On the inner circle, the hand indicates the current year of the solar cycle.

For reasons that aren't clear, the solar cycle returned at the end of this period, and temperatures rose accordingly.

However, solar cycles fail to account for warming observed since the 1980s to the present day.

No individual solar cycle is the same as the next though, and this brings me to another reason that the Sun has been in the news.

It is the current solar cycle, and began on January 4, 2008, but there was minimal activity until early 2010.

Not in two years' time when this solar cycle is supposed to peak?

But do they match up with the solar cycle, sir?

Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

"And you knew this solar cycle off the top of your head?"

But he disagreed with the model's prediction that the next solar cycle would start later than expected.