[Monti Cello]

You mean like Solanki 2004 in Nature who concluded:

The current level of high solar activity has now already lasted close to 65 years and is marked by the arrow on the figure. This implies that not only is the current state of solar activity unusually high, but also this high level of activity has lasted unusually long.

Solanki reconstructed the group sunspot number in the late 20th century to be at the highest levels in the past 1000 years.

What is your point? And again, why has the temperature trend stalled over the last decade?

[palmer]

To clarify, if solar activity is unusually high as Solanki says, there are fewer cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere because of the increase in the sun's magentic field. This is thought to be a warming effect because cosmic rays help form low level clouds that cool the earth.

[cogitator]

What is your point? And again, why has the temperature trend stalled over the last decade?

Same Solanki. If you'd go to the link, you'd read:

"The figure shows that sunspot numbers rose in the first half of the 20th century, along with temperatures. The rise in solar activity in the early part of the century is though to be connected with an 80 year cycle of solar activity known as the Gleissman cycle. The temperature increase in the second half of the twentieth century does not seem to linked with sunspot numbers."

"Although the correspondance with sunspot numbers is good, the relationship between sunspot numbers and solar irradiance is not straightforward. Several methods exist to calculate solar irradiance from sunspot numbers. One of the most recent is that of Solanki & Fligge (1999). When estimated irradiance is used instead of straight sunspot numbers, the* correspondance with global temperatures, but it still cannot explain the increase in temperatures over the past 30 years."

* I think this should say "there is"; anyway, here's Figure 3:

Your question "Why has the temperature trend stalled over the last decade?" -- because 1998 was an abnormally warm year with a massive El Nino. 2005 was nearly as warm (Goddard Institute of Space Studies found it warmer) WITHOUT an El Nino occurring. Odds are the next El Nino year will set a new global temperature record; then there won't be a "stall" to worry about.