Earth's magnetic north pole follows "unusual" path, races towards Siberia

The magnetic field extends from the interior of the Earth out into space, and is bookended by poles on either side of the planet. But there are two different ways of defining the Earth's magnetic poles, which differ from the geographical poles.

The best-known are the dip poles—regions where the magnetic field points directly into the ground. The north and south dip poles do not necessarily have to be located on directly opposite sides of the Earth to each other—as is the case currently.

The other definition refers to what are known as the geomagnetic poles, which is what the "average" magnetic field looks like from space, Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist with the British Geological Survey (BGS), told Newsweek.

Movement of the North Magnetic Pole

Since 2020, the north magnetic dip pole has moved at an average speed of around 43 kilometers (27 miles) per year, figures from the latest State of the Geomagnetic Field report, published in December 2022, show.

At present, the pole is located north of Arctic Canada and is traveling toward the northern coast of Siberia, having made its closest pass to the geographical pole on record in 2017.

If the northern dip pole were to continue in a straight line on a similar trajectory, it could take another 30-40 years roughly to reach Siberia, Beggan said. The coast of mainland Siberia lies anywhere from roughly 750 miles to more than 1,000 miles away from the pole's current location, depending on which specific point you choose.

Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist affiliated with the University of Colorado Boulder and the NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), told Newsweek the pole could even reach Siberia in as little as 25 years if it continues to drift in the same direction and at a roughly similar speed.

Meanwhile, Julien Aubert, a CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research) senior researcher at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, told Newsweek only that the northern dip pole could reach Siberia before the end of the century, if current trends continue.

Models discussed in a 2020 Nature Geoscience paper indicated that the north pole will continue along its path toward Siberia, traveling between 242 and 410 miles over the course of the 2020s.

But all the experts who spoke with Newsweek said we cannot reliably predict the movement of the magnetic poles beyond a few years, so it is entirely possible that the situation may change.

"The north pole might very well change course—and/or slow down or accelerate—at some point in the near future," Chulliat said.

Because of the large uncertainty of the variation, Earth scientists update the global magnetic field models every five years. The most recent version of what is known as the World Magnetic Model (WMM)—a joint project between the NCEI and BGS—was released in late 2019. Such models are crucial for navigation purposes, as well as other activities.

"We really cannot predict well how the field will change beyond ten years at present," Beggan said. "So I cannot say whether the dip pole will ever reach Siberia as it might stop and reverse in a decade's time."

Detailed magnetic measurements of the dip poles go all the way back to 1590. But the first direct observation of the north dip pole was not made until 1831.

Beyond the era of historical observations, scientists have to rely on reconstructions of the geomagnetic field—based on a variety of proxy measurements—which get less reliable the further back in time you go. As a result, the picture before 1590 is somewhat fuzzy.

What is clear is that since 1831 the north dip pole has moved primarily in the same direction—approximately north-northeast—the available data indicates. (In October, 2017, it crossed the international date line, and thus is now moving southwards, albeit in the same direction.)

From around 1900 onwards, the change in location of the north magnetic pole has followed a particularly consistent path, apart from a slight diversion between the 1950s and 1970s.

"It has been unusual in the past 120 years that the north dip pole has traced a 'straight' line essentially from Canada toward the true north pole," Beggan said. "Prior to that it 'wandered' around Canada for hundreds of years from 1590."

And for the past 50 years or so—from the mid-1970s onwards—it has been following a "remarkably linear path that is unprecedented in the recent historical record," the authors of the 2020 Nature Geoscience study wrote.

The speed at which the north dip pole moved increased significantly over the course of the 1990s and 2000s. Since then, it has been moving "very fast," Beggan said—much faster than in the previous few hundred years.

In this period, the speed rose from its historic level of around 15 kilometers (9 miles) per year, to around 50-60 kilometers (31-37 miles) per year, although there has been a slight decrease in the past five years or so. Nevertheless, the current speed of 43 kilometers (27 miles) per year, on average, is still significantly faster than in the period prior to the 1990s.

"The acceleration in the 1990s was unusual compared to how the pole moved in the past 400 years or so," Chulliat said. "However, the accuracy of the models decreases sharply before the 19th century, so it is difficult to say exactly how unusual that is. Also, 400 years is a short time interval compared to the typical time scales of the geomagnetic main field variations, which are counted in thousands of years."

Looking back further in time—more than 10,000 years, for example—there is some evidence to indicate that such rapid changes in the speed of the pole, as has occurred in recent decades, are not uncommon, Beggan said.

"Magnetic field records in rocks—for example, volcanic eruptions freeze in the field as they cool—or from historic artifacts show there are periods where similar rapid change has happened," he said.

Why Do the Magnetic Poles Move?

Unlike the significant drift of the north dip pole, the geomagnetic poles, which are symmetric and situated on opposite sides of the Earth, have only moved slightly in the past 125 years—just over 150 miles. The south dip pole, currently located off Antarctica, is relatively stable, having moved only around 3 miles per year in the past few decades.

But why do the Earth's magnetic poles move around at all rather than being fixed in place? The reason lies in the movements of the fluid in the Earth's core, which causes variations in the intensity and direction of the magnetic field.

"The location and motion of the magnetic poles reflect those of the largest swirling jets and gyres present in the core," Aubert said.

The motion in the Earth's liquid core is not constant across the whole layer as you might expect. In some places, the flow of material is faster while in others it is almost stagnant, which has an influence on the movements of the poles.

"The liquid flowing along the (surface of the) outer core under Alaska is moving very quickly. Under parts of the central Pacific Ocean it is hardly moving at all," Beggan said.

In the north polar region, one of the reasons that the dip pole is moving so quickly, Beggan said, is that the magnetic field itself is strengthening under Siberia while weakening under Canada, which has the net effect of pulling the dip pole towards Siberia.

"Again the reason for this is to do with flow in the outer core," Beggan said.

When Was the North Magnetic Pole Last Over Siberia?

Given the poor quality of data available for the era prior to historical observations, scientists cannot know for sure when the north magnetic pole was last located over Siberia, and it is possible that it may never have reached this point before.

But some reconstructions indicate that it may have been located very close to the northern edge of Siberia between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago, Monika Korte with the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences told Newsweek.

Korte—who is an author of a 2008 Earth, Planets and Space study that reconstructed pole movements over the past 7,000 years—said, in her view, it seems "quite likely" that the north magnetic pole will not actually reach the Siberian mainland, despite current trends.

"The movement of the pole has been quite variable in the past, so that it probably will not remain nearly linear for much longer," she said.

And "if the current movement remains in the same range as what we see in the reconstructions from the past millennia, it will hardly reach the Siberian mainland."

Whether the movement of the north dip pole will continue along its current trajectory and maintain its speed will only become clear with time. Researchers in the coming years will hope to gain a better understanding of its movements with detailed monitoring of the geomagnetic field from the Earth's surface and space.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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