What does that portend for weather conditions here on Earth from a historical standpoint?

Thanks WxFollower!

From WUWT:

Oddly quiet sun: 3 weeks without sunspots

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/17/oddly-quiet-sun-3-weeks-without-sunspots/

"However, not all solar minima are alike. The last one in 2008-2009 surprised observers with its depth and side-effects. Sunspot counts dropped to a 100-year low; the sun dimmed by 0.1%; Earth’s upper atmosphere collapsed, allowing space junk to accumulate; and the pressure of the solar wind flaggedwhile cosmic rays (normally repelled by solar wind) surged to Space Age highs. These events upended the orthodox picture of solar minimum as “uneventful.”

Space weather forecasters have long wondered, will the next solar minimum (2018-2020) be as deep as the previous one (2008-2009)? Twenty-one days without sunspots is not enough to answer that question. During the solar minimum of 2008-2009, the longest unbroken interval of spotlessness was ~52 days, adding to a total of 813 intermittent spotless days observed throughout the multi-year minimum. The corresponding totals now are only 21days and 244 days, respectively. If this solar minimum is like the last one, we still have a long way to go."

Mojo,

 That’s the $64,000 question. A normal cycle minimum has been found to have only a minimal effect on Earth’s ground temperatures. However, there is evidence that the once in a 100-200+ grand minima may have had more than trivial cooling effects on the globe. Whereas the direct cooling effects from even a grand minimum are likely to still be pretty small, indirect cooling effects MAY not be so small. We should know a lot more within the next 10-20 years at most via observation of global temperatures. Possible indirect cooling effects could be from increased cosmic rays reaching Earth this causing increased low level cloud-cover possibly causing nontrivial cooling. Another possibility is increased volcanic activity. There has been analysis done which suggests increased volcanic activity during grand solar minima..

Yes, good points.

What is overlooked in most discussions on this is the fact that the oceans have over 1,000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. 

When there is an imbalance in energy coming in vs energy going out, you see it quickly in the atmosphere. It heats up during the day and cools off at night.

However, the oceans, especially the deeper oceans store heat for decades, even longer.

Everybody keeps looking for and not finding an 11 year sunspot cycle signature in global temperatures.  Of course they should not be able to see anything because its the stored heat in the oceans that count most.

When we have a strong El Nino for instance, just one part of the Pacific Ocean belching out some extra  heat, heats up the entire planet by half of a degree. 

If there was an imbalance in energy (more) coming in vs going out from the sunspot cycle the oceans will soak that up initially, until it gradually comes out..........especially during El Nino's.

We had a Grand Solar Maximum last century. ............certainly long enough for the increase in sunspots to warm the planet.

The big drop recently has only been over the last 2 cycles. Not long enough. In fact, the increased heating of the oceans from the Maximum could still be coming out of the oceans now.

However, I am not saying that the low sunspot numbers will have a big cooling effect, just that if it does, not enough time has passed for us to see if it does. It's possible that the slow down in the warming the past 20 years is from this.

We are unable to distinguish between greenhouse gas warming and natural, longer term warming(we can identify warming/cooling from some natural cycles like El Nino and the PDO)

Mike,

 Excellent points telling us that it could still take a good while longer for the quieter sun to cause nontrivial global cooling of low level temperatures, if it is going to do so. I, myself, like to point to two potentially analogous facts:

- warmest (coolest) time of year of oceans (land) is two months (one month) or so after the summer (winter) solstice

- warmest part of day on land is usually well into the afternoon, several hours after the sun's highest point in the sky

 So, the idea of a lag makes perfect sense to me although those who oppose the idea of the sun potentially having much cooling influence often ignore the possibility of a lag.

Outstanding examples Larry.

It's well known that years with El Nino's will feature aglobal temperature spike higher. 1998 and 2016 are 2 obviously points below on the graph that illustrate that. 

The 1998 temperature spike probably represented a global warming effect of  almost full 1 deg. C. This is not to blame any of the warming on the natural El Nino(though it was responsible for the spikes higher) as much as to show you how just one section of the Tropical Pacific Ocean, when it belches out heat from near the surface, can warm the entire planet for a year+. 

So if you multiply that effect by the rest of the ocean which is collecting solar heat and storing it below, you come up with some mind boggling heat stored in the oceans. ..........for decades.

If more heat was going into the oceans than coming out, prior to this previous solar cycle which we are pretty sure of, whether most of it was from greenhouse gas warming or not, even if that flow was reversed, initially because of thermal initia(like a ship turning at sea, initially maintaining some of its previous motion) there will still be alot of heat coming out of the oceans that warms the atmosphere from the previous 100 years of having a Grand Solar Maximum.

How can we tell how much was from stored heat in the oceans coming out and how much from greenhouse gas warming?

We can't. If all the oceans were suddenly 10 degrees cooler, the global atmospheric temperature would plunge by an amount of at least half of that, maybe more. The oceans help to keep the planets temperature from wildly fluctuating.  The oceans also evaporate alot of water into water vapor that results in plenty of greenhouse gas warming..........over 10 times the amount coming from CO2

Our  planet is 2/3rds water and water has a 1,000 times greater heat capacity than air. It takes a very, very long time for greenhouse gas warming of the air to slowly warm the oceans. Most of the energy and heat in the oceans, did not come from the atmosphere or greenhouse gas warming. Most warmth in the oceans is from direct solar energy. 

Thanks for the update, Larry and Mike.  I think the lag before feeling and seeing the cold could be several decades due to the heat capacity of the oceans.  But I feel for certain that a little ice age is on the way for at least the North Atlantic.  And I think it could be brutal due to the polarity reversal event happening at the same time.

Sunspots101

They are regions of reduced surface temperature 

 (Cooler area  but don't look for ice,  for  sure )

caused by  concentrations of  flux that inhibit convection

 ( A magnetic field that reduces a normal projection. ) 

"I feel for certain that a little ice age is on the way for at least the North Atlantic"

Me too................sometime in the next million years (-:

Just kidding but the point is that there are many things that we can't be certain of.

The claim in 2007, that the "Science is settled" and "The debate is over" was as anti science and wrong as it gets.

We still have plenty to learn. Elite PHD climate scientists who thought they already knew everything are getting passed up in the understanding of climate science by mere atmospheric scientists with a BS in atmospheric and oceanic science that have been actually following the empirical data and learning new things during the past decade.