Grand Solar Minimum

"Tempus Solaris: Some concepts on solar activity, secular variations of atmospheric Carbon–14,  and the Carbon Isotope Stages

"Absolute dating by the Radiocarbon method has been a fundamental tool for archaeologist worldwide since mid-twentieth century. But, even today Radiocarbon calibration has received little attention, because there is no full understanding on the implications of existence of cyclic abnormalities in calibration curves for chronology building at regional or continental level. A critical class of such anomalies is the De Vries Effect, or Suess ‘wiggles’, which refer to secular or middle range variations in the 14C record. Account of such anomaly, far from limiting the utility of Radiocarbon method, constitute a useful tool for chronology building at macro-regional level, taking as a reference natural and global scale events instead of local cultural phenomena, sometimes difficult to correlate between them because their characteristics are so particular. The advantage of the issued chronology is it’s foundation on secular atmospheric variations that renew the bond between solar variability and Earth’s climate, rescuing its eventual impact in the cultural development.""

Carbon Isotope Stages: A chronological model based on secular variations in the atmospheric Carbon-14

The present article explains the Carbon Isotope Stages or CIS (Salcedo 2011) starting from the secular variations in the atmospheric Carbon–14. Such proposal is based on a phenomenon noticed by the author in 1997; during the calibration of a series of dates resulting in clusters generated by the ‘topography’ of the Radiocarbon calibration curves. The resulting temporal stages are in concordance with medium-term cyclic variations in the solar activity, recorded by different scientific disciplines in mid-XXth century (De Vries 1958; Dewey 1960; Link 1955; Schove 1955; Suess 1961), where the Grand Solar Minima mark the end of each stage. This alternative approach to chronology can be applied to Archaeology as well other Quaternary disciplines, allowing to contrast regional and interregional contemporaneity in a natural context, instead of cultural, liberating archaeologist from the chronological particularities of the classic local cultural sequences.

Solar variability occurs over a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, from the Sun’s brightening over its lifetime to the fluctuations commonly associated with magnetic activity over minutes to years. The latter activity includes most prominently the 11 yr sunspot solar cycle and its modulations. Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, coronal mass ejections, and geomagnetic storms, have long been known to approximately follow the solar cycle occurring more frequently at solar maximum than solar minimum. These events can significantly impact our advanced technologies and critical infrastructures, making the prediction for the strength of future solar cycles particularly important. Several methods have been proposed to predict the strength of the next solar cycle, cycle 25, with results that are generally not always consistent. Most of these methods are based on the international sunspot number time series, or other indicators of solar acti...