Modelling cosmic radiation events in the tree-ring radiocarbon record
Article
Article Title | Modelling cosmic radiation events in the tree-ring radiocarbon record |
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ERA Journal ID | 39856 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | Zhang, Qingyuan, Sharma, Utkarsh, Dennis, Jordan A. Dennis, Scifo, Andrea, Kuitems, Margot, Büntgen, Ulf, Owens, Mathew J., Dee, Michael W. and Pope, Benjamin J. S. |
Journal Title | Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences |
Journal Citation | 478 (2266) |
Number of Pages | 21 |
Year | 2022 |
Publisher | Royal Society Publishing |
Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
ISSN | 1364-5021 |
1471-2946 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2022.0497 |
Web Address (URL) | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2022.0497 |
Abstract | Annually resolved measurements of the radiocarbon content in tree-rings have revealed rare sharp rises in carbon-14 production. These ‘Miyake events’ are likely produced by rare increases in cosmic radiation from the Sun or other energetic astrophysical sources. The radiocarbon produced is not only circulated through the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, but also absorbed by the biosphere and locked in the annual growth rings of trees. To interpret high-resolution tree-ring radiocarbon measurements therefore necessitates modelling the entire global carbon cycle. Here, we introduce ‘ticktack’ (https://github.com/SharmaLlama/ticktack/), the first open-source Python package that connects box models of the carbon cycle with modern Bayesian inference tools. We use this to analyse all public annual 14C tree data, and infer posterior parameters for all six known Miyake events. They do not show a consistent relationship to the solar cycle, and several display extended durations that challenge either astrophysical or geophysical models. |
Keywords | radiocarbon; Miyake events; carbon cycle; atmospheric carbon; solar flares |
Byline Affiliations | University of Queensland |
University of Groningen, Netherlands | |
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom | |
Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic | |
Masaryk University, Czech Republic | |
Swiss Federal Research Institute, Switzerland | |
University of Reading, United Kingdom | |
Centre for Astrophysics |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/z02z9/modelling-cosmic-radiation-events-in-the-tree-ring-radiocarbon-record
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