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This is the climate change we should be worried about. This might not be just a mini Ice Age. It could be the real thing. The Earth is overdue for one.

We’ll be glad to have fossil fuels to keep from freezing then and the CO2 fools can be left out in the cold.

In that case, my concern over how it will affect the amateur radio bands will be the least of our worries but the radio scientist in me is still interested for academic reasons. BTW, the last few winters have been brutal. A lot of people wonder how I make it through the ice and snow to work in a front wheel drive Hyundai. There were times I had to hole up in a local diner, they have good breakfasts while other times, I think I came close to buying the farm. I drive 92 miles a day round trip to work.

"Not a radio expert, but what these researchers are talking about is a very quiet sun so without sun spots your radio should work very well."

It can work either for or against communications, depending on the kind of radio usage desired. Many of the more hobby-oriented radio operators like to aim their high frequency antennas (really among the lower frequencies used today) at the ionosphere at more oblique angles for the purpose of skipping waves around the earth and talking to people who are hundreds or thousands of miles away. More sunspot activity helps them to do so, even at frequencies higher than 7.3 Mhz (40 meter waves).

I live in a remote, mountainous area with no useful nearby repeaters or emergency services. Ice can spray with wind gusts to 110 mph for hours during winters here (high elevation), and turn into ice dunes. Temps drop into the low minus-30s (F) each winter. Highways close.

The following explains as to how communication can be facilitated in such an area, if Internet service is down (only one provider and wireless only, nearest repeater further away than most in the business would believe). I learned about it as a soldier in the field long ago.

The NVIS Antenna
http://www.w0ipl.net/ECom/NVIS/nvis.htm

NVIS Propagation
http://www.w0ipl.net/ECom/NVIS/NVISprop.htm

IPS - Global HF - Ionospheric Map
http://www.ips.gov.au/HF_Systems/6/5

Been building equipment here and will be getting licenses soon. Voice capability will be needed, in case someone on the calling end has frostbite or other injuries that would prevent use of Morse Code. And no, here, it will not be a hobby. It will be for family members and distant neighbors (no nearby neighbors) to help each other when really needed (better than tens of thousands of dollars in bills from the emergency-rescue robbery racket). Much more serious and necessary than a hobby--maybe a matter of survival when needed.

Militant hobbyists are against such practical and potentially lifesaving usage, by the way, unless it involves sucking up to their socialist, emergency-rescue folks found nearby around more populated areas. ...or unless they find themselves in trouble in an area like mine and need help (middle of nowhere).

They've unsuccessfully tried to outlaw any practical usage of amateur radio between family members and friends. Their social rules are strange indeed, and involve bizarre pecking order concerns, delusions and conflicts over repeater usage and licenses. Some have been known to demand communications from newer operators in efforts to grill and entrap them.