It took 500 years with reducing solar activity to get from the Medieval maximum to the the grand Maunder minimum. The Dalton minimum came a little over a 100 years later as solar activity was increasing to its modern maximum in the years preceding Solar Cycle 22 (c. 1890 – 1990). Now with the Landscheidt minimum seemingly well established, SC 23 and the current SC 24 show a clear trend of declining solar activity. SC’s 22, 23 and 24 are remarkably similar to SC’s 3, 4 and 5. The Dalton minimum coincided with SC’s 5 and 6.
It is reasonable to assume that climatic conditions over the next 20 – 30 years will resemble those prevailing between 1790 and 1820. But SC24 has a way to go yet and it could be that solar activity for SC24 and 25 will be even lower than during the Dalton minimum and perhaps closer to the Spörer minimum but perhaps not as deep as the Maunder minimum.
But in either case the solar activity to come following the Modern maximum may well resemble the 500 years of decline in solar activity which followed the Medieval maximum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
Solar activity events recorded in radiocarbon. Present period is on left. Values since 1950 not shown: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
The Maunder minimum in a 400 year history of sunspot numbers: Wikipedia
http://sc25.com/index.php?id=268&linkbox=true&position=10
The excellent historical weather chronology covering 1800 years put together by James A Marusek shows that the period between 1790 and 1820 was characterised not only by colder weather but also by violent fluctuations of seasonal weather. An extract of the chronology during the Dalton minimum is here: (weather chronology Dalton).
I give little credence to AGW Alarmism and the doom-saying regarding the effects of carbon dioxide. Environmentalism which was (and still is) highly admirable when concerned with the improvement of local conditions went off the rails when it went “global” and came to be dominated by the overweening arrogance of ignoring the sun and the presumption of super-computers and inadequate computer models. Rather I am persuaded about the dominance of solar influences on the chaotic system which is our climate.
Whether or not a grand solar minimum is on its way, we are in for a decade of two of reduced activity and a cooling trend during this Landscheidt minimum.
The k2p blog 
