It is one of the strangest shifts in the Earth’s magnetic field since Daleks plotted to extract the planet’s core in a 1964 Doctor Who adventure.
But this is not science fiction, it is science fact: Earth’s magnetic North Pole is drifting towards Russia, just as it has been since the early nineteenth century – but at a markedly slower rate.
Not to be confused with the geographic North Pole, which marks the world’s northernmost point, the magnetic North Pole is the direction towards which compass needles point.
‘The magnetic pole has been moving very slowly around Canada for many centuries since the 1500s,’ said Dr Ciarán Beggan of the British Geological Survey.
‘In the past 20 years, it accelerated north towards Siberia, increasing speed every year until about five years ago, when it suddenly decelerated from 50 to 40km per year.
