Usoskin et al. “present the first fully adjustment-free physical reconstruction of solar activity” covering the past 3,000 years, which record allowed them “to study different modes of solar activity at an unprecedented level of detail.” Their reconstruction of solar activity also displays several “distinct features,” including several “well-defined Grand minima of solar activity, ca. 770 BC, 350 BC, 680 AD, 1050 AD, 1310 AD, 1470 AD, and 1680 AD,” as well as “the modern Grand maximum (which occurred during solar cycles 19-23, i.e., 1950-2009),” which they describe as “a rare or even unique event, in both magnitude and duration, in the past three millennia.” --CO2 Science Magazine, 6 August 2014
