Trump’s shutdown scuppers scientists plans to update crucial model

The North Pole is moving so quickly and erratically the system designed to track it can’t keep up (and Trump’s government shutdown is making things worse)

  • Scientists are unable to post updates of movements of the Earth’s magnetic pole 
  • The rate of distance that the magnetic north pole moves per year has sped up
  • Researchers are scrambling to update global models relied on by GPS systems
  • Scientists are still working off the 2015 model, which grows more inaccurate every day

Scientists have been unable to post vital updates to key scientific models as a result of Donald Trump’s government shutdown.  

Key software updates to the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to position themselves, have had to be delayed. 

This system is in dire need of the update, scientists say, to keep track of the wildly moving location of the magnetic north pole.   

This prompted them to update the model earlier than its scheduled fix on January 15th, which wasn’t supposed to be until 2020 but has been delayed due to the inability to receive the stamp of approval from the US defence department.

Scientists are therefore forced to make use of systems are working with an inaccurate model. 

The US government oversees the project along with the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Scientists have been unable to post vital updates from the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to position themselves. The charts are used to convert between compass measurements of magnetic north and true north

According to the research centre, they have put together the new version but they cannot release it without approval from the American defence department.  

The World Magnetic Model underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.

Over the last 30 years, researchers found the rate of distance that the magnetic north pole moves per year has sped up from around nine miles (15km) per year to 35 miles (55km). 


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Earlier this month, researchers said the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that they have to fix the model urgently. 

The map is updated every five years to accommodate these shifts. The most recent version of the model came out in 2015.

Donald Trump’s administration enacted a partial government shutdown in December last year because the Senate failed to break an impasse over the president’s demand for more funding to build a wall on the US border with Mexico. 

Researchers have scrambled to urgently update the global model early because of an unprecedented shift, meaning it was changing rapidly. This prompted them to update the model earlier than its scheduled fix on January 15th, which wasn’t supposed to be until 2020

Financing for about a quarter of federal programmes – including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Agriculture – have expired and will not be renewed until a deal is done. 

‘January 30 is only a tentative release date at this point, assuming the government reopens between now and then,’ Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA who works on the project, told Motherboard.

‘The World Magnetic Model is distributed by NOAA so we need NOAA to reopen first before being able to release the new model,’ Chulliat added. 

The moving pole affected navigation, mainly in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. NATO and the U.S. and British militaries are among those using the magnetic model, as well as civilian navigation.  

WHAT IS THE WORLD MAGNETIC MODEL? 

The charts, known as the World Magnetic Model (WMM), are used to convert between compass measurements of magnetic north and true north and can be found in the navigation systems of ships and airplanes as well as geological applications (such as drilling and mining). 

The WMM is also part of map applications in smartphones, including the Google Maps App.

Researchers from the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintain the WMM.

‘Although GPS is a great tool for navigation, it is limited in that it only provides your position,’ geodetic scientist James Friederich from the U. S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency explained in 2014. 

‘Your orientation, the direction you are facing, comes from the magnetic field.’

‘Our war fighters use magnetics to orient their maps. 

‘Your smartphone camera and various apps can use the magnetic field to help determine the direction you are facing,’ he continued. 

‘All of these examples need the WMM to provide your proper orientation.’

 

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