Korean chronicles have a large amount of observational records of natural phenomena, including astronomical and meteorological events over two thousand years. Here we examine the correlation of solar activity and climate change from historical sunspot and frost records in the Korean chronicles. There are 42 sunspot records in Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392 CE) and 13 records in Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910 CE). The sunspot records in Goryeo Dynasty show a periodicity in good agreement with the well-known solar activity of 11 years. Korean sunspot records suggest that the solar activity in Joseon Dynasty decreased compared with that in the previous similar to 500 years. In order to examine the long-period variation of solar activity, we include Chinese historical sunspot records in our analysis to supplement the lack of Korean records, and find a new similar to 240-yr long-period solar activity from the power spectral analysis. Korean chronicles also have about 700 frost records during the last millennium. We investigate these frost records and find a sign of cooling down that can be interpreted as climate change during the last millennium. We also find similar to 240-yr cooling period from the historical frost records, which is well in accord with that of solar activity. Therefore, we conclude that the solar activity has decreased during the last one thousand years and also has a long-term variation of similar to 240 years.
1.Korea Astron & Space Sci Inst KASI, Daejeon 34055, South Korea 2.Chonbuk Natl Univ, Div Sci Educ, Jeonju 54896, South Korea 3.Univ Sci & Technol, Daejeon 34113, South Korea 4.Chungbuk Natl Univ, Dept Astron & Space Sci, Cheongju 362763, Chungbuk, South Korea
Recommended Citation:
Yang, Hong-Jin,Park, Chan-Gyung,Kim, Rok-Soon,et al. Solar activities and climate change during the last millennium recorded in Korean chronicles[J]. JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND SOLAR-TERRESTRIAL PHYSICS,2019-01-01,186:139-146