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Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move.
On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.
The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @03:26PM (1 child)
I recall seeing something similar. The geologic record showing that the poles swap with some previously consistent frequency every X centuries or so. But if I’m remembering correctly, we were something like 400 years overdue for a swap today.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Sunday January 13 2019, @06:03PM
The timing isn't all that consistent or regular. There's an average, but there's a lot of variation. There's also a lot of variation in how rapidly they flip, but that's even more difficult to pin down.
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