The real reason the North Pole is moving towards Russia – as experts warn, it could wreak havoc on your smartphone
The magnetic North Pole is moving and can wreak havoc on your smartphone’s navigation function.
A team of American and British scientists has released the latest update to the World Magnetic Model (WWM).
This will officially bring the magnetic North Pole closer to Siberia, starting January 1, 2025.
Unlike ‘true north’, the direction that points directly to the geographic North Pole, magnetic north is not a fixed point.
Instead, it corresponds to the Earth’s magnetic field – and is the direction a compass needle points.
Since 2019, the magnetic pole has already shifted about 170 km at a rapid pace of 35 km per year.
And with Earth’s magnetic field changing in ways that are more erratic than ever, experts say it may not be long before the model needs to be updated again.
Dr. William Brown of the British Geological Survey says: ‘The current behavior of magnetic north is something we have never seen before.’
Scientists have revealed that the magnetic North Pole has officially shifted south towards Siberia, potentially wreaking havoc on smartphone navigation systems
True north is the point on the planet where all lines of longitude meet the Earth’s rotation axis, and never varies from the location at 90° north latitude.
Magnetic north, on the other hand, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where all of Earth’s magnetic field lines point directly toward the center of the planet.
This means that magnetic north moves from year to year as the magnetic field changes.
Dr. Brown told MailOnline: ‘The magnetic north pole will be at 85.76 degrees north and 139.27 degrees east on January 1, 2025, according to WMM2025.
“We predict it will be at 84.72 degrees North and 126.07 degrees East in 2030.”
To complicate matters further, Earth’s magnetic field is not as regular as the field lines around a bar magnet.
Instead, geological features push and pull the magnetic field, creating large disturbances around structures such as mountains.
This discrepancy causes problems when ships or aircraft try to navigate the magnetic field, as even small misalignments can lead to large errors.
Earth’s magnetic pole is not aligned with true north, which can cause problems for devices that use the magnetic field to orient themselves
This image shows the latest update to the World Magnetic Model, released every five years to calculate the difference between true north and magnetic north at any location on the planet
If you were to fly the 8,500 km (5,280 mi) journey from South Africa to England, a deviation of just one degree would put you 150 km (93 mi) off target.
To solve this problem, a group of agencies, including the British Geological Survey and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, produce the WWM.
This is the most accurate model of the world’s magnetic field and includes predictions about how it will change over the next five years.
This allows you to calculate the difference between Magnetic North and True North, wherever you are in the world.
When you open a navigation app on your phone, the device combines GPS data with a record of the magnetic field at your location.
The navigation app enters your position in the WWM to see what the field should look like at your location.
By comparing this with the measurements of your device, your smartphone can determine which direction you are looking.
Dr. Brown says, “The WMM is being officially released today, providing users with the most up-to-date information so they can continue to navigate accurately for the next five years.”
Geological features also cause disturbances to the Earth’s magnetic field. On this map you can see the great distance across the Appalachians. This makes a model of the field essential for navigation
Normally, the WWM is only released once every five years, as this is the period when the forecasts generally remain accurate.
However, in recent years, Earth’s magnetic field has undergone some extremely dramatic changes.
Dr. Brown says: ‘Magnetic north has been moving slowly around Canada since the 16th century, but over the past twenty years it has accelerated towards Siberia, increasing its speed every year, until about five years ago, when it suddenly slowed from 50 to 35 km per o’clock. year, which is the biggest drop in speed we’ve ever seen.”
Things are changing so quickly that scientists were forced to release an off-cycle update in 2019 to keep the navigation systems in line.
Experts believe that these sudden shifts could be caused by turbulence in the Earth’s molten core.
The Earth has a magnetic field because of the swirling layer of molten iron in the outer core, a region between the solid inner core and the liquid mantle.
As this hot iron moves through the existing magnetic field, the movement induces an electrical charge in the conductive metal.
That charge, in turn, creates a stronger magnetic field, which produces an even greater charge and a stronger magnetic field.
Over the past two decades, the North Pole has shifted extremely rapidly before suddenly slowing from a speed of 50 km per year to just 35 km per year in 2019. Experts believe this is caused by disturbances in the outer core of molten iron
This process, called the geodynamo, is the reason the Earth still has a magnetic field billions of years after its formation.
But because the molten iron doesn’t move predictably, the magnetic pole is free to wander across the Arctic.
Scientists now believe there may be two large ‘blobs’ of negative magnetic flux at the core-mantle boundary beneath Canada and Siberia.
The resulting tug-of-war between these two blobs causes the pole to shift at an unprecedented rate.
Some models predict that the magnetic pole will continue its current trajectory over the next decade, traveling another 240 to 400 miles (390 to 660 km) toward Siberia.
If the changes continue at the same pace, it may mean that WWM updates will be more frequent to keep your smartphone working properly.