Hoping to keep tabs on the magnetic north’s wandering ways, the World Magnetic Model 2025 has been released this week, revealing the latest official predicted placement of Earth’s magnetic fields. This version will remain valid until late 2029, during which time we can expect to see the magnetic north pole slowly edge further toward Russia.
Earth’s magnetic north pole is different from the geographic North Pole. The latter (the so-called “True North”) directly points toward the geographic North Pole, a fixed point on the Earth’s surface located at 90° North latitude where the Earth’s axis of rotation meets the surface.
Meanwhile, the magnetic north pole is an ever-changing point that’s dictated by liquid metals sloshing around Earth’s outer core. These molten metals are conductive and in constant motion due to the planet’s rotation and heat-driven convection. In tune with the principles of electromagnetism, the movement creates electric currents, which generate a magnetic field with two poles.
Since the magnetic poles are constantly moving, albeit very slowly, the NOAA and the British Geological Survey (BGS) have to regularly revise their models.
On December 17, they released the latest update, including the new World Magnetic Model High Resolution (WMMHR2025). WMMHR2025 offers a significant improvement in spatial resolution – approximately 300 kilometers (186 miles) at the equator – compared to the standard model’s resolution of 3,300 kilometers (2,050 miles) at the equator.
A closer look at the map above shows the north dip magnetic pole (marked by a bold white asterisk) is now closer to Siberia than it is to Canada.
Image credit: NOAA/NCEI
The update is extremely important for technology that relies on the Earth’s magnetic field, namely the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other satellite-based navigation systems used elsewhere in the world.
The new version is of timely importance too as the magnetic north pole’s movement seems to be accelerating.
Since the 1830s, the north magnetic pole of Earth has relocated some 2,250 kilometers (1,400 miles) across the upper stretches of the Northern Hemisphere from Canada towards Siberia. Between 1990 and 2005, the rate of pole movement increased from less than 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) per year to around 50 to 60 kilometers (31 to 37 miles) per year.
“The WMM is officially released today, ensuring users can have the most up-to-date information so they can continue to navigate accurately for the next five years,” Dr William Brown, global geomagnetic field modeler at BGS, said in a statement.
“The current behaviour of magnetic north is something that we have never observed before. Magnetic north has been moving slowly around Canada since the 1500s but, in the past 20 years, it accelerated towards Siberia, increasing in speed every year until about five years ago, when it suddenly decelerated from 50 to 35 km per year, which is the biggest deceleration in speed we’ve ever seen,” added Dr Brown.
Source Link: Earth's Magnetic North Pole Officially Has A New Position
