Of critical importance for our climate on Earth.

Out climate is determined primarily by two factors. 

One factor is the greenhouse effect of our atmosphere. 

"Without the greenhouse effect, the average near-surface air temperature would be –18°C, and not +15°C, as it is now."* The intensity of this effect is determined by the so-called greenhouse gases.  "The most important among these 'greenhouse gases' is water vapor, which is responsible for about 96 to 99 percent of the greenhouse effect. Among the other greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, CFCs, N2O, and O3), the most important is CO2, which contributes only 3 percent to the total greenhouse effect. The manmade CO2 contribution to this effect may be about 0.05 to 0.25 percent."*

 (Note: Much higher figures for the CO2 portion are frequently cited. However in real terms, with high concentrations of water vapor in the air the CO2 effect is largely masked by the water vapor. Only when the water vapor concentration is reduced to low values, as during the deep cold of a glaciation cycle, will the CO2 become a prominent factor.)

That CO2 is not affecting the climate is evident by the historic fact that deep ice ages have occurred in geologic time while the CO2 concentration was 18 times greater than it is today, not just a few percent different. What count in a big way is the water vapor, and on this front the Earth is getting colder.. CO2 is of no consequence.

The other factor that determines our climate is the intensity of the cloud formation.

 (the white of the clouds reflect the incoming solar energy back into space. Both of these factors are affected by the density of the cosmic-ray flux reaching the Earth. The cosmic rays ionize the water molecules that thereby become 100-times more attractive to one another, which increases the cloud formation, and at the same time reduces the water vapor density, and thereby the greenhouse effect. Both of these effects cause colder climates. The greenhouse effect moderates the climate. If it is reduced we get hotter weather on clear days, and colder winters. 

Thus is what we are presently experiencing in the latest cooling trend that began in 1998, according to measurements taken at Solar Terrestrial Institute in Irkutsk, in Siberia. "The average annual air temperature in Irkutsk, which correlates well with the average annual global temperature of the surface air, reached its maximum of +2.3°C in 1997, and then began to drop to +1.2°C in 1998, to +0.7°C in 1999, and to +0.4°C in 2000."* Referring to these measurements in 2003, Zbigniew Jaworowski states, "The current sunspot cycle is weaker than the preceding cycles, and the next two cycles will be even weaker. Bashkirtsev and Mishnich expect that the minimum of the secular cycle of solar activity will occur between 2021 and 2026, which will result in the minimum global temperature of the surface air. The shift from warm to cool climate might have already started."*

*See: The Ice Age is Coming - paper by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw.

What see now, and has been measured in Siberia, actually begun somewhat earlier. NASA reports that the current size of the heliosphere has been the smallest that has been seen in the past fifty years since measurements were taken, and that the solar-wind pressure has become correspondingly weaker (The solar wind is 13% cooler and 20% less dense). NASA also reports an accompanying increase in cosmic radiation, by 20%. In addition to the weakened solar wind, "Ulysses (an ESA-operated space craft, 19+years in operation) also finds that the sun's underlying magnetic field has weakened by more than 30% since the mid-1990s..." (the magnetic field is an electric phenomenon - magnetism is the result of the motion of electric currents) "Thus (the reduced  underlying magnetic field of the Sun) reduces its natural shielding against cosmic radiation, and thereby reduces the global temperature even more." (says NASA).

The Earth is definitely in a major cooling trend that reflects the evidence of a reduced electric-density in the plasma that is powering our sun. The Sun is getting weaker on all front.

Whether the observed condition reflects a short term trend that will reverse itself in a decade or two, or whether it is the beginning of the transition to the next Ice Age glaciation cycle, cannot be determined with any technological instrumentation that we currently posses.