North Pole
When not otherwise qualified, the term North Pole usually refers to the Geographic North Pole – the northernmost point on the surface of the Earth, where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects the Earth's surface. Other "North Poles" include: more...
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The North Magnetic Pole – the point on the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field points directly downwards. This pole is constantly wandering; its estimated 2005 position was 82.7° N 114.4° W .;
The North Geomagnetic Pole – the point of intersection of the Earth's surface with the axis of a simple magnetic dipole (like a bar magnet) that best approximates the Earth's actual more complex magnetic field. Like the North Magnetic Pole it constantly wanders; as of 2005 it was located at approximately 79.74° N 71.78° W .;
The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility – the point in the Arctic Ocean farthest from land, at 84°03′N 174°51′W.;
The North Celestial Pole – an imaginary point in the northern sky towards which the Earth's axis of rotation points.;
The North Pole, Alaska, a city in the interior of the State of Alaska, known as the "City Where the Spirit of Christmas Lives Year Round.";
Originally by analogy with the earth's magnetic field, the terms "north pole" and "south pole" are also applied to magnets in general, in order to distinguish one "end" of the magnet from the other. For this use see under Magnet and Magnetism.
Geographic North Pole
The Geographic North Pole (usually simply called the "North Pole") is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation meets the Earth's surface (the other being the South Pole, diametrically opposite). The Geographic North Pole defines latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of True North. At the North Pole all directions point south.
While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. There is no land at the North Pole, just waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impossible to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole).
Precise definition
The Earth's axis of rotation – and hence the position of the North Pole – was commonly believed to be fixed until, in the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler predicted that the axis might "wobble" slightly. Around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent "variation of latitude", as determined for a fixed point on Earth from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole, by a range of a few meters. The wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component. The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the 8 month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer. This "wobble" means that a definition of the Pole based on the axis of rotation is not useful when more than about 1'' precision is required.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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