Follow up on sunspots

Back in March I commented upon the surprising lack of sunspots, and wondered what implications there might be for global warmists. Could the missing spots presage a cooling period? Like the one we are experiencing right now in the northern U.S.?

The New York Times has now picked up the story. Interestingly, they don't dismiss the potential relationship of sunspots to cooling. The Maunder Minimum overlapped the "Little Ice Age," after all. However, the scientists quoted are confident that we are not on the verge of an extended spotless period. Maybe something with very low maximums, however, along the lines of the Dalton Minimum.

What were the scientists saying in 2006 in projecting the current sunspot cycle? From the Times:

On Monday, scientists predicted that the next of these cycles would start as much as a year late — in late 2007 or early 2008 — and would be 30 percent to 50 percent stronger than the last one.

So the current cycle is 2.5 years late so far, and now we think it will be much weaker, not stronger.

Perhaps a bit more humility is called for when we discuss global climate change and man's theoretical role, given that climate models don't seem any better than our sunspot models?