Why Earth’s Magnetic North Pole Is Migrating From Canada To Russia | Science and health

In recent years, he moved from Canada and moved to Siberia, Russia.

The scroll was so fast that it forced scientists to make more frequent updates to GPS navigation systems, including those used in smartphone maps.

The team, led by the University of Leeds, England, says the behavior is explained by competition between two magnetic masses in Earth’s outer core.

Changes in the flow of molten material within the planet have altered the strength of the areas of negative magnetic flux.

“This change in the flow pattern has weakened the bottom of Canada and slightly increased resistance in the strip below Siberia,” explained Phil Livermore.

“This is why the North Pole left its historic position in the Canadian Arctic and crossed the international date line. Northern Russia is winning the tug-of-war,” he told the BBC.

Earth has three poles at its top.

A Geographical Pole, which is the point on the surface of the planet’s axis of rotation. The geomagnetic pole, which is the location that best suits a classic dipole (its position changes little).

And then there is the magnetic North Pole, where the field lines are perpendicular to the surface. This is what moves.

It was first discovered in the 1830s by explorer James Clark Ross when he was in Nunavut, an autonomous territory in northeast Canada.

At that time, that pole did not move very far, nor very fast.

But in the 1990s, it began moving to higher and higher latitudes, crossing the international date line in late 2017. In the process, it was a few hundred kilometers from the Geographical Pole.

The previous model did not fit

Using data from satellites that have measured and tracked the evolution of Earth’s magnetic field over the past 20 years, Livermore and his colleagues have attempted to model the oscillations of the magnetic North Pole.

Two years ago, when they first presented their ideas at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington state, they suggested that there might be a connection to a jet (high-speed flow) of cast iron in the region furthest from the advance. of the planet. at high speed westward under Alaska and Siberia.

But the models didn’t fit well, and the team has now revised its assessment to align with another flow regime.

“The jet is connected to very high northern latitudes, and the change in flow in the outer core, responsible for the change in pole position, is actually further south,” explains Livermore.

“There is also the problem of timing of events. Plane acceleration occurs in the 2000s, while pole acceleration begins in the 1990s.”

The team’s latest model indicates that pole will continue to advance towards Russia, but at some point it will begin to decrease. At its maximum speed, it travels 50 to 60 km per year.

“No one knows whether or not he will return in the future,” the British scientist told the BBC.

The recent pole shift has prompted the United States National Geophysical Data Center and the British Geological Survey to issue an early update to the World Magnetic Model in 2019.

This model is a representation of the Earth’s magnetic field worldwide. It is incorporated into all navigation devices, including modern smartphones, to correct compass errors.

Livermore and his colleagues relied heavily on data recorded by Swarm satellites from the European Space Agency.