A History of Solar Activity over Millennia

By I. Usoskin. 2008

273 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Presented here is a review of present knowledge of the long-term behavior of solar activity on a multi-millennial timescale, as reconstructed using the indirect proxy method. The concept of solar activity is discussed along with an overview of the special indices used to quantify different aspects of variable solar activity, with special emphasis upon sunspot number.Over long timescales, quantitative information about past solar activity can only be obtained using a method based upon indirect proxies, such as the cosmogenic isotopes 14C and 10Be in natural stratified archives (e.g., tree rings or ice cores). We give an historical overview of the development of the proxy-based method for past solar-activity reconstruction over millennia, as well as a description of the modern state. Special attention is paid to the verification and cross-calibration of reconstructions. It is argued that this method of cosmogenic isotopes makes a solid basis for studies of solar variability in the past on a long timescale (centuries to millennia) during the Holocene.A separate section is devoted to reconstructions of strong solar energetic-particle (SEP) events in the past, that suggest that the present-day average SEP flux is broadly consistent with estimates on longer timescales, and that the occurrence of extra-strong events is unlikely.Finally, the main features of the long-term evolution of solar magnetic activity, including the statistics of grand minima and maxima occurrence, are summarized and their possible implications, especially for solar/stellar dynamo theory, are discussed.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dd0619d9b92c88e501167a685c8301cb5fe7b834

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Citations in the corpus

Energetic Particle Influence on the Earth’s Atmosphere (2015, background): “It should be noted, however, that future solar activity can not be predicted therefore this can be considered only as a possible “low active Sun” scenario (Usoskin 2013).”
Progress in Solar Cycle Predictions: Sunspot Cycles 24–25 in Perspective (2020, background): “ UNOOSA Space Weather, 2017; Schrijver etal., 2015). Slower, longer term modulation in the solar activity output over time scales ranging from decades to centuries to millennia (Solanki et al., 2004; Usoskin, 2017) deﬁne what is known as space climate (Versteegh, 2005). Space climate plays a role in”
The New Sunspot Number: Assembling All Corrections (2015, background): “s \Grand Maximum" concept rests primarily on an unusually high maximum in the mid-20th century found in time series of cosmogenic isotopes and attributed to a solar origin (Usoskin et al., 2002; Usoskin, 2013). We note however that all studies do not agree on this interpretation: a recent one d”
Recent variability of the solar spectral irradiance and its impact on climate modelling (2012, background): “…of secu-1920 lar trends in solar radiative forcing through the reconstruc- tion of solar activity on centennial and millenial time scales from indirect indices such as cosmogenic isotopes, (e.g. Solanki et al., 2004; Bard and Frank, 2006; Beer et al., 2006; Usoskin, 2008; Schmidt et al., 2012).”