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The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic North Pole .
Visualization of the ice and snow covering Earth's northern and southern polar regions Northern Hemisphere permafrost (permanently frozen ground) in purple. The polar regions, also called the frigid zones or polar zones, of Earth are Earth's polar ice caps, the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North and South Poles), lying within the polar circles.
North and South poles are also defined for other planets or satellites in the Solar System, with a North pole being on the same side of the invariable plane as Earth's North pole. [ 2 ] Relative to Earth's surface, the geographic poles move by a few metres over periods of a few years. [ 3 ]
At the top of the world in the middle of the Arctic Ocean lies the geographic North Pole, the point where all the lines of longitude that curve around Earth from top to bottom converge in the north.
Maps issued by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey contain a diagram showing the difference between true north, grid north, and magnetic north at a point on the sheet; the edges of the map are likely to follow grid directions rather than true, and the map will thus be truly rectangular/square. [citation needed]
The magnetic North Pole is sometimes confused with the geographic North Pole, but this spot stays at the same place as it is where all lines of longitude converge.
The magnetic pole moved along the northern Canadian shore for centuries, Dr Brown said. It drifted into the Arctic Ocean in the 1990s, and after that, it accelerated and headed towards Siberia.
Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km 2.