Santa better check his compass, because the North Pole is shifting—the north magnetic pole, that is, not the geographical one.
New research shows the pole moving at rapid clip—25 miles (40 kilometers) a year.
Over the past century the pole has moved 685 miles (1,100 kilometers)
from Arctic Canada toward Siberia, says Joe Stoner, a paleomagnetist at
Oregon State University.
At its current rate the pole could move to Siberia within the next half-century, Stoner said.
"It's moving really fast," he said. "We're seeing something that hasn't happened for at least 500 years."
Stoner presented his team's research at the American Geophysical Union's meeting last week in San Francisco.
Lorne McKee, a geomagnetic scientist at Natural Resources Canada, says that Stoner's data fits his own readings.
"The movement of the pole definitely appears to be accelerating," he said.