Posted on 11/13/2017 7:52:58 AM PST by SandRat
At first blush, Frank Klein is another distinguished veteran in a military town full of them. But the 96-year-old retired U.S. Air Force colonel can also lay claim to a special footnote in history. In addition to being a decorated officer and skilled navigator, he’s the man who helped redefine where north was.
The Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, native’s journey to his footnote was a circuitous one. Following high school, he had a mind to go into acting and actually moved to New York City. For a year he had a role on a weekly CBS radio program, where he would rub shoulders with other aspiring actors such as Burgess Meredith.
Then came World War II. In 1941, knowing the draft was most likely in his future, Klein enlisted in the U.S. Army. He eventually tested into what was then the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he would serve at various times as a pilot, navigator, radar operator, bombardier and nose gunner. However, he was principally a photo-navigator, snapping pictures from his plane of unmapped parts of both the U.S. and Pacific to aid cartographic efforts.
As the Cold War got underway, the U.S. decided it needed to undertake a comprehensive survey of the North American Arctic area. Called Project Nanook, it involved multiple interrelated missions. Klein was part of Project Polaris, a massive mapping of the Canadian archipelago, the more than 36,000 islands sitting in the Arctic Sea.
And it was while serving in this area that Klein would earn his footnote.
“Part of my luck was finding the magnetic north pole,” he said.
The pole
When a compass points north, it’s not actually pointing to truth north, or the geographically topmost point on the planet. Instead it’s drawn toward magnetic north, or the north pole of the Earth’s magnetic field. Except for people living along a specific line, there is always a difference between true north and magnetic north, called declination. In Sierra Vista that declination is 9.53 degrees.
The field is thought to be generated by liquid metal in the Earth’s outer core, surrounding the solid inner center. As that liquid core moves, it produces electrical currents. The rotation of the planet about its axis creates a dynamo effect that produces the magnetic field. Scientists have theorized that this molten core is in constant motion, resulting in changes in its magnetism, which in turn is moving the north magnetic pole on the surface.
Various locations for this pole’s location have been calculated or guessed for the past 400 years. British explorer James Clark Ross tracked it down to the western side of the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada in an 1831 expedition. In 1904, Roald Amundsen placed it slightly to the northeast of Ross’s expedition. More than four decades later, Klein came along.
“In 1947, I located it about 200 miles from where those guys put it,” he said.
It started because when Klein took the northern assignment, he was told by everyone not to trust the fluxgate compass in the plane. However, contrary to prevailing wisdom that the polar regions played havoc with the instrument, he found that – with few exceptions – his compass was still reliable.
Intrigued, and on his own initiative, he began plotting the difference in his compass reading and that of an astrocompass, which pinpoints direction via celestial bodies. He asked for similar data from anyone flying in the area. And when he laid out all the data – some 1,500 to 2,000 readings all told – he discovered something intriguing. The magnetic pole – sometimes called the dip pole because it’s where the magnetic field dips vertically into the Earth – was sitting off of Prince of Wales Island, 200 miles away from the Ross and Amundsen locations.
But more than that, he showed the pole was sitting at the bottom of a larger elliptical area. And that area contained two foci points or local magnetic poles as well – which could disrupt a compass.
Shortly after Klein made his findings known, a Canadian group would man an expedition to the site to confirm his readings. He received a note from one of those researchers saying he also believed the pole had moved to Prince of Wales Island, but had pinpointed it to a spot 20 miles away from where Klein did. However, after reading the American’s research, he decided to use Klein’s position.
Looking back, Klein has a smile on his face while describing the complicated math involved in his discovery.
“It was a challenge, but I love a challenge you know,” he said.
One more data point
Further studies conducted since 1948 have shown the pole is still moving, and at a fairly fast clip. A study presented at the American Geophysical Union in 2009 concluded the pole is actually drifting northwest toward Russia at nearly 40 miles per year. It’s estimated to have moved nearly 700 miles in the 20th century alone. Today, the pole is in the Arctic Sea, hundreds of miles from where Klein plotted it.
And, so, Klein’s contribution became a footnote, just another data point on that journey.
But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been recognized. In 1999, once his missions over the Arctic were declassified, his former commanding officer, Maynard White, recommended Klein for the Legion of Merit award.
Among other accolades, the letter says that Klein’s work “which held considerable significance at the time, compelled revisions in textbooks and maps the world over.” Klein was also able to map “so-called secondary or local magnetic poles” and contributed to the understanding of the moving magnetic pole, the letter says.
Skip Theberge, a librarian and archivists the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, said Klein’s discovery couldn’t be called earth-shattering, but it was one more step to understanding various things about the planet and how it functions.
“The fact that he was willing to engage in that, you can put him down as a pioneer in advanced geomagnetic research,” he said.
Klein, though, said that though his time spent in the Arctic is something he has never forgotten, he was merely doing his duty.
“I can’t deny that I’m proud of the work, but it’s work. And I’m happy about it,” he said.
Thanks for the ping. Very interesting. That was a lot of work.
Another anomaly: A straight line from the North Magnetic Pole to the South Magnetic Pole doesn’t pass through the center of the Earth.
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Intrigued, and on his own initiative, he began plotting the difference in his compass reading and that of an astrocompass, which pinpoints direction via celestial bodies. He asked for similar data from anyone flying in the area. And when he laid out all the data -- some 1,500 to 2,000 readings all told -- he discovered something intriguing. The magnetic pole -- sometimes called the dip pole because it’s where the magnetic field dips vertically into the Earth -- was sitting off of Prince of Wales Island, 200 miles away from the Ross and Amundsen locations. But more than that, he showed the pole was sitting at the bottom of a larger elliptical area. And that area contained two foci points or local magnetic poles as well -- which could disrupt a compass... Further studies conducted since 1948 have shown the pole is still moving, and at a fairly fast clip. A study presented at the American Geophysical Union in 2009 concluded the pole is actually drifting northwest toward Russia at nearly 40 miles per year. It’s estimated to have moved nearly 700 miles in the 20th century alone. Today, the pole is in the Arctic Sea, hundreds of miles from where Klein plotted it. And, so, Klein’s contribution became a footnote, just another data point on that journey.
bkmk
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