[SunkenCiv]

The best part of this pole shift is, by the time I retire, I won't have to move to be in a nice warm climate.

North Magnetic Pole could be leaving Canada
by Richard Stenger
wandering magnetic pole image
March 20, 2002

The magnetic pole, which has steadily drifted for decades, has picked up its pace in recent years and could exit Canadian territory as soon as 2004, said Larry Newitt of the Geological Survey of Canada. If the pole follows its present course, it will pass north of Alaska and arrive in Siberia in a half century, but Newitt cautioned that such predictions could prove wrong. The erratic pole can jump around considerably each day, but migrates on average about 10 kilometers to 40 kilometers each year. Friend of navigators for centuries, beckoning compass needles from virtually every point on the planet, the North Magnetic Pole is distinct from the North Terrestrial Pole, the fixed point that marks the axis of the turning planet. The magnetic pole is currently 966 kilometers (600 miles) from the geographic one. Because the magnetic pole lies in the Arctic Ocean, scientists attempting to pinpoint its precise location must visit during a brief window in the spring. The North Magnetic Pole historically is resurveyed about once every decade. But Newitt and colleagues, who last studied the site in 2001, might attempt another trek in 2003 to investigate further its accelerated migration.

[SunkenCiv]

Poles apart
by Charles Seife
10 April 1999

[T]he magnetic poles move more than 45° away from their original location and then return to it. During such "excursions", the field strength can vary enormously over just a few thousand years. "The magnetic field has lost half its strength since Roman times," says David Gubbins, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds... He thinks the fluid iron in the outer core is responsible for the excursions. The magnetic field changes in response to the flow of the liquid iron, which typically moves 10 or 20 kilometres per year.

[SunkenCiv]

circa 2001:

Ancient Earth Had Magnetic Field
3x Stronger Than Once Thought
by Jonathan Sherwood

John Tarduno decided to see if he could use the University's Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (nicknamed "SQUID"), a device normally used in computing chip design, which is extremely sensitive to the tiniest magnetic fields. Tarduno's team took samples from a 1955 lava flow in Hawaii and tried to determine if the paleointensity reading would match the actual Earth's magnetic field strength in 1955. It did. With the method tested, it was time for Tarduno to see what it revealed about the magnetic field back in the days of the dinos. His team took dozens of samples from lava flows in India that were nearly 100 million years old-an unusual time in Earth's history when the field was not reversing-and found that the intensity of the field was three times stronger than the old method suggested.

[SunkenCiv]

"That Chinese-Indian 'wave' idea may not be so farfetched," 'Civ joked.

Earth throws a wobbly
Tuesday, 18 July, 2000
web archive version

The Chandler Wobble, a mysterious wobble that shakes the Earth as it spins on its axis, was first detected in 1891 by an American astronomer called Seth Carlo Chandler. The force of the wobble is such that it is capable of moving the North Pole about six metres (20 feet) from where it should be and lasts around 433 days, or just 1.2 years. Scientists originally calculated that this phenomenon should naturally run out of steam after 68 years unless some force keeps activating it. And this is precisely what appears to happen. NASA's Richard Gross says the principle causes of the wobble are fluctuating pressures on the bottom of the oceans, the result of changes in temperature, salinity and wind patterns. Dr Michael Tsimplis, from the Southampton Oceanography Centre, UK, says that the Gross theory is plausible. "Any stress you apply to the surface of the Earth can affect its axis," he said.