Earth’s north magnetic pole has continued its long drift from the Canadian Arctic toward Siberia (Russia), and recent official models confirm it is now closer to Russia than to Canada.

The map you shared illustrates the historical path of the north magnetic (dip) pole, the point where the magnetic field is vertical, from roughly 1590 through 2019. Key labeled positions include:

Early locations near what is now northern Canada (e.g., around 1590-1730).

Movement through the 19th and 20th centuries (1860, 1900, 1975).

Acceleration northward past Ellesmere Island toward the geographic North Pole by 2000- 2019.

Unlike the fixed geographic North Pole, the magnetic pole wanders because of changes in the flow of molten iron in Earth’s outer core, which generates the geomagnetic field.

Recent updates (World Magnetic Model 2025):

The World Magnetic Model 2025 (WMM2025), released by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and the British Geological Survey, tracks the pole’s ongoing movement. A higher-resolution version (WMMHR2025) was also issued for improved accuracy.

After more than 190 years centered in the Canadian Arctic, the pole has traveled over ~2,200 km overall. It accelerated in the 1990s- 2000s (reaching ~50- 60 km/year at times) but has slowed to roughly 35- 36 km/year recently, the largest deceleration recorded in the modern era.

By the mid- 2020s it lies closer to Siberia/northern Russia than to Canada. Positions around 2025- 2026 are near ~85.5- 86°N and longitudes shifting eastward into the Eastern Hemisphere (roughly 135- 140°E range in models).

Navigation systems (aviation, shipping, military, smartphones, and GPS corrections) rely on the WMM for magnetic declination. Outdated models would introduce growing errors, especially in polar regions. Blackout/caution zones (where compasses become unreliable) also shift with the pole. The model is updated at least every five years for this reason.

Experts emphasize this is normal secular variation in the geomagnetic field, not a sign of an imminent full pole reversal (which occurs on timescales of hundreds of thousands of years and is not indicated by current trends).

Official NOAA/BGS data and ongoing satellite monitoring (e.g., Swarm) provide the underlying measurements.

The north magnetic pole moves because of changes deep inside Earth.

Earth’s magnetic field is generated by the geodynamo in the outer core (roughly 2,900- 5,150 km below the surface). This region consists of liquid iron and nickel that is extremely hot and continuously in motion.

Heat from the inner core drives convection currents in the molten metal.

Earth’s rotation organizes these flows into large- scale patterns.

The moving electrically conducting fluid creates electric currents, which in turn produce the planet’s magnetic field (the dynamo effect).

These fluid motions are turbulent and slowly change over decades to centuries. As the pattern of flow shifts, the overall magnetic field weakens or strengthens in different regions and its orientation gradually drifts. The points on the surface where the field is vertical, the magnetic (dip) poles, therefore wander.

This process is called secular variation. It has been continuous for at least the last few centuries of direct observation (and far longer in the geologic record). The recent acceleration toward Siberia, followed by a slowdown, simply reflects evolving flow patterns in the outer core; it is not a sign of an imminent full polarity reversal.

In short: the pole moves because the liquid-metal “engine” that creates the magnetic field itself is slowly rearranging.

The geodynamo is the self- sustaining process that generates and maintains Earth’s magnetic field through the motion of electrically conducting fluid in the outer core.

1. The Setting

• Outer core: A layer of liquid iron-nickel alloy (with lighter elements such as sulfur, oxygen, or silicon) lying between roughly 2,900 km and 5,150 km depth.
• Inner core: A solid iron-rich sphere at the center that is slowly growing as the Earth cools.
• The fluid is an excellent electrical conductor and is vigorously stirred by convection.

2. Energy Sources Driving the FlowTwo main buoyancy sources power the convection:

• Thermal convection: Heat escaping from the inner core and residual heat from Earth’s formation create temperature differences. Hotter, less-dense fluid rises; cooler, denser fluid sinks.
• Compositional convection: As the inner core solidifies, pure iron crystallizes onto it, leaving behind a residual liquid enriched in lighter elements. This lighter fluid is buoyant and rises.

These buoyancy forces, combined with Earth’s rapid rotation, produce complex, turbulent flow.

3. Role of Rotation (Coriolis Force)

Because Earth rotates once per day, the Coriolis force strongly organizes the fluid motion.

The flow tends to form elongated, helical columns aligned roughly with the rotation axis (Taylor columns). This rotational constraint is crucial: it converts chaotic convection into organized, large- scale helical motions that are efficient at generating magnetic fields.

4. The Dynamo Mechanism ItselfThe fundamental principle is electromagnetic induction in a moving conductor:

1. A small “seed” magnetic field is present (left over from earlier times or generated by weak currents).
2. Conducting fluid moves across magnetic field lines, inducing electric currents (Faraday’s law / $\mathbf{v} \times \mathbf{B}$).
3. These electric currents generate their own magnetic field (Ampère’s law).
4. If the fluid motions are sufficiently vigorous and helical, the newly generated field reinforces and amplifies the original field, overcoming the natural tendency of the field to decay by ohmic dissipation.

In mathematical terms, the evolution of the magnetic field

$\mathbf{B}$ in the core is governed by the induction equation:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\partial }\mathbf{B}}{\mathrm{\partial }t}=\mathrm{\nabla }\times (\mathbf{v}\times \mathbf{B})+\eta {\mathrm{\nabla }}^2\mathbf{B}$$

where $\mathbf{v}$ is the fluid velocity and $\eta$ is the magnetic diffusivity. The first term on the right is the generative (induction) term; the second is the dissipative term. A self-sustaining dynamo requires the inductive term to dominate on average.

5. Outcome and Observed Behavior

• The process preferentially generates a strong dipole field aligned roughly with the rotation axis (the familiar north- south magnetic poles).
• Higher-order multipoles and non- axisymmetric components are also produced.
• Because the underlying fluid flow is turbulent and time- varying, the magnetic field continually changes:
  • Secular variation (gradual drift of the poles, changes in field strength and direction).
  • Occasional excursions and, on longer timescales, full polarity reversals.

The same physics that keeps the field alive for billions of years is also responsible for the observed wandering of the magnetic north pole toward Siberia in recent centuries.

In summary: heat- driven convection of liquid metal in a rapidly rotating, electrically conducting outer core converts kinetic energy into magnetic energy through electromagnetic induction, continuously regenerating Earth’s magnetic field against resistive losses.

Despite the north magnetic pole’s ongoing drift toward Siberia (Russia), there is no evidence that a full geomagnetic reversal (polarity flip) is imminent.

Key reasons experts reach this conclusion:

Pole wander but not reversal

The magnetic poles have always wandered due to changing flow patterns in the outer- core geodynamo. The recent acceleration and subsequent slowdown toward Russia is part of normal secular variation, not a precursor to a flip.

Field strength is still within normal historical ranges

The global dipole field has weakened by roughly 9-10 % over the past ~200 years, and the South Atlantic Anomaly (a region of unusually weak field) continues to evolve. However, paleomagnetic records show that the field has weakened and recovered many times without reversing. Similar anomalies have appeared and disappeared over the past 9,000 years.

Reversals take thousands of years

When polarity reversals do occur, they unfold over several thousand years (typically 1,000- 10,000 years). The field becomes weaker and more multipolar during the transition, then re-establishes itself in the opposite orientation. Nothing in the current satellite or ground data indicates that such a multi-millennial process has begun.

Last full reversal was ~780,000 years ago

Reversals happen irregularly (average interval of a few hundred thousand years in the recent geological past). The present “normal” polarity interval is longer than average but not unusually long. There is no fixed schedule that makes a reversal “overdue.”

Laschamp (Laschamps) excursion (also called the Adams event) ~42,000 years ago

The 42,000- year event was a major excursion, not a full reversal. It was a short- lived geomagnetic excursion: the magnetic field weakened dramatically (down to as low as ~5- 25% of its normal strength), the poles wandered widely (and briefly appeared reversed in some records), but the field then recovered and returned to the same polarity it had before. The whole event lasted only a few hundred to about 1,000- 2,000 years.

Recent studies

Research reconstructing the field over the last 9,000 years (including work from Lund University and others) concludes that features like the South Atlantic Anomaly are recurring and that Earth is not currently heading toward a polarity reversal. The anomaly is expected to weaken or disappear on timescales of a few hundred years.

The magnetic north pole’s march toward Russia is real and requires navigation models to be updated, but it is ordinary geodynamo behavior. A full geomagnetic reversal remains a distant, unpredictable future possibility measured in many thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, not decades.