Production of cosmogenic isotopes 7Be, 10Be, 14C, 22Na and 36Cl in the atmosphere: Altitudinal profiles of yield functions

TL;DR

This paper provides detailed altitude profiles of cosmogenic isotope production in the atmosphere, enabling improved modeling of isotope distribution for climate and solar activity studies.

Contribution

It introduces the first detailed altitude profiles of production functions for five cosmogenic isotopes, facilitating direct application in atmospheric transport models.

Findings

Good agreement with previous production rate estimates

Altitude profiles enable better atmospheric transport modeling

Application to ice core data for past solar activity reconstruction

Abstract

New consistent and precise computations of the production of five cosmogenic radio-isotopes, 7Be, 10Be, 14C, 22Na and 36Cl, in the Earth's atmosphere by cosmic rays are presented in the form of tabulated yield functions. For the first time, a detailed set of the the altitude profiles of the production functions is provided which makes it possible to apply the results directly as input for atmospheric transport models. Good agreement with most of the earlier published works for columnar and global isotopic production rates is shown. Altitude profiles of the production are important, in particular for such tasks as studies of strong solar particle events in the past, precise reconstructions of solar activity on long-term scale, tracing air-mass dynamics using cosmogenic radio-isotopes, etc. As an example, computations of the $^{10}$Be deposition flux in the polar region are shown for the last decades and also for a period around 780 AD and confronted with the actual measurements in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores.