South Pole, also known as the south geographic pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where Earth’s lines of longitude meet. It is located at 90° south latitude. To someone standing at the South Pole, all directions point north. Other south poles include the instantaneous south pole, the south magnetic pole, and the geomagnetic south pole.
In 1911, explorer Roald Amundsen of Norway led the first expedition to the south geographic pole. Amundsen’s expedition beat an expedition led by Robert Scott of the United Kingdom to the pole by five weeks. In 1956, the United States established a permanent scientific base called the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station at the pole.
The instantaneous south pole lies at the point where Earth’s axis of rotation meets the surface. Earth wobbles slowly as it turns on its axis, causing the instantaneous south pole to move. This pole takes 433 days to move counterclockwise around an irregular path called the Chandler circle. The location of this pole shifts with each cycle of the Chandler circle. The center of the Chandler circle moves an average of about 4 1/3 inches (11 centimeters) per year toward Australia.
The south magnetic pole is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the planet’s magnetic field points vertically—that is, exactly perpendicular to Earth’s surface. If a magnetic compass rotated in three dimensions, it would point straight upward at this point.
As Earth’s magnetic field changes, the south magnetic pole moves. It has moved 3 to 10 miles (5 to 16 kilometers) per year since the early 1900’s. Today, the pole lies off the coast of Wilkes Land and moves northwest at a rate of 5 1/2 miles (9 kilometers) per year.
Scientists create models (mathematical representations) of Earth’s magnetic field for the purposes of navigation and scientific study. The simplest such model represents Earth’s complex magnetic field as a magnetic dipole (two-poled magnet) at the center of the planet. The geomagnetic south pole is the point where the axis of such a dipole intersects the surface of Earth in the Southern Hemisphere. Today, it lies about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) from the south geographic pole, toward Vincennes Bay.
