North magnetic pole
Early European navigators, cartographers and scientists believed that compass needles were attracted to a hypothetical "magnetic island" somewhere in the far north (see Rupes Nigra), or to Polaris, the pole star.
[14] The idea that Earth itself acts as essentially a giant magnet was first proposed in 1600, by the English physician and natural philosopher William Gilbert.
This is the current definition, though it would be a few hundred years before the nature of Earth's magnetic field was understood with modern accuracy and precision.
The third observation was by Canadian government scientists Paul Serson and Jack Clark, of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, who found the pole at Allen Lake on Prince of Wales Island in 1947.
The exploration was conducted by the 46th (later re-designated the 72nd) Photo Reconnaissance Squadron and reported on as a classified Top Secret mission named Project Nanook.
Frank O. Klein, the director of the project, noticed that the fluxgate compass did not behave as erratically as expected—it oscillated no more than 1 to 2 degrees over much of the region—and began to study northern terrestrial magnetism.
[16][17] With the cooperation of many of his squadron teammates in obtaining many hundreds of statistical readings, startling results were revealed: The center of the north magnetic dip pole was on Prince of Wales Island some 400 km (250 mi) NNW of the positions determined by Amundsen and Ross, and the dip pole was not a point but occupied an elliptical region with foci about 400 km (250 mi) apart on Boothia Peninsula and Bathurst Island.
[clarification needed] About three months after Klein's findings were officially reported, a Canadian ground expedition was sent into the Archipelago to locate the position of the magnetic pole.
The Canadian government has made several measurements since, which show that the north magnetic pole is moving continually northwestward.
[18] This general movement is in addition to a daily or diurnal variation in which the north magnetic pole describes a rough ellipse, with a maximum deviation of 80 km (50 mi) from its mean position.
As of early 2019, the magnetic north pole is moving from Canada towards Siberia at a rate of approximately 55 km (34 mi) per year.
On 25 July 2007, the Top Gear: Polar Special was broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom, in which Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and their support and camera team claimed to be the first people in history to reach the 1996 location of the north magnetic pole in northern Canada by car.
West of the agonic line a compass will give a reading that is east of true north and by convention the magnetic declination is positive.
Conversely, east of the agonic line a compass will point west of true north and the declination is negative.
The north and south geomagnetic poles are the antipodal points where the axis of this theoretical dipole intersects Earth's surface.
