Re: Sunspots hit new highs

From: Brian Tung (brian_at_isi.edu)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:19:43 +0000 (UTC)

Sam Wormley wrote:
> Sunspots hit new highs (Oct 27)
> http://physicsweb.org/article/news/8/10/16
> The Sun is more active at present than it has been for over 8000 years
> according to a new method for determining the level of sunspot activity
> in the past. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute in
> Katlenburg-Lindau and colleagues in Finland, Germany and Switzerland
> have developed a technique that relates the number of sunspots to the
> concentration of carbon-14 in tree rings. However, the team insists that
> this high level of solar activity is unlikely to be the main cause of
> global warming (Nature 431 1084).

I wonder what about this technique is new. Relating the number of
sunspots to carbon-14 levels is an old idea. As I recall, high sunspots
means low carbon-14 levels, and vice versa. It has something to do with
different levels of charged particles coming in through the ionosphere
and changing a proton in nitrogen-14 to a neutron, making carbon-14.

I'd check myself, but I'm reading on a text monitor, and I don't have a
web browser handy. (And I guess I'm too lazy to look it up on lynx or
the like.)

Brian Tung <brian@isi.edu>
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