The Earth's Climate and Variability of the Sun Over Recent Millennia: Geophysical, Astronomical and Archaeological Aspects

The calibration of carbon 14 dating by dendrochronology has yielded evidence of an approximate 200-year period in the carbon 14 generation rate in the high atmosphere. Measurements of Beryllium 10 in ice cores have provided additional evidence for this variation in cosmic rays, which must be attributed to changes in the magnetic activity of the sun. Historical observations also show such a modulation of the 11-year sunspot cycle with a similar period. Therefore, the question is whether variations in the total energy output of the sun have had effects on the climate. Such variations are of increasing interest for archaeologists and historians. This new evidence is relevant to interpreting global temperature changes over the past 100 years and to discussions on the greenhouse effect.

Table of Contents:
The carbon 14 record in bristlecone pine of the past 8000 years based on the dendrochronology of the late C.W.Ferguson, W.E.Suess and T.W.Linick; the spectrum of radiocarbon, C.P.Sonett and S.A.Finney; environmental information in the isotopic record in trees, S.Epstein and R.V.Krishnamurthy; on the need for further isotropic measurements from tree rings, M.G.L.Baillie; precambrian cyclic rythmites - solar-climatic or tidal signatures?, G.E.Williams; environmental records from polar ice cores, C.Lorus; Beryllium 10 and sigma hydrogen 2 in polar ice cores as a probe of the solar variability's influence on climate, G.M.Raisbeck et al; the past 5000 years history of solar modulation of cosmic radiation from Beryllium 10 and carbon 14, H.Oeschger and J.Beer; on the presence of regular periodicities in the thermoluminescence profile of a recent sea sediment core, G.C.Castagnoli et al; astronomical determination of the solar variability, E.Ribes; historical evidence concerning the sun-interpretation of sunspot records during the telescopic and pretelescopic eras, F.R.Stephenson; solar observation in ancient China and solar variability, XuZhentao; relevance of medieval, Egyptian and American dates to the study of climatic and radiocarbon variability, R.Berger; evolutive spectral analaysis of sunspot data over the past 300 years, A.Berger et al; some thoughts on sun-weather relations, J.A.Eddy; holocene climatic change, carbon 14 wiggles and variations in solar irradiance, T.M.L.Wigley and P.M.Kelly; modelling the climatic responses to solar variability, J.C.Gerard; are there solar signals in the African monsoon and rainfall?, H.Faure and M.Leroux; associations between the 11-year old solar cycle, the quasibiennial oscillation and the atmosphere - a summary of recent work, K.Labitzke and H.V.Loon; solar luminosity variations over timescales of days to the past few solar cycles, P.Foukal; time series analysis of Holocene climate data, D.J.Thomson; periodicity and aperiodicity in solar magnetic activity, N.O.Weiss; on possible origins of relatively short-term changes in the solar structure, D.O.Gough; variability in the solar output, I.W.Roxburgh; archaeological evidence and non-evidence for climatic change, P.I.Kuniholm; climate and Holocene culture change - some practical problems, A.C.Renfrew; human biogeography and climate change in Siberia and Arctic North America in the fourth and fifth millennia BP, W.R.Powers and R.H.Jordan; the bearing of phyto-archaeological evidence on discussions of climatic change over recent millennia, J.L.Vernet; closing remarks - astronomical, J.C.Pecker; closing remarks - geophysical, S.K.Runcorn.