# Everything is going Russia's way - now it's the North Pole **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 14, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769 "2019-01-14T23:09:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/1 "2019-01-14T23:09:02Z")
The magnetic North Pole always wanders, but [it’s been doing a lot more of that](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1) in the last four years. Enough that they need to update the World Magnetic Model a year early, instead of the usual five year intervals. It crossed the International Date Line last year in its trek from Canada toward Siberia. I hope something exciting comes out of this. Maybe not quite [_The Core_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVkocdkcmAc)-level excitement, but auroras at 45° would be cool. Unfortunately, it’s probably nothing more than an interesting science fact. (Yes, the inspiration for this was today’s XKCD.) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/2 "2019-01-14T23:37:35Z")
I wonder whether this is preliminary to a magnetic reversal. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/3 "2019-01-15T00:08:42Z")
Could it be that alignment closer with the rotational axis of the Earth is just less stable than further away. It’ll zip by in two decades and then settle down a bit in Siberia? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/4 "2019-01-15T00:16:18Z")
In Soviet Russia, magnetic pole norths you! ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/5 "2019-01-15T02:27:19Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > (Yes, the inspiration for this was today’s XKCD.) > [@Randall Munroe on xkcd](#): > > I like when the Earth’s magnetic field does weird stuff, because it’s a huge, cool, urgent-seeming science thing, but there’s nothing I personally need to do about it. From CNN, there was this headline last month: [Saturn is losing its rings quicker than expected, NASA warns](https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/18/world/saturn-rings-scli-intl/index.html). If found the verb choice “warns” on that headline very funny for several reasons. First off, “quicker than expected” means “less than a 100 million years” so it’s not exactly an immediately urgent matter. Secondly, the human race is totally off the hook on this one. We didn’t do it! It’s not our fault! You don’t have to quit using hair spray or anything like that. And thirdly, if Saturn’s rings disappeared next Tuesday, it would certainly be kind of sad in the abstract, purely on aesthetic grounds, but it’s not like it would be any kind of threat to the human race, or to life on Earth in general. (Assuming they disappeared from some natural process, and not because they’d been assimilated by the Borg or something like that.) There would be no need to assemble a team of misfit but heroic astronauts to blast off into space–thousands of times farther than Man has ever gone!–to, I dunno, set off a nuclear bomb\*, something something, somebody bravely sacrifices himself in the process, hooray! the rings of Saturn are restored! \*I guess we could blow up one of the smaller moons. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/6 "2019-01-15T15:39:44Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > \*I guess we could blow up one of the smaller moons. Now I want this to happen too. Come on, Bruce, you’re our only hope! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/7 "2019-01-15T16:01:08Z")
That’s truly bizarre. According to the map at the link, the magnetic pole’s moved further since 2000 than it did between 1900 and 1990. See, _that’s_ where the Y2K bug went! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/8 "2019-01-15T16:58:28Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I wonder whether this is preliminary to a magnetic reversal. It might be or might not be. Reversals seem to happen every 200,000-300,000 years on average and it’s been 780,000 since the last one, so we’re “overdue” strictly based on averages. But that’s kind of meaningless for phenomena like this; it isn’t a regular cycle. [Weird things are definitely happening with the magnetic field](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/earth-magnetic-field-flip-poles-spinning-magnet-alanna-mitchell/), but we don’t have enough understanding of the system to make a guess if this is the start of a switch or not. > [@National Geographic](#): > > We know that the core is becoming increasingly volatile. The North magnetic pole is absolutely running through the Northern Hemisphere at 55 kilometers a year to the northwest. That’s an indicator that something unusual is happening inside the core. We also know that the dipole is weakening fairly dramatically. If you look at satellite imagery, you can see that part of the magnetic field has already reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. This is something called the South Atlantic Anomaly. We know that that “reversed flux patch,” as scientists call it, is moving to the West and that it’s doubled in size in the last 60 years, so it now covers about 20 percent of the planet’s surface. Also note that a switch is estimated to take between a few hundred years to a few thousand years, so don’t expect to see this in your lifetime even if this is the start. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/9 "2019-01-15T17:09:27Z")
As long as make sure you have the correct declination will this ever trickle down to the average compass user. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/10 "2019-01-15T18:00:06Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > [Weird things are definitely happening with the magnetic field](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/earth-magnetic-field-flip-poles-spinning-magnet-alanna-mitchell/), but we don’t have enough understanding of the system to make a guess if this is the start of a switch or not. Never mind weird things with the magnetic field. What the heck does this amazing statement in the linked article mean: “This massive, once-in-150-years event happened to be released when the sun was facing away from our Earth.” _When the sun was facing away from earth?_ ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/11 "2019-01-15T19:30:32Z")
It’s a poor way of saying that the area of the sun where the massive ejection occurred was luckily pointing away from Earth at the time. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/12 "2019-01-16T21:58:26Z")
The mag-pole’s movement and Saturn’s ring loss definitely go on my list of things I can do nothing about, and I needn’t worry about. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/13 "2019-01-16T22:50:56Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > If found the verb choice “warns” on that headline very funny for several reasons. “NASA warns” is usually a funny headline choice. [“NASA warns that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot could be about to disappear”](https://www.yahoo.com/news/nasa-warns-jupiters-great-red-spot-disappear-141316907.html) Eek! Do we only have a few days left to see it? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-is-going-russias-way-now-its-the-north-pole/827769/14 "2019-01-16T23:41:54Z")
“So we have to detonate a really BIG nuclear bomb in Jupiter’s atmosphere…”