Suessn.
/suːs/, U.S. /sus/ 1. Suess effect n. the progressive reduction in the proportion of heavy carbon isotopes (especially carbon-14) in the atmosphere and organic tissue as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, which are depleted in those isotopes.
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1957 Science 8 Feb. 240/1 Measurements of the ‘age’ of surface and deep-ocean water samples and of the Suess effect (the depression of the carbon-14 activity of the biosphere by the burning of fossil fuel) have produced new information on mixing times.
1977 Sci. Amer. May 86/3 There is uncertainty in interpreting the present era of solar activity from carbon-14 evidence because of the Suess effect.
2011 Biogeochemistry 104 6/2 More fossil fuel burning occurs in the northern hemisphere due to greater land area and higher population thereby causing a regional Suess effect.
2. Suess wiggle n. each of a number of relatively short-term irregularities, of uncertain cause, in the calibration curves for radiocarbon dating derived by comparison with dates obtained by dendrochronology and other methods.
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the world > time > reckoning of time > chronology > [noun] > assignment to a time or dating > dating methods > irregularities in
Suess wiggle1976
1976 Nature 8 July 128/1 There have probably also been periods of irregular fluctuation spanning a few hundred years (the so-called Suess ‘wiggles’).
2001 Plains Anthropol. 46 62/1 The relative frequency of obsidian from different sources at central Plains sites, such as Warne, may provide a chronological tool for archaeologists frustrated by the Suess wiggles that confound radiocarbon dates.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1957