Geomagnetic secular variation

Geomagnetic secular variation refers to changes in the Earth's magnetic field on time scales of about a year or more. These changes mostly reflect changes in the Earth's interior, while more rapid changes mostly originate in the ionosphere or magnetosphere.

The geomagnetic field changes on time scales from milliseconds to millions of years. Shorter time scales mostly arise from currents in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, and some changes can be traced to geomagnetic storms or daily variations in currents. Changes over time scales of a year or more mostly reflect changes in the Earth's interior, particularly the iron-rich core. These changes are referred to as secular variation.

Secular variation can be observed in measurements at magnetic observatories, some of which have been around for hundreds of years (the Kew Observatory, for example). Over such a time scale, magnetic declination is observed to vary over tens of degrees. A movie on the right shows how global declinations have changed over the last few centuries.

To analyze global patterns of change in the geomagnetic field, geophysicists fit the field data to a spherical harmonic expansion (see International Geomagnetic Reference Field). The terms in this expansion can be divided into a dipolar part, like the field around a bar magnet, and a nondipolar part. The dipolar part dominates the geomagnetic field and determines the direction of the geomagnetic poles. The direction and intensity of the dipole change over time. Over the last two centuries the dipole strength has been decreasing at a rate of about 6.3% per century. At this rate of decrease, the field would reach zero in about 1600 years. However, this strength is about average for the last 7 thousand years, and the current rate of change is not unusual.

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