The Magnetic Pole is Restless
In a recent
New York Times
article, scientists accelerated an update of a model of the Earth's fluctuating magnetic field.
"Distinct from the geographic North Pole, where all the lines of longitude meet at the top of the world, the magnetic pole is the point that a compass recognizes as north. At the moment, it’s located four degrees south of the geographic North Pole, which lies in the Arctic Ocean at 90 degrees north."
NASA scientists on the other hand had speculated on the reasons for a polar drift -
"In general, the redistribution of mass on and within Earth -- like changes to land, ice sheets, oceans and mantle flow -- affects the planet's rotation. As temperatures increased throughout the 20th century, Greenland's ice mass decreased. In fact, a total of about 7,500 gigatons -- the weight of more than 20 million Empire State Buildings -- of Greenland's ice melted into the ocean during this time period. This makes Greenland one of the top contributors of mass being transferred to the oceans, causing sea level to rise and, consequently, a drift in Earth's spin axis.
