Cyclic sunspot activity during the first millennium CE as reconstructed from radiocarbon

Abstract

Context. Solar activity, dominated by the 11-year cyclic evolution, has been observed directly since 1610. Before that, indirect cosmogenic proxy data are used to reconstruct it over millennia. Recently, the precision of radiocarbon measurements has improved sufficiently to allow reconstructing solar activity over millennia. Aims. The first detailed reconstruction of solar activity, represented by annual sunspot numbers, is presented for 1-969 CE. Methods. The reconstruction of sunspot numbers from D14C was performed using a physics-based method involving several steps: using a carbon-cycle box model, the 14C production rate, corrected for the geomagnetic shielding, was computed from the measured data; The open solar magnetic flux was computed using a model of the heliospheric cosmic-ray modulation; Sunspot numbers were calculated using a model of the evolution of the Sun's magnetic field. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach was used to account for different sources of uncertainty. Results. Annual sunspot numbers were reconstructed for the first millennium CE. This period includes one extreme solar event of 774 CE and one Grand solar minimum of 650-730 CE. We could identify 91 solar cycles, of which 26 were well-defined, while 24 and 41 were reasonably and poorly defined, respectively. The mean cycle length was 10.6 years, but the lengths of individual cycles vary between 8 and 15 years. The existence of empirical Waldmeier's relations remains inconclusive. No significant periodicities were found beyond the 11-year cycle. Conclusions. This work fills the gap in the solar cycle statistics between the previously reconstructed first millennium BCE and the second millennium CE, providing vital constraints for the solar dynamo and irradiance models. A consistent 3-millennium-long reconstruction of sunspot numbers, based on a composite multi-proxy cosmogenic record, is pending.

Submitted to Astron. Astrophys

References in corpus (13)

• The Solar Cycle
• Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: New observational constraints
• The new Sunspot Number: assembling all corrections
• A Millennium Scale Sunspot Number Reconstruction: Evidence For an Unusually Active Sun Since the 1940's
• The AD775 cosmic event revisited: the Sun is to blame
• The Maunder minimum (1645--1715) was indeed a Grand minimum: A reassessment of multiple datasets
• Extreme solar events
• Solar activity during the Holocene: the Hallstatt cycle and its consequence for grand minima and maxim
• Solar cyclic activity over the last millennium reconstructed from annual 14C data
• Solar activity over nine millennia: A consistent multi-proxy reconstruction
• Level and length of cyclic solar activity during the Maunder minimum as deduced from the active day statistics
• Models for the long-term variations of solar activity
• Long-term modulation of solar cycles

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Reconstruction of annual solar irradiance over the last three millennia