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| - In mid-November 2024, several news outlets published articles claiming the magnetic North Pole was "moving toward Russia." Several Snopes readers wrote to ask us whether the reporting was true and what, if anything, that finding means.
The answer is more complicated than one might think, because there are actually three different sets of poles:
- The geographic poles, sometimes called "True North" and "True South," are defined as the points the Earth rotates around.
- Meanwhile, the magnetic poles are defined as the points where the Earth's magnetic field meets the surface, and are the same north and south you'd find using a compass. Because of the way the Earth's magnetic field works (more on this below), these poles aren't directly opposite each other.
- Lastly, the geomagnetic poles are based on a highly simplified model of the Earth's magnetic field in order to place them directly opposite each other.
This claim concerns the magnetic North Pole in particular, and the finding that it's moving toward Russia is true, based on the most up-to-date information from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which maintains an interactive map tracking the location of the poles. It's also not surprising — scientists have known for quite some time that the Earth's magnetic poles move, because they have been tracking them for quite some time. In order to track where exactly the poles are, NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information and the British Geological Survey created the World Magnetic Model, which tracks and predicts how the Earth's magnetic poles move. The World Magnetic Model is updated every five years, and the next one will be released in December 2024.
This leads to the question of how scientists are able to track the position of the magnetic North Pole in the first place.
The Earth is made up of three layers: the crust on the outside, the mantle in the middle (like the crust, made of rock), and the metallic core in the center. Within the core, there are two sub-layers: a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. In the outer core, currents of liquid metals such as iron and nickel heat up and rise toward the mantle before cooling and falling back down to the inner core in a process known as convection. Combined with effects of the Earth's rotation, which turns the circular currents into a spiral pattern, these convection currents produce the Earth's magnetic field.
There are still many unknowns about this process, known as the dynamo theory. However, it does explain why the magnetic North Pole moves: The liquid metal in the outer core is sloshing around instead of holding steady.
In order to track the Earth's magnetic field, scientists treat it as if it were produced by a bar magnet, and then compare those results to the actual observed magnetic field. However, it's harder to pinpoint the exact magnetic poles as the predictions go further and further into the future, which is why the model is updated every five years
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