WVU professor researching severe space weather using trees

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Did you know that severe space weather can leave marks in tree rings? It's true, and those marks could help us better understand space weather according to one West Virginia University researcher.

Amy Hessl, a geography professor at WVU, recently received more than $202,000 from the National Science Foundation to further research the topic.

Hessl explained in a WVU press release that, "some events produce solar energetic ps that, through a cascade of reactions in the atmosphere, create radiocarbon. Since trees use carbon in the air to make wood, annual tree rings record a history of past solar activity."

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Research has shown that some old tree rings show evidence of "Miyake events", or unusually severe storms that are characterized by quick increases in the amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere. Hessl said she hopes the tree ring records can help scientists understand the cause and determine how severe the events were.

There are issues with these marks however. Evidence from Miyake events also suggests some trees store carbon to allocate later, so Hessl and her collaborators are now studying how consistent different trees can be when recording atmospheric radiocarbon.

Though Hessl described such extreme solar weather as rare, she still feels it is important to understand them as a means to protect our modern-day technology.

"We're dependent on satellites and, if it did happen again, it would probably wipe out most of our telecommunications, taking 15 years to recover. It's that powerful."

Hessl and her collaborators plan to compare trees from Utah, North Carolina and trees preserved in the Missouri riverbeds in their research.