"LOW SOLAR WIND: The solar wind is losing power. That's the surprising conclusion of scientists working with data from the Ulysses spacecraft, which has been circling the sun in a polar orbit for nearly 20 years. During that time solar wind pressure has dropped more than 20%. Note the blue curve in the "clock plot" below:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2008/25sep08/276531main_McComas-2ndImage-full_strip2.jpg

Blue traces solar wind pressure now. For comparison, green traces the significantly higher pressure of the mid-1990s. How this difference fits into the big picture of solar activity over the centuries, no one knows, because solar wind measurements began only 50 years ago with the start of the Space Age. Early measurements were spotty and not always well-calibrated, so, in fact, we know the solar wind well for even less than 50 years. Consequences of low solar wind include fewer geomagnetic storms, more cosmic rays, and NASA's Voyager spacecraft exiting the solar system sooner than anyone expected. Get the full story from Science@NASA.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/23sep_solarwind.htm

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I have been posting that the sun has become inactive and that we are in a phase where the sun has begun to have a significant reduction in sunspots. Fewer sunspots mean the sun's magnetic field is declining.

In the past, few sunspots have occurred during periods of global cooling.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24404399-30417,00.html

The fear is that we will get more cosmic radiation and more clouds. Low level clouds mean a cooler climate and the theory is that increased cosmic radiation produces more low level clouds.