The bit in my comment about the period of the solar cycle being 11 years was a quote. The sun also oscillates in intensity over hundreds and thousands of years. The sun was (allegedly) slightly less active the Europe's colonial age, which motivated a lot of people to leave Europe. The sun was slightly more active during most of the 20th century, leading to the observations behind the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Some scientists, who aren't wedded to the anthropogenic theory, have looked at all the solar numbers and concluded we're due for a couple decades of weak solar cycles (global cooling) before the warming resumes.

I don't know who to believe, I just wanted to point out that there might be a reason behind this alleged "warmest winter ever" other than "it's the CO2". I'm not particularly interested in debating with someone with convictions of hot-earth environmental catastrophe being more reasonable than cold-earth environmental catastrophe, so feel free to have the last word.