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During the past year the sun has become VERY quiet.  What that means is that the number of sunspots has dropped to levels that we have not seen in about 100 years.  The sun goes through cycles of about 11 years, where the numbers of sunspots spike and then drop off again.  Here is a link that will show you what I mean:  http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/sun/sscycle.html  You might notice a couple of things.  Notice the low numbers of sunspots in the early 1800's.  Do you know what the weather was like during this time frame?  It was colder than normal worldwide.  And during the 50-60 years before this graph there were almost no sunspots to speak of...that is called the Maunder Minimum, and it corresponds to the Little Ice Age.  This would mean global cooling, which is scarier than global warming, although this trend of sunspots would have to continue for 50 years to approach something like that.  So being the optimist that I am, I'm not worried yet.  :) 

As I have written in my blog and talked about on TV in the past, I am not convinced than mankind is causing global warming.  I'm also not saying that we aren't.  I can see evidence on both sides of the issue.  I've already pointed out that worldwide temperatures since 2001 have actually dropped, which definitely brings into question the whole global warming scenario because this drop was not forecasted by anybody associated with man-made global warming.  But I am confident of one thing...the sun is a MUCH bigger contributor to climate changes than anything mankind is doing!  And with that being the case, we may very well be heading into a period of global cooling...perhaps minor, perhaps not.  If this quiet period on the sun continues for a while longer, I believe that we won't even be hearing about global warming in 5 to 10 years.  I know that sounds outlandish, but a lot of people may have to eat their words in the next decade.  There are too many variables here to be sure of anything, but I wanted to bring it to your attention.

Here's another site that you might check out that shows a close-up of the latest solar cycle:  http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/  You'll notice that the forecast is for the number of sunspots to quickly pick up during the summer.  However, this is the 3rd revision to that forecast...they have delayed the onset of the increase a couple of times already.  I really hope that they are correct this time because like I said above, a long period of low sunspots could lead to dramatically colder weather worldwide. 

Now I do not know why this has received very little play in the national media.  It could be because it is not well understood, and so they just ignore it, or it could be that it suggests the opposite of what they have been harping on for the last 2 decades...global warming.  What concerns me is that global cooling could be much more catastrophic than global warming, and that is not something any of us want to see happen.  Unfortunately, mankind can do nothing to stop something like that...we would just have to learn to adapt.  Maybe we'll get lucky during our lifetimes and everything will balance each other out.  The optimist in me is hoping!!

There are many other sites that you can check out on this subject.  Just do a search for sunspots and climate.  Good luck.

Mike