Evidence of 11-year solar cycles in tree rings from 1010 to 1110 AD - Progress on high precision AMS measurements

Oak tree rings from Southern Germany covering the AD 1010-1110 years have been analyzed for radiocarbon with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the laboratory at ETH Zurich. High-precision measurements with a precision down to 12 years radiocarbon age and a time resolution of 2 years aimed to identify modulations of the C-14 concentration in tree ring samples caused by the 11 years solar cycles, a feature that so far is not visible in the IntCal calibration curve. Our results are in good agreement with the current calibration curve IntCal09. However, We observed an offset in radiocarbon age of 25-40 years towards older values. An evaluation of our sample preparation, that included variations of e.g.: chemicals, test glasses and processing steps did not explain this offset. The numerous measurements using the AMS-MICADAS system validated its suitability for high precision measurements with high repeatability. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.