our planet’s magnetic field is also growing steadily weaker, at some point the poles will flip. While this hasn’t occurred in at least 780,000 years, scientists like Lathrop have noted that this event will be occurring on Earth again — although there is no way of knowing precisely when it will happen.

Now that scientists have gifted us with the precise and updated location for the Earth’s magnetic north pole, things should be relatively stable — unless it hurtles towards Siberia even faster.</s>(WASHINGTON) — True north isn’t quite where it used to be.

Earth’s north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in the last few decades that scientists that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation. On Monday, they released an update of where true north really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The magnetic north pole is wandering about 34 miles (55 kilometers) a year. It crossed the international date line in 2017, and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

The constant shift is a problem for compasses in smartphones and some consumer electronics. Airplanes and boats also rely on magnetic north, usually as backup navigation, said University of Colorado geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat, lead author of the newly issued World Magnetic Model. GPS isn’t affected because it’s satellite-based.

The military depends on where magnetic north is for navigation and parachute drops, while NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Forest Service also use it. Airport runway names are based on their direction toward magnetic north and their names change when the poles moved. For example, the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska, renamed a runway 1L-19R to 2L-20R in 2009.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and United Kingdom tend to update the location of the magnetic north pole every five years in December, but this update came early because of the pole’s faster movement.

The movement of the magnetic north pole “is pretty fast,” Chulliat said.

Since 1831 when it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic it has moved about 1,400 miles (2300 kilometers) toward Siberia. Its speed jumped from about 9 mph (15 kph) to 34 mph (55 kph) since 2000.

The reason is turbulence in Earth’s liquid outer core. There is a hot liquid ocean of iron and nickel in the planet’s core where the motion generates an electric field, said University of Maryland geophysicist Daniel Lathrop, who wasn’t part of the team monitoring the magnetic north pole.

“It has changes akin to weather,” Lathrop said. “We might just call it magnetic weather.”

The magnetic south pole is moving far slower than the north.

In general Earth’s magnetic field is getting weaker, leading scientists to say that it will eventually flip, where north and south pole changes polarity, like a bar magnet flipping over. It has happened numerous times in Earth’s past, but not in the last 780,000 years.

“It’s not a question of if it’s going to reverse, the question is when it’s going to reverse,” Lathrop said.

When it reverses, it won’t be like a coin flip, but take 1,000 or more years, experts said.

Lathrop sees a flip coming sooner rather than later because of the weakened magnetic field and an area over the South Atlantic has already reversed beneath Earth’s surface.

That could bother some birds that use magnetic fields to navigate. And an overall weakening of the magnetic field isn’t good for people and especially satellites and astronauts. The magnetic field shields Earth from some dangerous radiation, Lathrop said.</s>Distinct from the geographic North Pole, where all the lines of longitude meet at the top of the world, the magnetic pole is the point that a compass recognizes as north. At the moment, it’s 4 degrees south of the geographic North Pole, which lies in the Arctic Ocean at 90 degrees north.

But that wasn’t always the case.

In the mid-19th century, the north magnetic pole floated much farther south, roaming around Canada. For the past 150 years, however, the pole has been sprinting away from Canada and toward Siberia.

That change of address cannot be ignored, given that magnetic compasses still underpin modern navigation, from the systems used by civilian and military airplanes to those that orient your iPhone.

In 1965, scientists began a data-based representation of Earth’s magnetic field in order to better keep track of the pole’s ever-changing home. The World Magnetic Model is updated every five years — most recently in 2015 — because the magnetic field is constantly shifting.

In early 2018, it became clear that 2015’s edition was in trouble, because the pole’s Siberian stroll had picked up speed, rendering the model — and therefore a number of navigational systems — incorrect.

So for the first time, scientists have updated the model ahead of schedule, which they released Monday afternoon. Since this work was completed in the wake of the partial government shutdown (which delayed its full release), researchers are still trying to get a handle on the mysteries within Earth’s core that must be driving the magnetic pole’s surprising behavior.

The north magnetic pole’s dizzying dance was discovered nearly 400 years ago, when Henry Gellibrand, an English mathematician, realized that it had jumped hundreds of miles closer to the geographic pole over the course of 50 years.

“That was a big, monumental recognition that the field was not static, but dynamic,” said Andrew Jackson, a geophysicist at ETH Zurich.

It didn’t take long, however, before magnetic north flipped direction and started to move away from the geographic pole — demonstrating that the field is not just dynamic, it’s unpredictable.

“The problem that we’re still facing today is that we don’t have a good scheme to predict how the field will change,” Jackson said.

So scientists began tracking the ever-changing magnetic field. The first magnetic maps, which were hand-drawn by exploring sailors, revealed that for the next two centuries, magnetic north twirled among the many islands and channels of the Arctic Archipelago.

Then around 1860, it took a sharp turn toward Siberia. Since then, the pole has traveled nearly 1,500 miles and was most recently found in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, still en route to Russia.

Scientists attribute this wanderlust to the liquid iron sloshing within our planet’s outer core. That iron is buoyant — it rises, cools and then sinks. And that motion below carries Earth’s magnetic field with it, producing changes above.

To more accurately map those changes, scientists launched the precursor to the World Magnetic Model nearly 55 years ago, which began as a collaboration between the United States and Britain.

The map we know today has existed in its current form since 1990 and is created by an agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the British Geological Survey. It’s commissioned by U.S. and British military agencies, and used by many other militaries across the world.

Alongside GPS, navigational systems used by satellites, aircraft, ships and other vehicles rely on magnetic compasses to ensure they’re moving in the correct direction. Perhaps the most visible sign of this can be found at the end of every airport runway, where large white numbers reflect the runway’s magnetic heading.

But as the magnetic field shifts, those headings change and runways get a makeover. This year, for example, the runways that make up the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, Kansas, will receive new names that match their new headings. The process — which includes repainting the huge numbers at the end of each runway and replacing other signage — is likely to cost several hundred thousand dollars.

And it all depends on the World Magnetic Model, which is not easy to build. Unlike the kilogram or the second, the magnetic field cannot be defined once and then used for decades.

“The magnetic field is constantly changing,” said Susan McLean, the retired chief of the geophysical sciences division at NOAA, who helped set the magnetic model in the past. “It changes with time. It changes with location. And it changes the way it changes.” Tracking the planetary magnetic field, she added, is more akin to forecasting the weather.

And like the weather, perfectly predicting where the pole will move is downright impossible. But scientists can get close with a wealth of data collected from satellite and ground-based observatories. That data allows them to deduce how the magnetic field has changed over the past several years and to extrapolate into the future with a model that will — hopefully — remain accurate for the next five years.

After scientists released the World Magnetic Model in 2015, they periodically checked it against field measurements to ensure that it was accurately predicting variations in Earth’s magnetic field. When they ran that check in early 2018, they discovered that the model and reality were out of alignment.

“We noticed that the error in the Arctic was increasing faster than what we would expect,” said Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado at Boulder and NOAA.

Although the north magnetic pole has long been scurrying away from Canada and toward Siberia, the rate of its movement drastically changes. Throughout most of the 20th century, it drifted at roughly 6 miles per year. In the 1980s, it picked up speed, and by the year 2000 it was traveling at 35 miles per year on the way out of Canada.

Then, in 2015, the pole slowed to 30 miles per year. So when the team issued the most recent magnetic map, scientists predicted that the speed would continue dropping — only it didn’t.

Just after the model was released, the north magnetic pole picked up momentum again, and now it is fluctuating at around 35 miles per year. In late 2017, the pole crossed the international date line into the Eastern Hemisphere.

“It’s not the fact that the pole is moving that is a problem, it’s the fact that it’s accelerating at this rate,” said William Brown, a geophysicist at the British Geological Survey. “The more acceleration or deceleration there is, the harder to predict where the thing is going to be.”

And that means the model is currently incorrect — at least, in the Arctic.

While many of us might not spend much time — or any time — at the top of the world, some international airline flights fly close to the geographic North Pole. They need the magnetic model to be accurate for safe journeys.

If you were to use the current model to travel to the north magnetic pole, you would end up 25 miles away from where the pole actually resides.

So scientists raced to fix the model by feeding it several years of recent data. Together, BGS and NOAA have made a new version available.

But efforts to finish the revision on publicly available online systems maintained by NOAA were delayed by the partial government shutdown in the United States. The researchers were able to complete the update Monday.

The public maps will have many uses, from recalculating runway names to ensuring that Defense Department systems are properly installed. Engineers incorporate the model into the navigation systems on your smartphone and in your car.

But for most people at low- and mid-latitudes, the current model is safe to use.

“South of 65 degrees north and away from Canada, the average user will notice very little difference to their daily life,” said Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist at BGS.

With the updates complete, scientists are eager to understand the causes of the pole’s Siberian sprint. “It’s clear that something strange is happening,” said Phil Livermore, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England.

On multiple occasions during Earth’s long history, the magnetic field has weakened significantly. The north magnetic pole slipped toward the bottom of the planet, and the south magnetic sauntered toward the top. The process took a few thousand years, but by the time the field’s full strength returns, it has flipped.

The pole’s recent journey, along with other changes — like a weakening of Earth’s magnetic field — has led some scientists to wonder whether such a reversal might be around the corner, geologically speaking.

“It does tick off some of the boxes of magnetic reversal,” said Courtney Sprain, a geophysicist at the University of Liverpool in England, who added that “we definitely can’t say that for sure.”

Most scientists, including Sprain, doubt an impending geomagnetic reversal. First, while the north magnetic pole does appear to be on the move, it doesn’t represent a global phenomenon, just a regional one.

Livermore thinks there are two large magnetic structures in the planet’s outer core, one beneath Canada and one beneath Siberia, which interact together to emit the magnetic pole.

The Canadian patch is weakening, which means that it’s essentially losing a tug-of-war, causing the north magnetic pole to turn toward Siberia, while the south magnetic pole is standing relatively still.

Second, while Earth’s magnetic field is weakening, many experts say it’s still above the long-term geologic average.

Peter Olson, a geophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, thinks that the current changes represent a transient fluctuation and not a reversal.

Even if the magnetic field were on the edge of a flip, scientists argue that it’s not an apocalyptic scenario. Although the field provides essential protection from the sun’s powerful radiation, fossil records reveal no mass extinctions during past reversals.

And whatever the risks to power grids and communications, humanity would have ample time to prepare.

“Of all the problems we have, this is not a top 10 problem,” Olson said.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — In a story Feb. 4 about the magnetic north pole, The Associated Press erroneously described the pole's change in speed. Its speed jumped from about 9 miles per year (about 15 kilometers per year), not per hour. And it went to 34 miles per year (55 kilometers per year), not per hour.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Check your compass: The magnetic north pole is on the move

Scientists have to fix what's north because the magnetic north pole keeps on moving

WASHINGTON (AP) — North isn't quite where it used to be.

Earth's north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in the last few decades that scientists say that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation. On Monday, they released an update of where magnetic north really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The magnetic north pole is wandering about 34 miles (55 kilometers) a year. It crossed the international date line in 2017, and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

The constant shift is a problem for compasses in smartphones and some consumer electronics. Airplanes and boats also rely on magnetic north, usually as backup navigation, said University of Colorado geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat, lead author of the newly issued World Magnetic Model. GPS isn't affected because it's satellite-based.

The military depends on where magnetic north is for navigation and parachute drops, while NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Forest Service also use it. Airport runway names are based on their direction toward magnetic north and their names change when the poles moved. For example, the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska, renamed a runway 1L-19R to 2L-20R in 2009.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and United Kingdom tend to update the location of the magnetic north pole every five years in December, but this update came early because of the pole's faster movement.

The movement of the magnetic north pole "is pretty fast," Chulliat said.

Since 1831 when it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic it has moved about 1,400 miles (2300 kilometers) toward Siberia. Its speed jumped from about 9 miles per year (15 kilometers per year) to 34 miles per year (55 kilometers per year) since 2000.

The reason is turbulence in Earth's liquid outer core. There is a hot liquid ocean of iron and nickel in the planet's core where the motion generates an electric field, said University of Maryland geophysicist Daniel Lathrop, who wasn't part of the team monitoring the magnetic north pole.

"It has changes akin to weather," Lathrop said. "We might just call it magnetic weather."

The magnetic south pole is moving far slower than the north.

In general Earth's magnetic field is getting weaker, leading scientists to say that it will eventually flip, where north and south pole changes polarity, like a bar magnet flipping over. It has happened numerous times in Earth's past, but not in the last 780,000 years.

"It's not a question of if it's going to reverse, the question is when it's going to reverse," Lathrop said.

When it reverses, it won't be like a coin flip, but take 1,000 or more years, experts said.

Lathrop sees a flip coming sooner rather than later because of the weakened magnetic field and an area over the South Atlantic has already reversed beneath Earth's surface.

That could bother some birds that use magnetic fields to navigate. And an overall weakening of the magnetic field isn't good for people and especially satellites and astronauts. The magnetic field shields Earth from some dangerous radiation, Lathrop said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This story has been corrected to delete a reference to magnetic north being the same as true north.</s>WASHINGTON — North isn’t quite where it used to be.

Earth’s north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in the last few decades that scientists say that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation.

On Monday, they released an update of where magnetic north really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The magnetic north pole is wandering about 34 miles a year.

It crossed the international date line in 2017, and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

The constant shift is a problem for compasses in smartphones and some consumer electronics. Airplanes and boats also rely on magnetic north, usually as backup navigation, said University of Colorado geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat, lead author of the newly issued World Magnetic Model. GPS isn’t affected because it’s satellite-based.

The movement of the magnetic north pole “is pretty fast,” Chulliat said.

Since 1831, when it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic, it has moved about 1,400 miles toward Siberia. Its speed jumped from about 9 mph to 34 mph since 2000.

The reason is turbulence in Earth’s liquid outer core. There is a hot liquid ocean of iron and nickel in the planet’s core where the motion generates an electric field, said University of Maryland geophysicist Daniel Lathrop, who wasn’t part of the team monitoring the magnetic north pole.

“It has changes akin to weather,” Lathrop said. “We might just call it magnetic weather.”</s>WASHINGTON — North isn’t quite where it used to be.

The magnetic north pole has been moving so fast that scientists on Monday released an update of where it really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The magnetic pole is what compasses recognize as north — that’s different from the North Pole, where all the lines of longitude meet. Currently, the magnetic north pole is 4 degrees south of the geographic North Pole. Since it’s always on the move, scientists update their model every five years, the last update being in 2015.

The New York Times reports that in the middle of the 19-century, the magnetic north pole was father south in Canada. Earth’s north magnetic pole is wandering about 55 kilometres a year. At the end of 2017, it crossed the international date line. It’s leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

The shifting magnetic pole is a problem for compasses. Airplanes and boats also rely on magnetic north usually as backup navigation.

Phil Livermore, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, told the New York Times “It’s clear that something strange is happening.”

Some scientists are even wondering if the Earth is in for bigger changes: combined with a weakening magnetic field, it might spell an eventual magnetic reversal.

“It does tick off some of the boxes of magnetic reversal,” said Courtney Sprain, a geophysicist at the University of Liverpool in England. However, she added that “we definitely can’t say that for sure.”

With files from the New York Times.</s>Earth's north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in the last few decades that scientists say that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation.

 

 Earth's geographic north pole is fixed. But the planet's magnetic north pole -- the north that every compass points toward -- is moving at a speed of about 55 kilometers per year.

It crossed the international date line in 2017 and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.

 

 The rapid movement forced scientists to release an update of the World Magnetic Model (WMM), or the actual position of the magnetic on February 4 -- almost a year earlier than expected -- in order to allow navigational services, including map-based phone apps, to keep working accurately.

 

 GPS isn't affected because it's satellite-based, but airplanes and boats also rely on magnetic north, usually as backup navigation, said University of Colorado geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat, lead author of the newly issued WMM.

 

 In the 189 years since it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic, it has moved some 2,300 kilometers toward Siberia, and its speed jumped from about 15 kilometers per year to 55 kilometers per year since 2000.

 

 The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tends to update the location of the magnetic north pole every five years in December, but this update came early because of the pole's faster movement.

 

 The reason is turbulence in Earth's liquid outer core of iron and nickel, says University of Maryland geophysicist Daniel Lathrop.

"It has changes akin to weather," Lathrop said. "We might just call it magnetic weather."</s>Despite the north pole being a fixed location in the Arctic circle, the Magnetic North Pole is a wandering location which changes year on year. The Magnetic North Pole describes the point where the Earth’s natural magnetic field points inwards and down to the ground. For years, the magnetic pole’s location was determined to lie not too far off from the Geographic North Pole. Scientists have, however, noticed in recent years an increased rate at which the pole appears to shift from location to location.

In 2009, for instance, the pole was found well within the boundaries of the Canadian Arctic region. By 2017, however, measurements have tracked the magnetic pole outside of Canada’s reach. Today, the magnetic pole is well on its way towards the frozen plains of Russia’s Siberia. On Monday, February 4, the World Magnetic Model has found the pole is moving by an approximate 34 miles (55km) a year. READ MORE: Magnetic North Pole is moving FASTER THAN EVER towards Russia

The magnetic shift might not be an issue for satellite-based GPS but US military ships in the region rely on the pole for navigation. The US Federal Aviation Administration and space agency NASA similarly use the magnetic pole as a point of reference.

Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado, has now warned the movement is occurring “pretty fast”. Since the pole was first measured in 1831, it has moved an estimated 1,400 miles (2,300km) towards Siberia. And the speed at which it is moving has nearly quadrupled since 2,000. READ MORE: Compasses become redundant as Magnetic North MOVES 55km per year

Why is the magnetic pole moving? The pole’s movement towards Russia can be attributed to the Earth’s molten outer core. Deep beneath the surface of the planet is a vast ocean of molten iron and nickel, churning and generating the planet’s magnetic field. Beneath the molten core is the Earth’s solid centre – a ball of tough iron believed to be about two-thirds the size of the Moon. The difference in pressure, composition and temperature between the cores creates a convection current, which causes the molten core to move.

This violent flow generates electric currents which extend out from the planet and into space, where they mingle with solar winds and charged solar particles. This is the Earth’s magnetic field, but perhaps not for much longer, because scientists fear the magnetic field will flip. Daniel Lathrop, a geophysicist at the University of Maryland, said: “It’s not a question of it it’s going to reverse, the question is when it’s going to reverse.” The Earth last witnessed such a reversal about 780,000 years ago.</s>Distinct from the geographic North Pole, where all the lines of longitude meet at the top of the world, the magnetic pole is the point that a compass recognizes as north. At the moment, it’s located four degrees south of the geographic North Pole, which lies in the Arctic Ocean at 90 degrees north.

But that wasn’t always the case.

In the mid-19th century, the north magnetic pole floated much further south, roaming around Canada. For the past 150 years, however, the pole has been sprinting away from Canada and toward Siberia.

That change of address cannot be ignored, given that magnetic compasses still underpin modern navigation, from the systems used by civilian and military airplanes to those that orient your iPhone.

In 1965, scientists launched a data-based, mathematical representation of Earth’s magnetic field in order to better keep track of the pole’s ever-changing home. The World Magnetic Model is updated every five years — most recently in 2015 — because the magnetic field is constantly shifting.
The location of the magnetic north pole is updated one year early due to its increasingly rapid movement toward Siberia from the Canadian Arctic at a rate of 55 kilometers (34 miles) per year.