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Here is an excerpt from a Masters course I participated in back in 2013.

NASA’s Long Range Solar Forecast from 2006 indicated that the upcoming solar cycle (cycle 24) will be at best, similar to the cycle in effect at press time (cycle 23). More importantly, cycle 25 which will cover the time period 2020-2031, is projected to be well below the current cycles.
Solar cycles are approximately 11 years in duration, and are measured in terms of the amount and intensity of sun spot activity. Sun spots are eruptions of highly energetic magnetic fields that originate deep within the core of the sun. Scientists tract the sun spot over time and compute a rate of occurrence and that rate of occurrence is then measured by movement of the sun spots along the surface of the sun. The normal rate of movement has been observed since the late nineteenth century at about one meter per second,; however, according to this 2006 article, the “conveyor belt, the areas of the sun that show most sun spot activity, has slowed to .75 mps in the northern area, and .35 mps in the southern area, indicative of a significant decrease in sun spot activity over time.
The significance of this rather dated report is that the energy released by the sun, which directly affects the earth’s climate, is lessening and the result of that would logically be the cooling of the earth over time as heat is lost and not replaced by lower solar radiation concentrations reaching the earth. Conversely, during solar maximums, the earth is heated to a greater extent (laws of thermodynamics- conservation of energy).
My assessment of this report agrees with the plethora of other reports available through open-sources that are indicative of global cooling due to the decrease of solar activity, not due to some illicit result of man’s industriousness and activity.
I offer up the concept that man indeed has little to no intentional or planned control over the earth’s climate, except perhaps in the case of micro-climate phenomenon around large metropolitan areas, but then only to the extent that the atmospheric currents allow those conditions to exists.
I found several graphs which depict the solar cycles from antiquity through present and we can clearly see that the suns activity and consequently the earth’s exposure to solar energy varies quite a bit. Not coincidently, the weather patterns of the earth reflect those changes with some lag and the surges and ebbs of the solar activity directly affect our weather.

(note: the graphics won’t copy, here are the links....)

Reference: Long Range Solar Forecast-NASA Science, May 10, 2006. http://www.science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10May_longrange/
http://cynicalopinions.blogspot.com/2010/11/closer-look-at-climate-change-part-6.html
http://www.carolmoore.net/articles/sunspot-cycle.html

Basically, the Sun has spots of eruptions if you will, and those eruptions appear as dark “spots” on the surface of the sun, but in fact they are rather energetic and provide the earth with additional energy. These spots tend to circulate around the suns surface and that rate of movement ebbs and flows in about 11 year cycles.

Now, the earth absorbs energy from the sun and like all things, has a certain level of both rate of absorption or rate of loss, this is called thermal inertia. Just like it takes a pot of water a certain time to boil, it also takes a certain time to cool-inertia. While the sun cycles in its emittance of energy, the earth begins to get warmer, then it holds heat as the sun cycle drops in emitted energy, it takes the earth a while to warm and a while to cool, in the meantime, the sun is ebbing and flowing too. Imagine what happens if the sun goes through several cycle periods of intense activity, well the earth would generally warm the more, then, let’s say the sun goes into a period of cycles where the level of energy is reduced, well the earth would lose energy over time. voila! Periods of rather warmer weather patterns and periods of cooler weather patterns, with absolutely no human ability to control either..

This dated discussion topic almost got me removed as a speaker from a certain university back in 2013.