So Long, Alaskan Lights; Pole Is Moving Out

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 last century, the possibility that Earth’s modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote.

But the shift could mean that Alaska might no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible in more southerly areas of Siberia and Europe. Auroras occur when charged particles streaming from the sun interact with gases in Earth’s atmosphere

The magnetic poles are part of the magnetic field generated by liquid iron in Earth’s core and are different from the geographic poles, which mark the axis of the planet’s rotation.

Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. Why this happens 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 at an American Geophysical Union meeting.

Previous studies have shown that the strength of the Earth’s magnetic shield has decreased 10% over the last 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole wandered about 685 miles into the Arctic, a new analysis by Stoner shows.

The rate of the magnetic pole’s movement has increased in the last century compared with fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon State researchers said.

In the study, Stoner examined the sediment record from several Arctic lakes. Because the sediments record the Earth’s magnetic field at the time, scientists used carbon dating to track changes in the magnetic field.