In solar physics, the Babcock model and its variants describe a mechanism with which they attempt to explain magnetic and sunspot patterns observed on the Sun.
Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years, covering two polar reversals of the solar magnetic dipole field.
[1] On the largest scale, the Sun supports an oscillatory magnetic field, with a quasi-steady periodicity of 22 years.
[2][3] This oscillation is known as the Babcock-Leighton dynamo cycle, proposed by Robert B. Leighton, amounting to the oscillatory exchange of energy between poloidal and toroidal solar magnetic field ingredients.
The process carries on continuously, and in an idealized, simplified scenario, each 11-year sunspot cycle corresponds to a change in the overall polarity of the Sun's large-scale magnetic field.