Monday, 14 January 2019

Just like the weather! Earth's north magnetic pole is shifting so rapidly and in an unpredictable manner at 50 kilometres (30 miles) a year

Map credit. Nature
It is currently moving towards Siberia at about 50 kilometres (30 miles) a year.
It is a model of the primary component of the geomagnetic field: the Earth's core.
The core field is generated by dynamic action in the swirling iron-rich fluid of the outer core, roughly 3,500 kilometres below the Earth's surface.
"The magnetic poles drift, the field strengthens and weakens, and the immense magnetic field of the Sun, carried by the solar wind, constantly batters at it from the outside," says British Geological Survey blogger, Will Brown.
"The World Magnetic Model is the standard magnetic model used for navigation by organizations such as NATO, the Ministry of Defence, and the U.S.' Department of Defense, and also by smartphone operating systems such as Android and iOS.
When you open your smartphone's map app, you may see an arrow pointing which way you're facing, and there's something quite clever going on underneath.
Your phone contains a magnetometer that is measuring the Earth's magnetic field.
In order to make sense of this information, a reference model like the World Magnetic Model is needed to correct the measurements of magnetic north made by your phone to True North."


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