If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

http://www.space.com/11960-fading-sunspots-slower-solar-activity-solar-cycle.html

This isn't exactly a new story. Anecdotal evidence of decreasing sunspots has been going on for years. But this is the first i've seen of scientific explanation of what forces/changes on the sun may be responsible for the changing sunspots. The article doesn't specify, but in case anybody is not aware, the maunder minimum coincided with what is known as the mini ice age. Whether those 2 events are directly linked, or just coincidental is up for debate, but i seems pretty reasonable to assume that any changes in the sun that are important enough to significantly reduce sunspots, could be significant enough to effect the temperature on earth. So it is a reasonable leap to make that if we are in fact facing another maunder minimum we are likely to see significantly lower temperature in the near features. (there may also be debate about whether the mini ice age was world wide, or just northern hemisphere, but in either case europe/north america seem likely to be on the docket for big chills.)