Where Are the Sunspots?

I ran across this story recently on the Web and in the news. Here's the jist of it. The Sun goes through solar cycles in a recurring pattern every 11 years, with a peak of activity, decreasing to a lull, and then back to a peak, and so on and so on. A minimum was predicted to occur back at the end of 2007 and early 2008, after which sunspot activity would increase. Well, needless to say the Sun has scientists baffled. For nearly a year the Sun has produced little to no sunspots, and this minimum in activity has lasted much longer than anyone expected.

How does this affect Earth? Well, during solar maximums there can be disruptions of cellular service and satellite transmissions, as well as more frequent Northern Lights. A more unknown affect on Earth is our climate. Some scientists argue that an increase in sunspots increases the amount of solar energy that the Sun emits, which in turn can cause Earth to warm. Decreases in sunspots, accordingly, would cause Earth to cool. Some argue that our recent period of "global warming" has been caused in part by increased solar activity.

An interesting thing to note is a period between the mid-1600's and early 1700's, which is known as the Little Ice Age. This period saw brutal, long winters and famine because of crop failures due to the extreme cold. At the same time as the Little Ice Age was the Maunder Minimum, which was a period in which the Sun produced little to no sunspots. Whether the two are related is up to debate, but it would be interesting to see what happened if the Sun unexpectedly entered a dormant period now as it did over 400 years ago.