The Grand Solar Minimum

According to USA Today, "Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming". The May 17, 2018 article goes on to state that:

It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts. It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month. Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. "We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt.

Despite a constant stream of such articles in the MSM, there are those to beg to differ with the prediction that our world will continue to warm. Some say that the Earth is entering a cooling phase and their claims are based on the behaviour of the Sun. They say that the Sun in entering what is termed a Grand Solar Minimum and that this will have a profound and chilling effect on global temperatures.

Who will be proved right? This 16 July 2015 article on Skeptical Science maintains that "no, the sun isn't going to save us from global warming" and goes on to say that:

Recently there’s been a flood of media stories claiming that the sun may be headed towards a quiet phase (a possibility), which could send the Earth into a “deep freeze” (a virtual impossibility). These stories appear to have originated in the biased conservative media (like the Daily Mail and Telegraph) and seeped into other media outlets (like CNN). Some media outlets, like the Washington Post, did a good job researching the story and discovering its flaws before publishing. 

The stories stemmed from a presentation at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales by mathematician Valentina Zharkova. Her research (not yet published) suggests the sun could be headed for a quiet phase like the one that coincided with a period known as the “Little Ice Age,” but doesn’t say anything about how this solar minimum would impact the Earth’s climate 

Some of the fault for raising this zombie myth from the dead lies with the Royal Astronomical Society’s press release, which mentioned the previous mini ice age without making it clear that it was solar activity but not the Earth’s climate that was the subject of the study. Some of the fault lies with Zharkova, who made comments ‘skeptical’ of human-caused global warming that were not supported by her research. 

And much of the fault lies with media outlets like the Daily Mail and Telegraph, which ran rather sensationalist stories about an impending mini ice age apparently without consulting a single climate scientist. It’s not a coincidence that the media outlets that didn’t contact climate scientists spread this myth, while the media outlets that did contact climate scientists debunked it.

Clearly, the MSM has not presented a united front in blocking the dissemination of these alternative views and the guilty parties are identified. The notion that the Sun could affect global temperatures is dismissed as a "zombie myth" and instead the claim in made that "research has clearly shown, it’s carbon dioxide that’s the temperature’s main control knob". This is an article of faith amongst "climate scientists" and is not open to rational debate.

I've just downloaded a book by John L. Casey called "Dark Winter" described as follows:

Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. In Dark Winter, author John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, NASA headquarters consultant, and space shuttle engineer tells the truth about ominous changes taking place in the climate and the Sun. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in the discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next thirty years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.

I'll try to ignore his White House and NASA connections and set about reading the book. I've watched an interview he gave on YouTube about his views and he was certainly presented a good argument in support of his claims. The video appears on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, uploaded 1 Jan 2018:

Valentina Zharkova is mentioned in this interview. According to Casey, we are now entering this cooling period but he doesn't believe we are entering a mini-ice-age of the sort that is associated with the so-called Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. Rather, he is of the opinion that we are entering a so-called Dalton Minimum of the sort that is associated with the late 18th and early 19th century cooling phase. He has published a more recent book called Upheaval in which he focuses on the increased volcanic activity associated with these cooling phases.

In the following 15 Jan 2018 interview with Zharkova on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, she states the cold period should only last 30 years and will not be as severe or as long as the Maunder Minimum (that lasted for about 60 years):

She is confident in her predications about the coming cold snap and urges governments to prepare for what is about to happen, rather than clinging to the myth that man-made CO2 emissions will continue to warm the planet.