The Independent has a really interesting article on the current sunspot doldrums.
[A]round the turn of the century things started to change. Within a few years of the Sun’s activity starting to decline, the rise in the Earth’s temperature began to slow and has now been constant since the turn of the century. This was at the same time that the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide carried on rising. So, is the Sun’s quietness responsible for the tail-off in global warming and if not, what is?
Well, maybe not quite. However, it seems that low solar output is puzzling astronomers all over the world, wondering whether the recent dearth in sunspot activity and a serious case of solar doldrums are indicators for a little cold spell on Earth.
We had those before, and the world is not going to end, but a few years of this won’t be fun. Serious changes in climate are never fun, and can bring about all kinds of nasty side-effects, like… famines, war, intellectual revolutions, and all that jazz.
One thing is for sure, though – no matter what the computer model wizards are telling us, predicting climate is about as solid a science as predicting the economy: it’s all about ceteris paribus, and that’s just never the case.
