Prolonged production of 14C during the ~660 BCE solar proton event from Japanese tree rings.

Annual rings record the intensity of cosmic rays (CRs) that had entered into the Earth's atmosphere. Several rapid 14C increases in the past, such as the 775 CE and 994CE 14C spikes, have been reported to originate from extreme solar proton events (SPEs). Another rapid 14C increase, also known as the ca. 660 BCE event in German oak tree rings as well as increases of 10Be and 36Cl in ice cores, was presumed similar to the 775 CE event; however, as the 14C increase of approximately 10‰ in 660 BCE had taken a rather longer rise time of 3-4 years as compared to that of the 775 CE event, the occurrence could not be simply associated to an extreme SPE. In this study, to elucidate the rapid increase in 14C concentrations in tree rings around 660 BCE, we have precisely measured the 14C concentrations of earlywoods and latewoods inside the annual rings of Japanese cedar for the period 669-633 BCE. Based on the feature of 14C production rate calculated from the fine measured profile of the 14C concentrations, we found that the 14C rapid increase occurred within 665-663.5 BCE, and that duration of 14C production describing the event is distributed from one month to 41 months. The possibility of occurrence of consecutive SPEs over up to three years is offered.

Large 14C excursion in 5480 BC indicates an abnormal sun in the mid-Holocene.

Radiocarbon content in tree rings can be an excellent proxy of the past incoming cosmic ray intensities to Earth. Although such past cosmic ray variations have been studied by measurements of 14C contents in tree rings with ≥10-y time resolution for the Holocene, there are few annual 14C data. There is a little understanding about annual 14C variations in the past, with the exception of a few periods including the AD 774-775 14C excursion where annual measurements have been performed. Here, we report the result of 14C measurements using the bristlecone pine tree rings for the period from 5490 BC to 5411 BC with 1- to 2-y resolution, and a finding of an extraordinarily large 14C increase (20‰) from 5481 BC to 5471 BC (the 5480 BC event). The 14C increase rate of this event is much larger than that of the normal grand solar minima. We propose the possible causes of this event are an unknown phase of grand solar minimum, or a combination of successive solar proton events and a normal grand solar minimum.

Another rapid event in the carbon-14 content of tree rings.

Previously, we have observed that the atmospheric (14)C content measured in tree rings showed a strong increase from AD 774 to 775. Although the cause of this event can be explained by a large solar proton event or a short gamma-ray burst, a more detailed discussion of the cause is difficult because the rate of occurrence of such rapid (14)C events remains unknown. Here we report new (14)C measurements from AD 822 to 1020, and the discovery of a second rapid increase of (14)C content from AD 992 to 993. The (10)Be flux in the Antarctic ice core shows peaks corresponding to these two (14)C events. The proportions of flux increase ((14)C/(10)Be) of the two events are consistent with each other. Therefore, it is highly possible that these events have the same origin. Considering the occurrence rate of (14)C increase events, solar activity is a plausible cause of the (14)C increase events.

A signature of cosmic-ray increase in AD 774-775 from tree rings in Japan.

Increases in (14)C concentrations in tree rings could be attributed to cosmic-ray events, as have increases in (10)Be and nitrate in ice cores. The record of the past 3,000 years in the IntCal09 data set, which is a time series at 5-year intervals describing the (14)C content of trees over a period of approximately 10,000 years, shows three periods during which (14)C increased at a rate greater than 3‰ over 10 years. Two of these periods have been measured at high time resolution, but neither showed increases on a timescale of about 1 year (refs 11 and 12). Here we report (14)C measurements in annual rings of Japanese cedar trees from ad 750 to ad 820 (the remaining period), with 1- and 2-year resolution. We find a rapid increase of about 12‰ in the (14)C content from ad 774 to 775, which is about 20 times larger than the change attributed to ordinary solar modulation. When averaged over 10 years, the data are consistent with the decadal IntCal (14)C data from North American and European trees. We argue that neither a solar flare nor a local supernova is likely to have been responsible.