Researchers from the Danish technical universities of Leeds and has developed a theory that explains why the magnetic North pole was drifting from Canada to Russia. The work of scientists published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
North magnetic pole was first discovered by James Clark Ross in 1830-ies. At that time the pole was located over the territory of Nunavut in Canada. Since then, scientists constantly monitor its movement and until recently the speed of its movement was small. But then, in the 1990-ies, the pole began to move faster, heading from Canada to Siberia.
the movement of the pole caused a great interest in the media because this phenomenon is associated with changes in navigation systems and smartphones that use its location as the center coordinates. In the new work, geophysicists have analyzed all available data and found the explanation of this unexpected acceleration of the North magnetic pole.
the Authors suggest that at the boundary of core and mantle, there are two large share of negative magnetic flux. According to their calculations, the change in the flow of the molten metal in the core leads to a change in magnetic flux in the lobes. The pole position is determined by the power flows in them — when one gains power, another loses it, causing the pole is moving faster in a certain direction. The result is a constant “tug of war” between the two lobes. According to this theory, witnessing today the movement of the pole due to the fact that one of the lobes of the negative magnetic flux is more powerful than the other.
This theory, scientists have created after analysis of satellite data for 20 years. After creating the theory, the authors built a model that described the movement of the pole over time throughout history. Extrapolation of data allowed to predict the future position of the convergence point of the lines of force.
as a result, the researchers showed that the pole will continue to move in the direction of Russia at the same pace until several hundred years over Siberia. To assess for a longer period of time, a new model couldn’t. At the moment researchers are working on improving it to predict the future displacement of the points of concentration of magnetic lines.
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