The earth's magnetic north pole has migrated 1,000 km north in the past 100 years (http://www.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/e_nmpole.html).The earth's magnetic field has been weakening for the past 2,000 years (http://earth.agu.org/sci_soc/hoffman.html), and has weakened by 8% in the past 150 years (http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tworx365.htm ). Assuming a weakening of 1% every 19 years, this means that it would now be less than zero - so it must have been more rapid in the past 150 years. In other words, things are accelerating! The sun's coronal magnetic flux has doubled in the past century (http://www.wdc.rl.ac.uk/wdcc1/papers/nature.html ).
The last sunspot cycle ended with a bang, with THE most powerful flare ever (an X-20 class CME on April 15, 2001) and the second highest sunspot number in the past 400 years (http://www.spaceweather.com/).
