Magnetic north moves because the liquid iron churning deep inside Earth is constantly shifting, and the magnetic field it generates shifts along with it. The North Magnetic Pole has drifted from northern Canada toward Siberia over the past century, and since the 1990s it has been moving faster than at any point in recent history.
How Earth Generates Its Magnetic Field
Earth’s core has two layers: a solid inner core and a liquid outer core, both composed mainly of iron. The outer core is roughly 2,200 kilometers thick, and the iron there is hot enough to flow like a thick liquid. Heat from radioactive decay and from the planet’s original formation drives this molten iron into massive convection currents, similar to the way water circulates in a boiling pot but on a planetary scale.
These flowing currents of electrically conductive iron create what physicists call a self-sustaining dynamo. As the liquid metal moves through an existing magnetic field, it generates electrical currents. Those currents produce their own magnetic field, which reinforces the original one, keeping the whole system running. The process is inherently unstable because the convection patterns are turbulent and constantly evolving. The magnetic field they produce isn’t a clean, fixed bar magnet. It’s a messy, shifting thing with strong patches and weak patches that change position over time.
The Tug-of-War Between Canada and Siberia
The magnetic field at Earth’s surface isn’t uniform. It has concentrated regions of magnetic intensity, sometimes called flux patches, that sit beneath different parts of the globe. For most of recorded history, a strong flux patch beneath northern Canada dominated, pulling the North Magnetic Pole toward that region. But the balance has been shifting.
Until about 1990, the North Magnetic Pole sat comfortably within the Canadian Arctic. Since then, it has been drifting steadily toward Siberia. Research from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism found that the magnetic field over Canada has weakened while the field over Siberia has grown stronger. This isn’t the pole being “pulled” across the surface. It’s the underlying convection patterns in the outer core reorganizing, strengthening the Siberian flux patch at the expense of the Canadian one. The pole follows whatever patch is dominant.
This shift has real consequences beyond navigation. As the stronger magnetic field moved toward Siberia, it changed how charged particles from space interact with Earth’s atmosphere. Over Siberian longitudes, the lowest altitude these particles can reach rose by 400 to 1,200 kilometers, because the strengthened field deflects them outward before they can dive deeper.
How Fast the Pole Has Moved
The pole doesn’t drift at a constant speed. NASA data covering the last 1,700 years shows an average wandering speed of about 11 kilometers per year, but the rate varies dramatically from century to century. Between 1300 and 1400 AD, the pole moved at roughly 25 kilometers per year. During the 1900s, it averaged closer to 10 kilometers per year.
The recent acceleration is striking. Through most of the 20th century, the pole crept along at modest speeds. Starting in the 1990s, it picked up pace significantly, at times exceeding 50 kilometers per year. This acceleration is what prompted scientists and navigation agencies to pay closer attention, and it’s a reflection of how quickly conditions in the outer core can change.
Could the Poles Flip Entirely?
Full magnetic reversals, where north and south swap places, have happened many times in Earth’s history. On average, the field flips about once every half million years. The last full reversal occurred roughly 780,000 years ago, which means we’re statistically in a longer-than-usual stretch without one. Researchers estimate the probability of the current period lasting this long is only about 6 to 8 percent, based on the expected variability in reversal timing.
The overall field has also been losing strength. It has weakened by about 10 percent over the last 160 years. Scientists have identified a rough threshold of field strength below which reversals and temporary excursions (where the pole wanders dramatically but doesn’t fully flip) become possible. Whether the current weakening trend continues toward that threshold or stabilizes is something no model can reliably predict yet. A full reversal, if one were starting, would take thousands of years to complete. It wouldn’t happen in a human lifetime.
Why This Matters for Navigation
Compasses point toward magnetic north, not geographic north, and the difference between the two (called magnetic declination) changes as the pole moves. For hikers with a compass, the shift is gradual enough that updated declination values on newer maps keep things accurate. For aviation, the stakes are higher.
Airport runways are numbered based on their magnetic heading. A runway pointing roughly 170 degrees magnetic is labeled Runway 17. When the pole shifts enough to change that bearing, the runway has to be officially renamed. Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska renamed runway 1L-19R to 2L-20R in 2009 after magnetic north had shifted enough to require the change. Denver International Airport has a runway currently oriented at 172.5 degrees magnetic. When the drift nudges that bearing another 4 degrees, it will be redesignated from 17L-35R to 18L-36R.
To keep pace with these changes, NOAA and the British Geological Survey maintain the World Magnetic Model, a mathematical representation of the field used by smartphones, GPS systems, military operations, and commercial aviation worldwide. The model is updated every five years. The current version, WMM2025, was released in December 2024 and will remain valid until late 2029. The 2020 model it replaced had actually needed an unusual out-of-cycle update in 2019 because the pole was moving faster than the model had predicted.
Where Magnetic North Is Right Now
As of 2025, the World Magnetic Model places the North Magnetic Pole at 85.76°N latitude and 139.30°E longitude. That puts it in the Arctic Ocean, well north of Siberia and far from its former home in the Canadian Arctic. The geomagnetic north pole, a slightly different measurement based on fitting a theoretical bar magnet to Earth’s field, sits at about 80.85°N and 72.76°W. The two numbers differ because the actual magnetic field is far more complex than a simple dipole.
The pole will keep moving. The convection currents driving it have been churning for billions of years, and there’s no reason to expect them to settle into a fixed pattern. What changes is the speed and direction, both of which depend on processes happening more than 2,800 kilometers beneath your feet.