Solar wind at 50 year low. Cosmic Rays Upswing?

Both NASA and ESA are publicizing analysis of Ulysses long-tour in polar orbit around the Sun indicating a 50-year low in Solar Wind.

From NASA: Ulysses Reveals Global Solar Wind Plasma Output At 50-Year Low

From ESA: Ulysses spacecraft data indicate Solar system shield lowering

Reports of Ulysses' demise appear to be exaggerated, still monitoring the present unexpectedly deep and long solar minimum between cycles 23 and the very gradual onset of cycle 24, and aging solar probe may have spotted a trend. The solar wind, a steady flow measured in speed and in hundreds of protons per cubic meter. Part and parcel with the Sun's magnetic field, the helio-magnetosphere at solar maximum reduces the incidence of Galactic Cosmic Rays by 40 percent.

This analysis, as reported previously, has brought upon the extended Voyager missions a new purpose. Functioning on what remains of their RTG power and already encountering indications of an occillating heliopause, beyond which is a proportionally stronger influence of the galactic magnetic field and interstellar space, the Voyagers are still faithfully recording the incidence of cosmic rays beyond the protection of the Sun's refracting magnetic field.

If the Ulysses team is correct, then the downward trend in solar wind should mean an increasing infall of Galactic Cosmic Rays. Some scientists, like Leif Svaalgard, who correctly predicted the present protracted solar minimum in 2003, have suggested a correlation between cosmic rays and low cloud formation.

Clouds consist of water vapor condensated upon submicron areosols, some perhaps originating when cosmic rays encounter Earth's upper atmosphere.

The possibility exists that a non-volcanic related Maunder Minimum and little ice age, may have begun.