Sun spots and climate

At http://phys.org/print358186778.html … sun spot numbers have come up again recently with scientists realising activity on the Sun may affect earth's climate and should be part of their modelling process. This is being done without including the role of the solar wind impacting with earth's ionosphere to any great degree – but it is a beginning. It is worth going back a few months and looking at an earlier study that updated sun spot history. The discovered that sun spots do not necessarily impact on climate to any great import – which may be why it is now considered innocuous to include sun spot numbers in some of the models. The idea that lack of sun spots on the face of the Sun coincides with cooling on Earth actually goes back to the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) but these dates were actually preceded by some very cold years that are either ignored or cannot be explained. In adjusting sun spot data (to account for more developed equipment that was picking up smaller and smaller smudges on the face of the Sun) they discovered that sun spots have been fairly stable over the last 400 years – yet global temperatures have climbed out of the Little Ice Age within that period of time. Was something else going on and has the fixation with sun spots focussed attention away from the real problem?