Strange Doings on the Sun

WSJ ^ | Nov. 10, 2013 7:25 p.m. ET | Robert Lee Hotz

[BenLurkin]

To complicate the riddle, the sun also is undergoing one of its oddest magnetic reversals on record.

Normally, the sun's magnetic north and south poles change polarity every 11 years or so. During a magnetic-field reversal, the sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, drop to zero, and then emerge again with the opposite polarity. As far as scientists know, the magnetic shift is notable only because it signals the peak of the solar maximum, said Douglas Biesecker at NASA's Space Environment Center.

But in this cycle, the sun's magnetic poles are out of sync, solar scientists said. The sun's north magnetic pole reversed polarity more than a year ago, so it has the same polarity as the south pole.

[gleeaikin]

Nice graph. I don’t have conjectures about the Maunder Minimum, but do about the Dalton Minimum and the next milder dip to the right which I believe is the Sporer Minimum. Here are dates for major volcanic events which may be involved. In 1783 the Laki Fissure event (Iceland) caused crop failures in Europe and perhaps the French Revolution. The low point of the Dalton was around 1815 and the huge Tambora volcano which cause the 1816 “year with no Summer” in New England. In 1835 Cosiguina, Central America, may have cause the second dip on the upside of the Dalton. In 1884 Krakatao blew sky high. Pelee on the island of Marginique blew sky high, as did 4 other volcanoes around the Caribbean Plate the same year. Katmai blew up in 1911.
I have a 1950s volcano book which showed a correlation between movement of magma in Hawaii and sun spots.