The solar magnetic field is pretty complex with only a general north south orientation. Basically it has poles all over the place.
I saw a good show about the earth’s magnetic field on the Science channel the other day.
The bigger they are, the more poles they have.
A few years back, I heard an explanation of what goes on.
The sun is basically plasma, which means there are free electrons everywhere, and electric currents happen.
As the sun rotates, the coriolis force causes currents to form. The best way to describe them is they follow a pattern that looks like the shape of a slinky. Remember the old slinkys that would walk down stairs, etc?
So we get this long, tubular, but slinky shaped current.
Over time, this long tube starts to wrap itself into a spiral shape - shaped like a slinky!
These long tubes keep forming and getting more and more complex, with increasing magnetic and electric energy.
Eventually, the energy density gets so high, that the whole thing basically shorts itself out and collapses. Trillions, probably quadrillions of watts are involved.
That’s the reason sunspots look dark. The energy contained in it is in the wrapped electric/magnetic fields, and not the normal optical type energy you see on the surface of the sun. Even though the energy in the sunspots vastly exceeds the normal thermal energy on the surface.
I’m not a stellar meteorologist, so not sure how accurate the guys description was, but made a lot of sense to me!