From News.com, Australia:
Earth’s magnetic field is what allows us to exist. It deflects harmful radiation. It keeps our water and atmosphere in place. But now it’s acting up — and nobody knows why.
Planet Earth is alive. Deep beneath its skin, its life blood — rivers of molten iron — pulse around its core. And this mobile iron is what generates the magnetic field that causes auroras — and keeps us alive.But, according to the science journal Nature, something strange is going on deep down below.
It’s causing the magnetic North Pole to ‘skitter’ away from Canada, towards Siberia.
“The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move,” Nature reports.
Graphic via Science Journal Nature
On January 30 (delayed due to the US Government shutdown), the World Magnetic Model — which governs modern navigation systems — is due to undergo an urgent update.
This model is a vital component of systems ranging from geopositioning systems used to navigate ships through to smartphone trackers and maps.
The current model was expected to be valid until 2020. But the magnetic pole began to shift so quickly, it was realised in 2018 that the model had to be fixed — now.
“They realised that it was so inaccurate that it was about to exceed the acceptable (safe) limit for navigational errors,” Nature reports.
FICKLE TIDES
Every year, geophysicists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the British Geological Survey do a check on how the Earth’s magnetic field is varying.
This is necessary as the liquid iron churning in the Earth’s core does not move in a consistent manner.......MORE
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