SAN FRANCISCO – Earth’s north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday.
Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth’s modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote. But the shift could mean Alaska may no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible in southern Siberia and Europe.
The magnetic poles are part of the magnetic field generated by liquid iron in Earth’s core and are different from the geographic poles, the surface points marking the axis of the planet’s rotation.
Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and, in rare cases, swap places. Exactly why is a mystery.
“This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada,” Joseph Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University, said Thursday at an American Geophysical Union meeting.
Previous studies have shown that the strength of Earth’s magnetic shield has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole has wandered about 685 miles out into the Arctic, according to a new analysis by Stoner.
The rate of the magnetic pole’s movement has increased in the last century compared to fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon researchers said.
At the present rate, the north magnetic pole could swing out of northern Canada into Siberia. If that happens, Alaska could lose its Northern Lights, which occur when charged particles streaming away from the sun interact with gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
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