Solar Magnetic Polarity Reversal
Sep 09, 2009

The Sun rotates more rapidly at its equator than near its poles. The magnetic fields near sunspots reverse polarity from one eleven-year sunspot cycle to the next. These and many other observed phenomena associated with the Sun give strong indication that a high level of electrical activity is at work on and above the surface of our local star.
 
It should be clear that the standard model is at least incomplete if not totally wrong in its description of the Sun’s structure. Astronomers defend this standard model by saying that all the processes they describe have been performed in the laboratory and are well known. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mankind has been doggedly struggling for over half a century to create a sustained nuclear fusion reaction in the laboratory. We have not even come close to doing it. It may not even be possible.

The only experiment that has been performed that fuses hydrogen into helium and liberates tremendous amounts of energy is the hydrogen bomb. That reaction is almost instantaneous. Recently discovered inherent instabilities in the plasma that is generated by the process may make it impossible to control it and make it occur continuously. Just to assume that such a sustained process is alive and well in the Sun’s core is a stretch.

In his [Hannes Alfvén’s] model, electric current passes through both poles of the star. It then flows in long tubes emanating from the star. A secondary leakage current that flows on or just below the Sun’s surface, back toward the equator from each of the poles, can explain another one of the “mysteries” the Sun poses for solar astrophysicists.
 
It is highly likely that such a current system has already been discovered. Stanford University recently announced, “Scientists using the joint European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft have discovered ‘jet streams’ or ‘rivers’ of hot, electrically charged gas (plasma) flowing beneath the surface of the Sun. They also found features similar to ‘trade winds’ that transport gas beneath the Sun’s fiery surface.” Rivers of plasma are electric currents. Currents cause magnetic fields.
 
We have just discussed the coronal loops – omega shaped arches in the Sun’s magnetic field that extend up out of the photosphere into the lower corona. Eugene N. Parker correctly calls the coronal loops “bulges” in the Sun’s magnetic field. He states: “The bulges emerge through the surface of the Sun, forming bipolar magnetic regions, or magnetically active regions, with lengths up to 200,000 km. The bipolar fields have opposite signs on opposite sides of the equator, and the algebraic signs of the fields reverse from one 11-year [sunspot] cycle to the next.”
 
The image above shows a possible explanation of this phenomenon. According to Alfvén’s stellar circuit, the main solar electric current flows into (or out of) each pole of the Sun. Making use of the “right-hand rule,” we can visualize the directions of the encircling magnetic fields created by that current. If the strength of this current is increasing, the magnetic field will strengthen as well. Such time varying magnetic fields can induce secondary currents as shown in the figure. The secondary current will only exist when the magnitude of the linking magnetic field is growing or shrinking. This effect is utilized here on Earth in AC transformers and so is called transformer action.
 
If a secondary current filament is flowing southward from near the Sun’s north pole and it is on or just beneath the Sun’s surface, a looping magnetic field will emerge to the east of the current creating a north magnetic pole there. (Right thumb directed toward the south, fingers emerging up out of the surface on its east side.) The loop will move out above the Sun’s surface and then return down into the surface forming a south magnetic pole to the west of the current.

Recall that a “north magnetic pole” is a region where the magnetic flux emerges from a solid. In the Sun’s southern hemisphere, the secondary surface current is flowing northward toward the solar equator. The resulting magnetic field will emerge (north magnetic pole) to the west of the current and return down to the surface (forming a south magnetic pole) to the east of the current. Thus the action described by Parker (“The bipolar fields have opposite signs on opposite sides of the equator.”) follows directly from Alfvén’s circuit. Of course, the locations of the subsurface currents shown in the image above are speculative at this point. These reversing magnetic fields provide a classic example of a phenomenon that cannot be understood without reference to the electric currents that produce it.
 
Regardless of the direction of the main driving current coming into the Sun, the eleven-year reversal of the magnetic loops can be explained by transformer action. If the main magnetic field that induces the surface currents is growing in strength, the surface current will point in one direction. If the main magnetic field starts to weaken in intensity, the secondary (surface) current will reverse direction. Consequently the magnetic polarity of the loops will also reverse. Notice that this mechanism does not require the main solar driving current itself to reverse direction, only to vary in amplitude. It also does not depend on the direction of the primary current.
 
On June 3, 1999, the European Space Agency announced that the Sun’s magnetic field is getting progressively stronger. Thanks to the unprecedented overview of solar magnetism provided by the ESA-NASA spacecraft Ulysses, a team at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford has been able to work out the recent history of the Sun’s magnetic behavior. According to calculations by British scientists, the strength of the Sun’s magnetic field has doubled during the Twentieth Century alone. This finding may help to clarify the Sun’s contribution to climate change on Earth. The hydrogen → helium fusion model does not explain this phenomenon.

The above material was taken from The Electric Sky, a groundbreaking book by Dr. Donald E. Scott
 
Contributed by Michael Armstrong