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Why do scientists avoid treating the Maunder minimum as proof that low solar activity causes Earth to cool?

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Space weather Earth's full North Polar auroral oval, in an image taken in ultraviolet light by the U.S. Polar spacecraft over northern Canada, April 6, 1996. In the colour-coded image, which simultaneously shows dayside and nightside auroral activity, the most intense levels of activity are red, and the lowest levels are blue. Polar, launched in February 1996, was designed to further scientists' understanding of how plasma energy contained in the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetosphere.

Scientists avoid treating the Maunder minimum as definitive proof that low solar activity causes Earth to cool primarily because the physical mechanism linking these solar fluctuations to terrestrial climate remains unknown.12

While the Maunder minimum (1645–1715) coincided with the coldest phase of the Little Ice Age, researchers emphasize that a single historical episode—or even multiple suggestive events—does not establish a causal relationship. Correlation between solar activity and surface temperature does not confirm that reduced sunspot numbers are the direct driver of global cooling. Consequently, while the phenomenon indicates that the Sun may influence Earth's climate through even slight fluctuations, scientists maintain that the evidence is insufficient to conclude that solar inactivity is the primary cause of such cooling periods.12