This, of course, is the result of global WARMIN! /sarc
oh wait, Climate CHANGE! /sarc (nope, still frozen, no change here)
SOLAR MAUNDER MINIMUM!
“We’re at the sunspot maximum of Cycle 24. It’s the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years and the third in a trend of diminishing sunspot cycles. So, Cycle 25 could likely be smaller than Cycle 24.”
“during the 1645 — 1715 Maunder Minimum itself, sunspots basically disappeared and as documented in paintings from the era, Northern Europe suffered unusually cold winter temperatures.”
“If we’re entering a Maunder Minimum, it could persist until the 2080s,” said Giampapa, who points out that if such a minimum’s primary effect is cooling, it could wreak havoc by curtailing agricultural growing seasons which, for instance, could lead to lower wheat production in breadbasket economies”
Things in the Antarctic are getting very interesting
In 2007, after 7 years trending downward, the IPCC in their report predicted the sea ice around Antarctica will continue to decline and the decline may soon accelerate
After the 2007 report right on queue, in 2008 the sea ice did the opposite and after it's minimum in February went on explosive growth reaching record highs for the time of year.
This year, the sea ice growth has been similar and has been matching 2008 as the record highest sea ice amount for the time of year.
However, in mid-April 2008, the sea ice growth mysteriously paused for a few weeks and fell back to near normal levels.
What's interesting to watch now, is so far 2014 hasn't experienced a pause like 2008 and is at record highs ( at a whopping 29% above normal) and still rapidly growing. If the sea ice continues to rapidly grow, when the sea ice reaches it's maximum in August/September it's not only going to break the record, it's going to shatter it big time.
Here are the charts from the Cryosphere Today
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html