Mounting Evidence for an Impending Cooling Trend...

I've been reporting little tidbits here and there about the surprising lack of sunspots at the beginning of the current solar cycle. The low numbers of sunspots continues to the present time.

A paper just published (PDF) adds another dimension: not only are there fewer sunspots, but the ones that we have are weaker. Both factors contribute to lower solar irradiance – which means the sun is delivering less heat to the Earth.

I like this passage, from a web site that has a history of being completely credulous of anthropogenic global warming:

All of these numbers indicate that a return to Maunder-Minimum-like conditions could take us back to the conditions of the first half of last century, which would be a significant change in the climate. That would certainly take a bit of the time pressure off our attempts to limit our use of fossil fuels. But the impact would be less than we'd expect from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, meaning it would only delay some of the more significant climate changes.

It's very nice to see some actual climate science being widely published (instead of climate modeling)...