Solar Physics

, Volume 290, Issue 10, pp 3051–3069 | Cite as

The Annual Cosmic-Radiation Intensities 1391 – 2014; The Annual Heliospheric Magnetic Field Strengths 1391 – 1983, and Identification of Solar Cosmic-Ray Events in the Cosmogenic Record 1800 – 1983

Article

Abstract

The annual cosmogenic \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) ice-core data from Dye 3 and the North Greenland Ice-core Project (NGRIP), and neutron-monitor data, 1951 – 2014, are combined to yield a record of the annual cosmic-ray intensity, 1391 – 2014. These data were then used to estimate the intensity of the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF), 1391 – 1983. All of these annual data are provided in the Electronic Supplementary Material. Analysis of these annual data shows that there were significant impulsive increases in \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) production in the year following the very large solar cosmic-ray events of 1942, 1949, and 1956. There was an additional enhancement that we attribute to six high-altitude nuclear explosions in 1962. All of these enhancements result in underestimates of the strength of the HMF. An identification process is defined, resulting in a total of seven impulsive \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) events in the interval 1800 – 1942 prior to the first detection of a solar cosmic-ray event using ionization chambers. Excision of the \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) impulsive enhancements yields a new estimate of the HMF, designated B(PCR-2). Five of the seven \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) enhancements prior to 1941 are well correlated with the occurrence of very great geomagnetic storms. It is shown that a solar cosmic-ray event similar to that of 25 July 1946, and occurring in the middle of the second or third year of the solar cycle, may merge with the initial decreasing phase of the 11-year cycle in cosmic-ray intensity and be unlikely to be detected in the \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) data. It is concluded that the occurrence rate for solar energetic-particle (SEP) events such as that on 23 February 1956 is about seven per century, and that there is an upper limit to the size of solar cosmic-ray events.

Keywords

Cosmogenic \(^{10}\mathrm{Be}\) Solar cosmic-ray modulation Solar cosmic rays Interplanetary magnetic field 

Notes

Acknowledgements

The research at the University of Maryland was funded by US NSF grant 1050002. The research at EAWAG is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under the grant CRSI122-130642 (FUPSOL). K.G. McCracken acknowledges the consistent support that he has received since 2005 from the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Bern, Switzerland. This work was completed in association with the ISSI Long-term Solar/Solar Wind Workshop (2012 – 2013) and profited from discussions during the PAGES workshops in Davos (2012 and 2014). The assistance and critical comments of M. Owens and E. Cliver and those of the referee are acknowledged with gratitude. All of the data and methods used here have been provided in the references cited.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary material

11207_2015_777_MOESM1_ESM.xls (116 kb)
(XLS 114 kB)

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Institute for Physical Science and TechnologyUniversity of MarylandCollege ParkUSA
  2. 2.EawagDuebendorfSwitzerland

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