The true north is not where it used to be.
According to a report issued by the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI), the magnetic north pole of the Earth has been moving so fast in recent decades that the old calculations are no longer accurate enough for navigation, scientists say. On Monday scientists issued an update on where the true north is, almost a year ahead of schedule.
Magnetic north is moving about 34 miles a year. It crossed the international line of change in 2017 and is leaving the Canadian Arctic en route to Siberia.
Constant displacement is a problem for compasses in cell phones and in some consumer electronic products. Planes and ships also use magnetic north, usually as a reserve resource, said geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat of the University of Colorado and lead author of the recently issued World Magnetic Model. The global positioning system (GPS) is not affected because it operates based on satellites.
The armed forces use magnetic north for navigation and parachute operations, while NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States and the Forest Service also use it. The names of runways at airports are based on their direction relative to magnetic north and their names change when the pole moves. For example, the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska, changed the name to runway 1L-19R in 2009. It is now called 2L-20R.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States and Great Britain tend to update the location of magnetic north every five years, in December, but this update came earlier because the pole is moving faster.
Since 1831, when it was initially measured in the Canadian Arctic, the magnetic pole has moved some 1,400 miles to Siberia. Its speed increased from nine miles per hour to 34 miles per hour since 2000.
The reason for this is the turbulence in the outer liquid core of the Earth. There is a hot ocean of iron and nickel in the core of the planet where the movement generates a magnetic field, said geophysicist Daniel Lathrop of the University of Maryland, who is not part of the team that monitors magnetic north.
The magnetic south is moving at a much slower speed.
