I buy the opinion that the shaper of earth weather is the sun. That carbon dioxide cycles may be coincidental rather than causal. The current weather in australia tracks well with the enormous amounts of snow in the US west this past winter and the huge build up of arctic ice in the last year.

What has happened in the last year or so on the sun?

We have entered a solar minimum. (Scroll down to the bottom of the link to see graphic of the 12 year solar cycle. Here is way too much information on solar cycle 24 which we are entering.

Solar flares give off an enormous amount of energy which translates to heat on earth.

What does it mean to be at the solar flare minimum?

When the sun is not so hot as it is right now–things chill out on earth.

Here is a National Geographic article from last year that points out that Mars warming suggests further that the sun is the cause of hot & cold cycles.

The last little ice age from 1645 to 1715 corressponded with the Maunder Minimum…a period when the sunspot cycle stopped and there were no sun spots.