If you are using your smartphone to navigate, your system just got a crucial update. Scientists have released a new model tracking the position of the magnetic north pole, revealing that the pole is now closer to Siberia than it was five years ago and is continuing to drift toward Russia.
 |
Pictured are the magnetic north pole locations from 1590 to
2030. BGS/UKRI/Wessel, P./W. H. F. Smith |
Unlike the geographic North Pole, which marks a fixed
location, the magnetic north pole’s position is determined by Earth’s magnetic
field, which is in constant motion. Over the past few decades, magnetic north’s
movement has been unprecedented — it dramatically sped up, then in a more
recent twist rapidly slowed — though scientists can’t explain the underlying
cause behind the magnetic field’s unusual behavior.
Global positioning systems, including those used by planes
and ships, find magnetic north using the World Magnetic Model, as it was named
in 1990. Developed by the British Geological Survey and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, this model notes the established position of
magnetic north and predicts future drift based on the trajectory of the past
few years. To preserve the accuracy of GPS measurements, every five years
researchers revise the WMM, resetting the official position of magnetic north
and introducing new predictions for the next five years of drifting.
“The more you wait to update the model, the larger the error
becomes,” said Dr. Arnaud Chulliat, a senior research scientist at the
University of Colorado, Boulder, and the NOAA National Centers for
Environmental Information. “The way the model is built, our forecast is mostly
an extrapolation given our current knowledge of the Earth’s magnetic field.”
The scientists released two models on December 17: the
standard WMM, with a spatial resolution of approximately 2,051 miles (3,300
kilometers) at the equator, and the first high-resolution model, with spatial
resolution of about 186 miles (300 kilometers) at the equator. While anyone can
use the more powerful high-resolution model, most GPS hardware used by the
general public incorporates the standard WMM and isn’t equipped to handle the
other — and many users won’t benefit from the upgrade, said Dr. William Brown,
a geophysicist and geomagnetism researcher with the British Geological Survey,
in an email.
“Major airlines will upgrade the navigation software across
their entire fleets of aircraft to load in the new model, and militaries in
NATO will need to upgrade software in a huge number of complex navigation
systems across all kinds of equipment,” Brown told CNN. But for most people,
the switch isn’t necessary.
“Think of it like upgrading your smartphone — you don’t
necessarily want to buy a new phone just to upgrade an app to a new version
that is more powerful,” he said.
Changing to the new model should be a seamless transition
for GPS users; with the update, scientists verified the accuracy of the
previous model’s predictions about where magnetic north would end up by 2025,
Chulliat said.
“The forecast was very good,” he said. “And so the new model
confirmed that we were not very far off.”
But why are all these updates necessary, and why doesn’t
magnetic north stay in one place?
 |
This image shows magnetic declination, or the angle between
magnetic and geographic north, according to the World Magnetic Model released
in 2025. Red is magnetic north to the east of geographic north; blue is to the
west. BGS/UKRI/Wessel, P./W. H. F. Smith |
Magnetic north versus ‘true north’
At the top of the world in the middle of the Arctic Ocean
lies the geographic North Pole, the point where all the lines of longitude that
curve around Earth from top to bottom converge in the north.
Marking the North Pole is challenging, as it’s covered by
moving sea ice, but its geographic location, also known as the true North Pole,
is fixed.
By comparison, the magnetic north pole is the northernmost
convergence point in Earth’s magnetic field, also known as the magnetosphere.
Generated by the churning molten metals in Earth’s core, the magnetosphere
shields the planet from harmful solar radiation and keeps solar winds from
stripping away Earth’s atmosphere.
Because the convective sloshing at Earth’s core never stops,
the magnetosphere is never static. As a result, its northernmost point is
always on the move.
British explorer Sir James Clark Ross discovered the
magnetic north pole in 1831 in northern Canada, approximately 1,000 miles
(1,609 kilometers) south of the true North Pole. We now know that every day,
magnetic north traces an elliptical path of about 75 miles (120 kilometers).
Since its discovery, magnetic north has drifted away from
Canada and toward Russia. By the 1940s, magnetic north had moved northwest from
its 1831 position by about 250 miles (400 kilometers). In 1948, it reached
Prince Wales Island, and by 2000 it had departed Canadian shores.
“It has typically moved about 10 km (6.2 miles) per year or
less over the last 400 years,” Brown said.
However, the latest WMM update follows a period of highly
unusual activity for the magnetic north pole. In 1990, its northern drift
accelerated, increasing from 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) per year to 34.2 miles
(55 kilometers) per year, Chulliat said. The shift “was unprecedented as far as
the records we have,” he added.
Around 2015, the drift slowed to about 21.7 miles (35
kilometers) per year. The rapid deceleration was also unprecedented, Chulliat
said. By 2019, the fluctuations had deviated so far from the prior model that
scientists updated the WMM a year early.
Future drift
Scientists expect that the drift toward Russia will continue
to slow, though there is some uncertainty about how long the slowdown will
persist and if it will continue at its current pace, according to Brown.
“It could change (its) rate, or even speed up again,” Brown
said. “We will continue to monitor the field and to assess the performance of
the WMM, but we do not anticipate needing to release a new model before the
planned update in 2030.”
Earth’s magnetic field has behaved even more dramatically in
the past, with the magnetosphere weakening so much that its polarity reversed.
This flips the magnetic north and south poles, and the change can last for tens
of thousands of years. Scientists have estimated that this polar flip, which
can take thousands of years to complete, happens about once every million
years, though the time between flips has varied greatly — from 5,000 years to
as much as 50 million years. The signs that precede such flips are also not
well understood, making them difficult to predict, Brown said. The last big
flip was about 750,000 to 780,000 years ago.
During a polar flip, animals that migrate using the magnetic
field to find their way, such as whales, butterflies, sea turtles and many
species of migratory birds, could be affected. A flip would disrupt radio
communication and scramble navigation systems. Orbiting satellites would be at
risk, as a weakened magnetic field would offer less protection against space
weather.
While life on Earth has weathered multiple magnetic
reversals over more than 100 million years, “we’ve never experienced a reversal
when modern technology was present,” Brown said.
“It would certainly be an interesting time for engineers to
adapt our technology to, but hopefully one they’d have a slow, centuries-long
build up to, rather than any sudden change.”