True North vs Magnetic North
What True North & Magnetic North Are
True North
Geographic (true) north is located on the actual North Pole, as many would correctly guess. To mark this physical location is extremely difficult and logistically an impossibility due to the environment there. The North Pole is surrounded by massive sheets of ice and icebergs. These sheets are present year round, making the area essentially impassable. People have been there but having any type of structured base or establishment in place is not feasible.
Magnetic North
Magnetic north is defined as the northern direction as indicated by the magnetic field of Earth. It is inconsistent over distance due to irregularity and variability of Earth’s magnetic poles relative to it’s axis. For practical purposes, this location on the Earth is located on Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada. It is at this location that the lines of magnetic attraction begin to enter the Earth.
The Difference Between Them & Magnetic Declination
The difference true north vs magnetic north is a few hundred miles and is offset by magnetic declination. Tools used to compensate for magnetic inclination are charts of inclination and some form of local calibration. Since Ellesmere Island, Canada and the North Pole are about 500 kilometers apart (and changing every year by several kilometers) these tools help to reduce the margin of error. According to gisgeography.com, the magnetic North Pole has shifted and moved over 1,000 kilometers in ~150 years. Eventually, the magnetic poles we know as North and South will flip entirely. This polar shift it thought to typically happen every 200,000 – 300,000 years. That is significant movement but not enough to make this type of reading completely useless.
In The End
When it is all said and done, the difference of true north vs magnetic north is about 500 kilometers on the map as it stands today. In the next few years to the next 100 years, this difference will increase. To keep everything simple, both are used to blend together useful information that we can take and navigate and know which way to go.
