Explained | Why Earth’s magnetic North Pole cruising to Russia and how it affects your GPS

The recent WMM update reveals that Earth’s magnetic North Pole is moving from Canada to Siberia in Russia.

Earth's magnetic North Pole is not stationary, and in fact, moves around a lot. As our GPS and other navigation systems are reliant on the positioning of the magnetic North Pole, every five years the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) releases the World Magnetic Model (WMM).

The WMM, NOAA says, is "a map of the Earth’s magnetic field. and provides precise navigational data for all military and civilian planes, ships, submarines, and GPS units."

According to an Interesting Engineering report on the 2025 model, the recent update reveals that the magnetic North Pole is shifting from Canada towards Siberia in Russia.

So why is this happening?

The pole moves due to the "flow of molten iron and nickel between our planet’s two large magnetic lobes: the North American lobe beneath Canada and the Siberian lobe under Siberia."

Reportedly, in the last two decades, the Siberian lobe has been more active in regards to flow of iron and nickel, making it a strong influence on the pole.

Thus, North has started shifting magnetically to Siberia.

“The current behavior of magnetic north is something that we have never observed before. Magnetic north has been moving slowly around Canada since the 1500s,” William Brown, global geomagnetic field modeler at the British Geological Survey said.

“In the past 20 years, it accelerated towards Siberia, increasing in speed every year until about five years ago, when it suddenly decelerated from 50 to 35 km (31 to 22 miles) per year, which is the biggest deceleration in speed we’ve ever seen,” Brown added.

But why is knowing the precise position of the magnetic north so important?

The British Geological Survey explained it this way: "Imagine someone planning to travel by sleigh from a chimney top in South Africa to a snow-covered roof in the UK, a journey of around 8,500 km. Using the previous WMM and setting off just one-degree off-course, he would end up approximately 150 km away from where he should.”

To ensure even the most minor of such errors do not occur, this update of the WMM is 10 times more detailed than previous versions.

“WMM 2025 includes improved spatial resolution of approximately 300 kilometers at the equator compared to the standard spatial resolution of 3300 kilometers at the equator. Higher resolution provides greater directional accuracy,” the NOAA team said.

WMM 2025 is set to guide our journeys for the next five years.