WASHINGTON: Here's one reason why you will no longer trust your faithful compass to always point to the north. The earth's north magnetic pole is moving; and at such a rate that in the next 50 years it could shift from Alaska to Siberia, recent study has revealed.
A team of scientists led by paleomagnetist Joseph Stoner said they found the Earth's magnetic pole had moved nearly 1,100 km during the last century. From northern Canada, it was now at a point in the Arctic Ocean and would proceed towards Siberia over the next fifty years.
Magnetic poles have been known to migrate and sometimes even swap places, scientists maintain. However, this unexplained phenomenon is even more amazing this time round, Stoner said because the north pole had remained fairly stable during the previous four centuries.
The strength of the Earth's magnetic shield was also found to have declined 10 percent over the past 150 years. It was over the same period that the magnetic north pole shifted from Alaska into the Arctic.
If it reaches Siberia then Alaska will no longer have the famous Aurora crowning its horizon. The Aurora or 'Northern Lights' is a series of concentric arcs often seen in the Alaskan sky which happens as result of charged solar particles interacting with the Earth's atmospheric gases. This phenomenon may then be visible over the skies of Siberia and Europe.
The north pole is not to be mistaken for the magnetic pole. The latter can switch places whereas the former is fixed and marks the axis on which the Earth rotates. The north pole generally means the geographic north pole. People using compasses professionally have observed that the compass needle pointing northwards is about 17 degrees more to the north east of the geographical north pole.
The study was conducted by tracking changes in the magnetic field. This was done by carbon dating sediments collected from various Arctic lakes. These sediments provide reliable clues about the earth's magnetic field. He believes that the movement in the magnetic poles “may be part of a normal oscillation”.
