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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
Babcock (1961) outlined the sequence of events which takes place in the Sun's atmosphere during a solar cycle. Magnetic field loops, having preferred directions, emerge from the solar surface and thereafter merge with neighbouring loops to produce more extended structures. Although flux tubes emerge with a strong E-W field component, having the field direction reversed from one side of the equator to the other, there is a tendency for the longer loops produced by merging to have a significant N-S alignment (Hansen et al., 1972).