Climate Depot reports the following:
Solar cycle 24 began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009. In fact, in 2008 and 2009, there were almost no sunspots, a very unusual situation during a solar minimum phase that had not happened for almost a century.
If history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a negative impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere – and where we all live.
There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first period is known as the “Maunder Minimum”, (snip) and it lasted from around 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the “Dalton Minimum”, (snip) and it lasted from about 1790 to 1830. Both of these historical periods coincided with below-normal global temperatures in an era now referred to by many as the “Little Ice Age”.
Meanwhile the same site
reports on the pause in warming:
There has been no global warming – none at all – for 17 years 10 months. This is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979.
COTTonLINE suspects these two things are related, and explain why a rise in CO2 hasn't caused the predicted rise in global temperatures. In fact, increased CO2 may be all that is holding off another Little Ice Age. Gaia has tricks up her sleeve.
