Yep, I’ve been following that closely myself. It may be something more than a single anomalous cycle.
From another forum:
Here are a few things to keep in mind.
First, the consensus among solar astronomers is that Solar Cycle 24 (the new one) will be longer and weaker than Cycle 23, which was an extremely long and weak cycle. Long and weak cycles are generally associated with cooling trends.
Second, the solar wind remains at about half of historical levels, and no one knows exactly why. This causes cosmic rays to increase, and this year they are 20% stronger than ever observed before. There’s a hypothesis that they contribute to cloud formation, which would reflect more solar energy and cool the Earth.
Third, there’s a very interesting paper from the National Solar Observatory that predicts sunspots will vanish by around 2015, near the peak of the cycle. The reason is that, independent of the solar cycles, three measures of sunspot “quality” have been going down. In a nutshell, the core temperature is getting warmer, and if they get warm enough the sunspots will no longer be visible as dark spots. That’s a rather elegant explanation of the multi-cycle “no sunspots” periods during the Maunder Minimum.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/
The article contains a link to the peer-reviewed paper.
The Maunder Minimum produced temperatures that were so cold, they could ice skate on the Thames River in England. Cold spells like that usually result in famine as well, since crops often don’t grow where they normally would. Think Canadian wheat...
That's one thing that bothers me about the whole "global warming thing. If the Earth warms up, we'll have vast areas of Canada and Siberia warm enough for agriculture. Higher temps mean more ocean evaporation which means more rain.
The effect has been well known for over a century. See cloud chamber, a device which physicists have used to detect subatomic particles using this effect.