So-called sunspots, intense solar storms that eject mass amounts of energy and darken the solar surface, have been all but missing the last two years. Typically, the more spots, the more energy the sun gives off.

What effect this might have on world climate is unclear. Earth's atmosphere and the sun have had a long and complex relationship, and scientists acknowledge they still are not sure precisely what goes on between them.

But changes in the deceptively volatile star evidently do have some impact on the planet's weather.

Sunspots have been tied to everything from droughts to wine vintages to the sinking of the Titanic. A sunspot lull correlated with the Little Ice Age -- from the 14th through 19th centuries -- when "Greenland" became a misnomer.

Recently, the sun has been ever-so-subtly weaker than usual. Last year, 266 days were spot-free, and not a single spot was