About time I noted the news about the wandering north magnetic pole: I see that
Vox has a good summary:
The locations of magnetic north and
south
have always been moving targets. Because of that, NOAA and its partners
in the UK release an updated magnetic model of the Earth every five
years. That way, navigation systems that use magnetic compasses, like
those used by airplanes, can be more accurate and correct for the
difference between the magnetic poles and the geographic ones.
The next update wasn’t supposed to happen until the end
of 2019. But magnetic north has been moving at a rate of 31 miles a year
since the last update in 2015 — faster than usual.
“The pole moved maybe about 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] between 1900
and 1990, and it’s also moved about 1,000 kilometers between the late
1990s and today, so it’s really sped up,” geomagnetic modeler William
Brown
explained to The Verge.
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