Shifting north magnetic pole forces
unprecedented navigation fix
Send a link to a friend
[January 12, 2019]
By Alister Doyle
OSLO (Reuters) - Rapid shifts in the
Earth's north magnetic pole are forcing researchers to make an
unprecedented early update to a model that helps navigation by ships,
planes and submarines in the Arctic, scientists said.
Compass needles point towards the north magnetic pole, a point which has
crept unpredictably from the coast of northern Canada a century ago to
the middle of the Arctic Ocean, moving towards Russia.
"It's moving at about 50 km (30 miles) a year. It didn't move much
between 1900 and 1980 but it's really accelerated in the past 40 years,"
Ciaran Beggan, of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, told
Reuters on Friday.
A five-year update of a World Magnetic Model was due in 2020 but the
U.S. military requested an unprecedented early review, he said. The BGS
runs the model with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jan/12/images/ads/current/graue_preowned_010719.png)
Beggan said the moving pole affected navigation, mainly in the Arctic
Ocean north of Canada. NATO and the U.S. and British militaries are
among those using the magnetic model, as well as civilian navigation.
The wandering pole is driven by unpredictable changes in liquid iron
deep inside the Earth. An update will be released on January 30, the
journal Nature said, delayed from January 15 because of the U.S.
government shutdown.
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/011219pics/news_L21.jpg)
The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is seen over a mountain camp
north of the Arctic Circle, near the village of Mestervik late
October 1, 2014. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
"The fact that the pole is going fast makes this region more prone
to large errors," Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University
of Colorado Boulder and NOAA's National Centers for Environmental
Information, told Nature.
Beggan said the recent shifts in the north magnetic pole would be
unnoticed by most people outside the Arctic, for instance using
smartphones in New York, Beijing or London.
Navigation systems in cars or phones rely on radio waves from
satellites high above the Earth to pinpoint their position on the
ground.
"It doesn't really affect mid or low latitudes," Beggan said. "It
wouldn't really affect anyone driving a car."
Many smartphones have inbuilt compasses to help to orientate maps or
games such as Pokemon Go. In most places, however, the compass would
be pointing only fractionally wrong, within errors allowed in the
five-year models, Beggan said.
(Reporting by Alister Doyle)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jan/12/images/ads/current/brickey_sda_2017.png) |