Just read a story in Astronomy magazine titled "What's wrong with the sun". There has been other news about this as well. In short - solar activity is very quiet now, with very few solar flares or sunspots and it is lasting much longer than normal. Plus many scientists now think that when this minimum ends and we go into the period that brings us to solar max, with high density of sunspots and flares it will be a much weaker than normal one. It's the type of story alarmists love because they can say doom and gloom things. But scientists are always on the lookout for the unexpected from the sun beacuse of the profound effect it could have here, and an abnormally low and extended sunspot minimum would probably make most of us wish for a counter global warming event. We should have ended the current sunspot minimum cycle years ago and most astronomers are expecting a new outburst of solar flares and sunspots to start occurring anytime from the next few months to next few years. But as yet not much has been seen though many scientist are convinced the activity is working it's way to the sun's surface right now. The sun has gone unusually quiet in the past and the most famous and lasting one was a period called the Maunder minimum. That extended solar minimum lasted 70 years and many believe it caused the Lttle Ie Ae in the 1600's and early 1700's. I believe it was in that period that winters (which were extremely harsh) were extended at both ends of the spectrum with snow reported in June in our area a number of years. Can you imagine Gore seeing that? He'd certainly stop crying global warming in a hurry.
This type of activity again just tells me that there is so much we don't know or ever will know about an unusual solar events effect on earth. But I have no doubt that the sun, not global warming is the most fearful thing we have to worry about aside from a madman with a nuclerar weapon at his disposal. The biggest problem I have with Gore and his crowd is they take it for granted that the sun will behave perfectly and be as predictable as a clock. It doesn't and never will and there's a lot more that we don't know about the sun than we do know about it. There are other side effects of low solar activity. Aurora become less frequent and less spectacular. The edge of the solar system (the heliopause) contracts as the solar wind weakens. This allows more cosmic rays to reach earth. On the positive side electrical interference of radio and TV is much less frequent and radio astronomers can better analyze the universe. But overall if the activity doesn't pick up it may have a profound effect on our climate with winters some of us crave but will get sick of in a hurry. Let's hope the sun returns to normal and we get the weather we are used to.
A couple of links and note that the first one is already a year old and the predictions of the scientist that downplayed the solar quietness in the link have not happened in the ensuing 12 months:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11...cycleupdate.htm
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/48607432.html