The Carrington Event not observed in most ice core nitrate records

Wolff, E. W. and Bigler, M. and Curran, M. A. J. and Dibb, J. E. and Frey, M. M. and Legrand, M. and McConnell, J. R. (2012) The Carrington Event not observed in most ice core nitrate records. Geophysical Research Letters, 39. L08503. ISSN 0094–8276 DOI https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL051603

Preview	Text (AGU allows authors to deposit their journal articles if the version is the final published citable version of record, the AGU copyright statement is clearly visible on the posting, and the posting is made 6 months after official publication by the AGU.) grl29170.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview
	Text grl29170-sup-0001-t01.txt - Supplemental Material Download (1kB)

Abstract

[1] The Carrington Event of 1859 is considered to be among the largest space weather events of the last 150 years. We show that only one out of 14 well-resolved ice core records from Greenland and Antarctica has a nitrate spike dated to 1859. No sharp spikes are observed in the Antarctic cores studied here. In Greenland numerous spikes are observed in the 40 years surrounding 1859, but where other chemistry was measured, all large spikes have the unequivocal signal, including co-located spikes in ammonium, formate, black carbon and vanillic acid, of biomass burning plumes. It seems certain that most spikes in an earlier core, including that claimed for 1859, are also due to biomass burning plumes, and not to solar energetic particle (SEP) events. We conclude that an event as large as the Carrington Event did not leave an observable, widespread imprint in nitrate in polar ice. Nitrate spikes cannot be used to derive the statistics of SEPs.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union
Uncontrolled Keywords:	NIL AREP
Subjects:	01 - Climate Change and Earth-Ocean Atmosphere Systems
Divisions:	01 - Climate Change and Earth-Ocean Atmosphere Systems
Journal or Publication Title:	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume:	39
Page Range:	L08503
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL051603
Depositing User:	Sarah Humbert
Date Deposited:	31 Aug 2013 14:03
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2013 14:03
URI:	http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/id/eprint/2853

Actions (login required)

View Item