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Catastrophic and Frightening Solar Storms: Miyake Events

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Started by metmike - Dec. 16, 2023, 7:30 p.m.

Miyake events are believed to be several orders of magnitude greater than the Carrington Event. It is not clear what causes the event.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/16/frightening-miyake-events/

https://twitter.com/i/status/1735343301098684719

https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/FG_4E78LmhpEM2ju.mp4

Specifically, when charged cosmic particles interact with abundant nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere, they can convert them into an isotope of carbon. Radiocarbon 14 filters through the air, oceans, plants, and animals.

This way it can produce an annual record of radiation in tree rings. Compared to naturally occurring carbon isotopes on Earth, radiocarbon is scarce. It forms only in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays collide with nitrogen atoms, triggering a nuclear reaction.

Trees are known to add a new growth ring annually. This means if we can connect the spikes in the quantity of radiocarbon with the growth rings in trees, it can pave the way to obtain a reliable record of radiation storms that might have impacted Earth thousands of years ago.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyake_event

A Miyake event is an observed sharp enhancement of the production of cosmogenic isotopes by cosmic rays. It can be marked by a spike in the concentration of radioactive carbon isotope ¹⁴
C in tree rings, as well as ¹⁰
Be and ³⁶
Cl in ice cores, which are all independently dated. At present, five significant events are known (7176 BCE, 5259 BCE, 660 BCE, 774 CE, 993 CE) for which the spike in ¹⁴
C is quite remarkable, i.e. above 1% rise over a period of 2 years, and four more events (12,350 BCE,^[1] 5410 BCE, 1052 CE, 1279 CE) need independent confirmation. It is not known how often Miyake events occur, but from the presently available data it is estimated that such an event would occur once every 400-2400 years.^[2]

There is strong evidence that Miyake events are caused by extreme solar particle events.^[3]^[4] and they are likely related to super-flares discovered on solar-like stars.^[4]^[5] Although the Miyake events are based on extreme year-to-year rises of ¹⁴
C concentration, the duration of the periods over which the ¹⁴
C levels increase or stay at high levels are longer than one year.^[6]^[7] However, a universal cause and origin of all the events is not yet established in the scientific field, and some of these events may be the result of different phenomena coming from the outer space (such as a Gamma-ray burst)