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Compatibility of Atmospheric 14CO2 Measurements: Comparing the Heidelberg Low-Level Counting Facility to International Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2016

Samuel Hammer ,
Ronny Friedrich ,
Bernd Kromer ,
Alexander Cherkinsky ,
Scott J Lehman ,
Harro A J Meijer ,
Toshio Nakamura ,
Vesa Palonen Open the ORCID record for Vesa Palonen [Opens in a new window] ,
Ron W Reimer  and
Andrew M Smith
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Samuel Hammer*
Affiliation:
Institut für Umweltphysik, Heidelberg University, Germany
Ronny Friedrich
Affiliation:
Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry gGmbH, Mannheim, Germany
Bernd Kromer
Affiliation:
Institut für Umweltphysik, Heidelberg University, Germany Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry gGmbH, Mannheim, Germany
Alexander Cherkinsky
Affiliation:
Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, USA
Scott J Lehman
Affiliation:
INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Harro A J Meijer
Affiliation:
Centre for Isotope Research (CIO), Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen (ESRIG), University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Toshio Nakamura
Affiliation:
Center for Chronological Research, Nagoya University, Japan
Vesa Palonen
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland
Ron W Reimer
Affiliation:
14CHRONO Centre for Climate, the Environment and Chronology,School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Andrew M Smith
Affiliation:
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Lucas Heights, NSW 2234, Australia
John R Southon
Affiliation:
Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine, California 92612, USA
Sönke Szidat
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry & Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Switzerland
Jocelyn Turnbull
Affiliation:
National Isotope Centre, GNS Science New Zealand and CIRES, University of Colorado, USA
Masao Uchida
Affiliation:
National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan
*
*Corresponding author. Email: shammer@iup.uni-heidelberg.de.
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Abstract

Combining atmospheric Δ14CO2 data sets from different networks or laboratories requires secure knowledge on their compatibility. In the present study, we compare Δ14CO2 results from the Heidelberg low-level counting (LLC) laboratory to 12 international accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) laboratories using distributed aliquots of five pure CO2 samples. The averaged result of the LLC laboratory has a measurement bias of –0.3±0.5‰ with respect to the consensus value of the AMS laboratories for the investigated atmospheric Δ14C range of 9.6 to 40.4‰. Thus, the LLC measurements on average are not significantly different from the AMS laboratories, and the most likely measurement bias is smaller than the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) interlaboratory compatibility goal for Δ14CO2 of 0.5‰. The number of intercomparison samples was, however, too small to determine whether the measurement biases of the individual AMS laboratories fulfilled the WMO goal.

Keywords

atmospheric radiocarbonLLCAMSintercomparison
Type
Advances in Physical Measurement Techniques
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 3: Proceedings of the 22nd International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 2) , June 2017 , pp. 875 - 883
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2015 Radiocarbon Conference, Dakar, Senegal, 16–20 November 2015

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