[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Hasn't been that long ago ....2004,....this posted on FR in 2005:

Sunspot Activity at 8,000-Year High

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SPACE.com ^ | 27 October 2004 | Robert Roy Britt

Posted on Sat 17 Dec 2005 07:32:32 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets

Sunspots have been more common in the past seven decades than at any time in the last 8,000 years, according to a new historic reconstruction of solar activity.

Many researchers have tried to link sunspot activity to climate change, but the new results cannot be used to explain global warming, according to the scientists who did the study.

Sunspots are areas of intense magnetic energy. They act like temporary caps on upwelling matter, and they are the sites of occasional ferocious eruptions of light and electrified gas. More sunspots generally means increased solar activity.

Sunspots have been studied directly for about four centuries, and these direct observations provide the most reliable historic record of solar activity. Previous studies have suggested cooler periods on Earth were related to long stretches with low sunspot counts. From the 1400s to the 1700s, for example, Europe and North America experienced a "Little Ice Age." For a period of about 50 years during that time, there were almost no sunspots.

But a firm connection between sunspot numbers and climate remains elusive, many scientists say.

Better record

The new study, led by Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, employed a novel approach to pinning down sunspot activity going back 11,400 years:

[patton]

Fascinating stuff, that.