Okay, I read your

https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1508/

So, there were measurements of larger, easier to see sun spots, all sun spots including small ones, and sun spot clusters. There have been some old records and also some data from some tricky chemistry on earth in some rocks or some such of effects of sun spots, data that goes way back, maybe thousands of years, maybe more. So, someone applied Kelley's Variable Constant and Fink's Finagle Factor with their thumb on the scale and corrected all the data and got, presto, bingo, wonder of wonders, a grant for CO2 research from the old Obama Administration?????

Even taking that article at face value, for discussing global warming, CO2, and sun spots, the article
doesn't look nearly as relevant as we would want. Actually it looks like it is knocking down arguments I was not making, picking arguments it could knock down, setting up straw men just to knock them down, and not very directly addressing global warming.

E.g., the article knocks down an argument about a long term, increasing "trend" of sun spots. Okay. I was never aware that anyone claimed that there was such a "trend".

E.g.,
apparently there have been claims of a recent "maximum" of sun spots, and the article claimed to knock down that claim, also. Gee, the article was the first I'd heard of any such "maximum" -- I was not arguing for such a "maximum".

It remains that the Little Ice Age was darned cold, and it was in force when Washington crossed the Delaware and Napoleon returned from Moscow. IIRC from the last time I looked up The Little Ice Age on Wikipedia, the LIttle Ice Age lasted much longer than the link's relatively short interval for the Maunder Minimum.

Q. 1. So, what the heck caused the fall in temperature at the beginning of the Little Ice Age?

A. 1. Apparently no one is arguing, or has data on, lower CO2 concentrations as the cause. So, CO2 is not the only cause of global cooling.

Then, sure, cancel that cause, i.e., suppose whatever it was it goes away, and we should see some global warming without considering CO2 unless there was lower CO2 at the beginning of the cooling.

Q. 2. What got us out of the Little Ice Age?

A. 2. Maybe CO2 from the Industrial Revolution? Or maybe the earth just returned to what it was doing before it got cold, whatever the cause of that warmer globe was, and not CO2.

For,

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/sci...

that's really sad stuff; I'm sorry to see the UCS push that stuff: So, they argue that to the best they know how, just "natural" can't explain the temperature variations. Then in their models, they put in what they believe would be the effects of CO2 and, presto, bingo, wonder of wonders, and I can believe after some appropiate debugging and grant from the Obama Administration, the model fits old history. That's weaker than over cooked pasta.

Didn't one of those links mention how warm it is now? I don't believe it is especially warm now: From what I've seen, there's been no significant increase in temperature for the past 16 or so years. So, in particular the temperature is essentially the same as in year 2006 when the NAS report I referenced claimed that the temperature in 2006 was essentially the same as in year 1000 before any influence from human sources of CO2.

I can't be very sure about the sun spot explanation, but to me it looks much better than the CO2 explanation.

Net, I don't see work that lets us predict the temperature 100 years from now other than just guess "no change".

Also, in just simple terms from lots of just simple temperature evidence, I see no reason for alarm.