Radiocarbon: A key tracer for studying Earth's dynamo, climate system, carbon cycle, and Sun.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34735228.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.abd7096.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Radiocarbon (<sup>14</sup>C), as a consequence of its production in the atmosphere and subsequent dispersal through the carbon cycle, is a key tracer for studying the Earth system. Knowledge of past <sup>14</sup>C levels improves our understanding of climate processes, the Sun, the geodynamo, and the carbon cycle. Recently updated radiocarbon calibration curves (IntCal20, SHCal20, and Marine20) provide unprecedented accuracy in our estimates of <sup>14</sup>C levels back to the limit of the <sup>14</sup>C technique (~55,000 years ago). Such improved detail creates new opportunities to probe the Earth and climate system more reliably and at finer scale. We summarize the advances that have underpinned this revised set of radiocarbon calibration curves, survey the broad scientific landscape where additional detail on past <sup>14</sup>C provides insight, and identify open challenges for the future.