Earth’s magnetic north pole has continued its long-term drift toward Siberia, officially crossing into the Russian hemisphere in 2025, according to updated geophysical models. Although the shift remains imperceptible in daily life, it introduces measurable risks to high-precision systems that rely on the alignment between magnetic and geographic reference points. Aviation, maritime navigation, autonomous systems, and defense platforms are particularly exposed to deviations caused by magnetic field drift.
The latest release of the World Magnetic Model (WMM2025) and the new high-resolution variant WMMHR2025, developed jointly by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the British Geological Survey (BGS), recalibrates global magnetic parameters. These models are the international standard used by NATO members, the U.S. Department of Defense, and allied institutions to maintain directional accuracy in critical navigation and mapping systems.
WMM2025 shows the north magnetic pole has now shifted to a location at 86.38°N, 164.06°E, placing it significantly closer to Russia than Canada. Since systematic observations began in the 1830s, the pole has moved more than 2,200 kilometers, largely due to secular variation in the Earth’s main magnetic field, which originates in the fluid outer core.
Between 1990 and 2020, pole velocity increased markedly, reaching peak migration rates of approximately 60 km/year. As of the 2025 release, the speed has slowed to around 35 km/year, though researchers cautioned that this still exceeds pre-1990 averages. The pole’s motion is governed by rapid changes in the toroidal and poloidal components of Earth’s geomagnetic field, modeled using a spherical harmonic expansion up to degree 12 in WMM2025.
The new high-resolution model, WMMHR2025, increases spatial fidelity from 3300 km to 300 km at the equator by extending the spherical harmonic expansion to degree 36. This is particularly relevant for satellite-based systems and next-generation autonomous vehicles requiring sub-kilometer accuracy in magnetic heading.
WMM2025 also updates the spatial extent and location of geomagnetic blackout zones—regions near the poles where horizontal magnetic field strength falls below 2000 nT, rendering compass-based navigation unreliable. These regions are relevant for polar aviation corridors and scientific expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Magnetic declination remains a critical variable. Declination, the angular difference between true north and magnetic north, is not constant; it can change by several degrees over time at a fixed location. This is particularly acute at high latitudes. For example, in parts of Alaska, declination has changed by over 10° in the past two decades, requiring frequent updates to aviation and marine charts.
To mitigate the impact of these changes, the WMM is updated every five years in coordination with the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the UK Defence Geographic Centre (DGC). However, in 2019 an unscheduled mid-cycle correction was issued due to unexpectedly fast pole movement, demonstrating the system’s vulnerability to unanticipated geomagnetic acceleration.
China set out to stop its deserts from marching east and to lock more carbon in the ground. In the process, it planted tens of billions of trees across its dry northern frontier and far beyond, on a scale no other country has attempted. Now scientists say that success has come with an extraordinary side effect: the country has effectively reprogrammed where its rain falls, drying out some regions while soaking others.
The story is not a simple tale of good trees gone bad. The same forests that stabilized dunes and pulled dust out of the air have also altered winds, humidity and runoff in ways that ripple across the entire water cycle. I find that tension, between ecological repair and unintended disruption, is the real lesson of China’s regreening experiment.
From dust bowl to “Great Green Wall”
For decades, China has treated tree planting as a national infrastructure project, a living barrier against sandstorms and soil erosion. Official campaigns have pushed forest belts across the country’s arid north, often described collectively as a kind of Great Green Wall that stands between expanding deserts and the country’s industrial and agricultural heartlands. That ambition is now central to how the state presents China’s environmental identity at home and abroad.
Researchers estimate that China embarked on an astonishing feat, planting an estimated 78 billion trees as part of this regreening drive, while other analyses describe a “Green Problem” in which the country Planted 78 Billion Billion Trees to Save the Soil. One summary notes that China’s reforestation efforts increased tree cover from 10% to 25%, a transformation that reshaped everything from dust storm frequency to how much sunlight reaches the ground.
The physics of “moving” rain
What scientists are now documenting is that this much new vegetation does not just sit in place and behave like a static windbreak. Trees act as biological pumps, pulling water from the soil and releasing it into the air through their leaves. As China planted billions more trees across its arid north, those pumps multiplied, changing how much moisture is available to form clouds and where that moisture ultimately falls as rain. One analysis describes how those pumps intensified as China kept expanding its forest belts over five decades.
Hydrologists now argue that the country has, in effect, shifted its own rainfall patterns. One detailed study of how China embarked on planting an estimated 78 billion trees concludes that the regreening has altered the country’s entire water cycle, while a separate assessment finds that China has planted so many trees it has changed the entire country’s water distribution. Another synthesis of climate data notes that China’s massive tree-planting programs have reshaped not just the landscape but regional water and rainfall patterns, forcing different regions to adapt locally as precipitation regimes diverge.
When greening dries the ground
The most jarring finding is that a campaign designed to fight drought and erosion is now implicated in new water stress. Analyses of the “Green Problem” argue that China Green Problem Now They Cause, highlighting how the same forest belts that stabilized soils are drawing down groundwater and reducing streamflow. A detailed summary of China’s reforestation notes that the increase in tree cover from 10% to 25% has had an unexpected negative effect on precipitation, with knock-on impacts for rivers and as much as 60% of arable land.
On the ground, ecologists are seeing how thirsty plantations can outcompete native vegetation. In some experimental plots, single-species stands of fast-growing trees have sucked groundwater so aggressively that native grasslands wither and topsoil thins, a pattern flagged by scientists who warn that Jan research may be underestimating long term damage to fragile ecosystems. Another synthesis of field data notes that in some regions, topsoil is literally thinning as roots and evaporation strip moisture faster than it can be replenished.
Satellites, storm tracks and a national water experiment
The scale of the transformation is visible from orbit. Remote sensing specialists report that Satellite data and hydrological studies now show that these new forests have dramatically altered the country’s water cycle, with mature stands changing how much water is stored in tree biomass and how much is released as atmospheric vapor. One synthesis of those datasets concludes that Mature forests are now a central driver of regional humidity patterns, effectively acting as infrastructure that shapes storm tracks.
At the same time, climate scientists tracking storm systems over East Asia argue that News analyses of how forests interact with monsoon flows are only beginning to catch up with reality. One widely cited report, By Sascha Pare, notes that the country has planted so many trees it has changed the entire country’s water distribution, while another synthesis of field and model data on Sascha Pare Live and Johannes Plenio imagery highlights how rivers and reservoirs are responding to the new forest cover in China.
Runoff, floods and the double edge of forest “infrastructure”
Not every hydrological change is negative. In many watersheds, the new forests have slowed surface runoff, allowing more water to soak into the ground and reducing flood risks during heavy storms. One synthesis of field measurements notes that Forests slowed surface runoff and reduced flooding, even as increased evaporation changed the balance of nature. Another analysis of how At the same time, more water is being pulled into the atmosphere, underscores that these forests are functioning like giant pieces of green infrastructure, with trade offs that depend on local geology and climate.
Yet the same processes that tame floods can starve downstream farms and cities of water. A detailed climate summary notes that Dec assessments of China’s reforestation link reduced river flows to stress on up to 60% of arable land, while a separate synthesis of hydrological models finds that Jan projections show regional water and rainfall patterns diverging sharply as forests mature. In that sense, the country’s tree belts have become a national water experiment, one that is still unfolding in real time.
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! Tins hats on, curtains drawn, stay hydrated, or YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
If you must go out, wear ‘appropriate clothing’. A burka and a sombrero should do the trick. But avoid the hours between 11am and 3pm.
We’re talking Mad Dogs and Englishmen here.
As soon as I read on Friday that this was going to be the hottest May bank holiday since 1944, I thought to myself: That’s the column sorted out, then, Rich.
You just knew that the air-raid sirens were going off everywhere from the Met Office to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). They live for days like this.
Predictably, the warnings came thick and fast, increasingly alarmist as the temperature rose above 90 degrees in old money.
El Nino’s coming, El Nino’s coming! Don’t panic!
El Nino? They make him sound like the leader of a Mexican drugs cartel, only more deadly.
Turns out El Nino is a weather system in the Pacific Ocean, responsible for warmer waters than usual. He’s got a sister called La Nina, who does the opposite, but you don’t hear much about her because she doesn’t contribute to global warming.
While El Nino is being blamed for day trippers getting sunburned on Brighton beach, he’s also the reason why the weathermen are predicting a quieter than usual hurricane season in the Atlantic. Which has to be a good thing, surely?
Still, the climate alarmists aren’t going to let the facts get in the way of a good scare story. So here in Britain, the propaganda machine went into overdrive, again, even though it’ll be raining by the end of the week.
The UKHSA, the phoenix from the flames of the abolished and utterly discredited Public Health England quango, issued an ‘amber’ alert. Stay indoors, close the windows, draw the curtains, stop your kids playing in the garden.
If you must go out, wear a hat and sunglasses, and in the words of the 1999 Baz Luhrmann hit, Wear Sunscreen.
How old do they think we are – five? These are the same people who not so long ago were telling us to line our windows with tinfoil.
Dopey TV weather girls instruct us to stay hydrated. Transport chiefs tell us to carry a bottle of water at all times. It’s the same old story every time it gets a bit warmer than usual for the time of year.
We have to put up with over-excited television news reporters announcing that ‘record’ temperatures have been set at Heathrow. So what? Who goes sunbathing on Runway Two?
All this is manna from Heaven for the climate alarmists. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that the last time it was this hot in May was in 1944, before global warming was invented.
Don’t they know there was a war on? Nobody was worrying about sea levels or getting skin cancer back then.
That probably explains why my old mum used to peg herself out like Gulliver every summer, armed only with a tin of Nivea and a jug of Pimm’s No 1. And she lived to be 93.
But that generation was made of sterner stuff. So, I’d like to think, is my generation. People try to put us down, but some of us are old enough to remember the summer of 1976, when the heatwave lasted two whole months, reservoirs and rivers dried up and there were standpipes in the streets.
This was Third World weather - 96 degrees in the shade. Real hot, in the shade.
Newspapers ran ‘Phew, what a scorcher!’ headlines and fried eggs on the pavement. Nobody issued an ‘amber’ alert. We just got on with it.
Today, there’s an entire industry trying to scare us half to death and convince us that what we used to call ‘hot weather’ is caused by man-made global warming.
The good news is that nobody’s taking any notice. Millions of us flocked to the beach, parks and swimming pools ‘in defiance of official warnings’, as some ridiculous headlines put it.
Last week, the Climate Change Committee – whatever that is – declared that the Government should set maximum work temperatures – suggesting 27C (80F) for ‘sedentary’ work and 25C (77F) for ‘light physical’ work.
They needn’t have bothered. Nobody’s going to work much these days anyway. They’re all still ‘Working From Home’, especially on hot days like this. Either that, or they’ll be ringing in sick before heading for the pool or the pub garden.
Make the most of the darling buds of May while you can. This isn’t 1944 all over again, though it’s worth noting that a just over a week later D-Day was postponed because of bad weather. It’s not even 1976, when Labour MP Denis Howell, a former football referee, was appointed Minister for Drought.
His solution was to import a Navajo medicine man to perform a rain dance. It worked spectacularly. The heavens soon opened and within a few days Howell was reassigned as Minister for Flooding.
This time around, the ‘experts’ are predicting a long, hot, Super El Nino summer, but my best guess is that come Wimbledon and the first Test match it’ll be freezing and chucking it down.
No doubt by then the UKHSA and the Met Office will be warning us to stay dry and not leave the house without an umbrella.
And they’ll be blaming that on ‘climate change’ and El Nino, too. Don’t panic!
Europe is grappling with an unprecedented heatwave that has overwhelmed hospitals and prompted several countries to issue their first-ever red weather alerts, sparking fights over air conditioning units and leading Paris to impose an alcohol ban.
At least 101million Europeans have roasted for several days in temperatures of more than 35C, with an estimated few hundred people, including children, thought to have died as a result of heat-related illnesses and drownings while trying to cool off.
Scientists said in a study released Friday that climate change was 'unequivocally' responsible for the heat that broke records in Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland, while the Netherlands issued its first-ever red alert over heat. As temperatures were expected to ease in western Europe from Friday, eastern Europe was on red alert, with the mercury set to climb.
In Germany, where temperatures were expected to hit 40C through the weekend, several outdoor events were cancelled and the rail operator advised avoiding travel. With French hospitals overwhelmed, authorities took the rarely used step of banning evening alcohol sales and public consumption in Paris starting on Friday and in to the weekend.
Brawls also broke out in several stores selling affordable air conditioning units as sweltering shoppers scrambled to get their hands on the cooling appliances. Footage from small retailers and large supermarkets across the country showed customers surging into stores while staff desperately pleaded for calm.
Paris police also asked the organisers of the Pride March that was scheduled for Saturday to call it off due to the exceptional heatwave. The march was subsequently postponed to September. The police issued the same request to a music festival called Solidays, which has now been cancelled, and an athletics meeting at Stade Charlety. Both were expected to draw tens of thousands of people.
French and British health services reported a surge in emergency calls and visits as the merciless heat struck the elderly and the ill. 'We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities,' Paris police chief Patrice Faure said. 'The number of hospitalisations keeps increasing.' France saw a fourfold increase in emergency room visits for heat-related reasons and a surge of cardiac arrests, authorities said.
London Ambulance Service said the extreme heat on Wednesday had led to the highest number of life-threatening emergency calls in a day.
What am I missing here ? We've had 95-104 F here in the northeast for days in a row and people aren't dropping dead. I've been in Nevada where it was 114 in Red Rock Canyon and people who were acclimated were riding their bicycles casually.
France's longest river has been reduced to a sandbank as deadly temperatures have soared across Western Europe amid a record-breaking heatwave.
As Europe experienced its most severe ever recorded heatwave in June, drought conditions are worsening in France as shocking images show a completely barren Loire River in Montjean-sur-Loire.
The dry river, which is 625 miles long, has been transformed into a desert-like landscape with only stagnant puddles that remain.
The Doubs river in the Maisons-du-Bois-Lièvremont commune is also devoid of water as a result of the blistering conditions.
The extreme temperatures have shut schools, knocked out power to tens of thousands of households and has claimed more than 2,000 lives across the country.
Water reserves have been destroyed by the soaring temperatures and almost a dozen departments had at least one commune under the highest ‘crisis’ level for tap water.
Households have been advised to restrict their water use and avoid watering plants, washing cars and filling private swimming pools.
Last month was also the second-warmest June globally, and the planet experienced the highest June sea surface temperatures since records began, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin.
(More on the link)
From Duckduckgo AI search result:
High Temperatures in France (June 29 - July 5, 2026)
Daily Highs
Date Location High Temperature (°F)
June 29 Paris 102
June 30 Bordeaux 108.5
July 1 Pissos 111.7
July 2 Cazaux 110.5
July 3 Paris 81
July 4 Paris 81
July 5 Bordeaux 108.5
