Science Daily: Sun inactive for relatively long period of time

Science Daily notes that the sun has been inactive for a relatively long period of time:

Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why. . . . .

they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.

It is interesting to note the very cold winter that we had this past year.