evidence: Recently, alarming claims that we are heading towards a "mini ice age" have been popping up across the web. This was the subject of a widely discussed Metro article titled "A mini ice age could be on the way which means it will get very, very cold". Similar claims were also repeated without verification throughout a network of unreliable outlets for climate news including Sputnik, The Sun, Fox News, and numerous hyper-partisan blogs such as Zero Hedge, Principia Scientific, IceAgeNow, Alien-Star… [...] The Metro journalist claimed that this drop in solar activity could cause a cooling at the Earth’s surface: "Sunspot activity on the surface of our star has dropped to a new low. NASA scientist Martin Mlynczak explained to Climate Feedback that headline claims of coming cold weather are false and result from a misunderstanding, as the temperature effect of this low solar activity is primarily felt in the far upper reaches of the outer atmosphere, and is not expected to have any effect on the surface temperatures we experience: [...] Claims of an imminent "mini ice age" linked to solar activity appear frequently at certain outlets, as they make for attention-grabbing stories that purport to contradict projections of human-caused climate change. Scientists have debunked similar statements in the past. In July 2015, for instance, the Telegraph published an article titled "Earth heading for ‘mini ice age’ within 15 years". And in 2016, the Heartland Institute published a booklet aimed at children in the US claiming that "the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming".