> not predicting a 60 percent drop in the light and heat emitted by the Sun, but a drop in magnetic activity in the Sun. This has only a marginal effect on the Sun’s light/heat output.
Phil Plait, who does the Bad Astronomy blog, did a well-calibrated and respectful job with that piece. Phil is well hooked in to the solar community, so he is a good person to be consulting. Thanks for linking to it.
Basically, the uproar was caused by a very speculative theory [1] that solar magnetic activity might be decreasing in the coming decades. This concept is not well-established; in fact, it is better-described as a highly speculative theory coming from a data extrapolation by a very small group of solar researchers, at one institution, over the last year or so.
But even if their solar claims turn out to be true -- very big if given their methodology -- they (A) can't (and don't) link their magnetic claims to irradiance, and (B) the irradiance effect of sunspot/magnetic change is strongly believed to be quite small relative to other effects anyway, especially anthropogenic ones.
> not predicting a 60 percent drop in the light and heat emitted by the Sun, but a drop in magnetic activity in the Sun. This has only a marginal effect on the Sun’s light/heat output.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/07/14/global_c...