SGER: Paleo-Solar Activity Recorded in Arctic Ice Cores

该项目的首要目标是调查“古太阳活动”。主要的科学目标是重建古太阳事件的未知历史及其对地球的影响，这些事件是由过去1000-2000年在极地冰盖深处分层的大气示踪剂记录的。通过最近由项目合作者首创的新型冰芯分析技术，对过去的脉冲太阳事件（时间尺度为几天到几周）的前所未有的了解成为可能。他们的研究表明，现代太阳活动可以在高时间分辨率（十进制）的硝酸盐冰芯记录中得到可靠的识别。冰芯硝酸盐追踪大气中的硝酸盐和产生它们的过程，包括那些与主要的脉冲太阳事件（即太阳宇宙射线）有关的过程。这项探索性研究将使用从太空时代（~1960）到现在的50米北极浅层岩心进行第一次定量的硝酸盐-太阳宇宙射线校准。这种校准是我们能够解释更古老冰芯样本的重要的第一步。目前正在格陵兰的Summit钻取几个目标冰芯，这些冰芯来自另一个由nsf支持的探险队；他们将以零成本提供给这个团队。我们的提案要求资助建立一个冰芯硝酸盐分析设施，使用最现代的技术，能够在十进位分辨率下进行硝酸盐的探索性连续流动分析。PI的一个直接目标是开发研究工具、科学知识和跨学科深度，以激励、建议，然后对新的、更深的和更古老的冰芯进行类似的分析。这些较大的提案将为研究生和本科生的研究项目提供充足的机会；由于这些机会具有高度跨学科的性质，因此特别需要这些机会来教育下一代科学家。这项工作有可能在天文学、空间物理学和地球科学中定义一个新的跨学科科学领域。“古太阳”科学将研究过去几千年的太阳活动，不仅是了解太阳过去行为的一种手段，也是为太阳作为一颗恒星的长期、未来行为及其对地球的伴随影响提供线索的一种手段。这里提出的技术将首次通过与地球科学、冰川学、天文学、宇宙射线和大气科学的科学家的跨学科研究合作，揭示这些重要的变化。这些研究将与不同的研究和技术领域有重要的相关性，包括人类对空间的探索和发展、大气科学、空间物理学和航空航天技术。

The over-arching project objective is to investigate 'paleo-solar activity.' The main scientific goal is to reconstruct the unknown history of paleo-solar events and their effect on Earth, as recorded by atmospheric tracers stratified deep in the polar ice caps over the last 1000-2000 years. Such unprecedented knowledge of past impulsive solar events (with timescales of days to weeks) is made possible through recent novel ice core analysis techniques pioneered by project collaborators. Their studies suggest that modern solar events can be identified robustly in high time-resolution (decimal year) nitrate ice core records. Ice core nitrates trace atmospheric nitrates and the processes that create them, including those associated with major, impulsive solar events (i.e., solar cosmic rays). This exploratory study will perform the first quantitative nitrate-solar cosmic ray calibration using shallow (50 meter) Arctic cores spanning from the Space Age (~1960) to the present. This calibration is an essential first step in our ability to interpret more ancient ice core samples. Several target-of-opportunity ice cores are currently being drilled at Summit, Greenland from another NSF-supported expedition; they will be made available to this team at essentially zero cost. Our proposal requests funding to build an ice core nitrate analysis facility using the most modern techniques, capable of performing exploratory continuous flow analysis of nitrates at decimal year resolution.One immediate goal is of the PI is to develop the research tools, scientific knowledge, and interdisciplinary depth needed to motivate, propose for, and then perform similar analyses on new, deeper, and older ice cores. These larger proposals will provide ample opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate research projects; such opportunities are especially desired for educating the next generation of scientist owing to their highly cross-disciplinary nature. This work has the potential to essentially define a new interdisciplinary scientific area within astronomy, space physics, and earth sciences. 'Paleo-solar' science will study of solar activity over previous millennia as a means to understand not only the Sun's past behavior, but also to provide clues as to the Sun's long-term, future behavior as a star and its concomitant impacts to Earth. The techniques proposed here will, for the first time, reveal these important variations through cross-disciplinary research collaborations with scientists from earth sciences, glaciology, astronomy, cosmic ray, and atmospheric sciences. These studies will have significant relevance to diverse research and technology areas, including the human exploration and development of space, atmospheric science, space physics, and aerospace technology.