Proposed neutrino monitor of long-term solar burning

The standard solar model predicts that the Sun’s luminosity has increased by 40% over the past 5 Gyr of main-sequence burning, a result that has troubled geophysicists and paleoclimatologists. This increase is accompanied by an exponential growth in the ${}_{}{}^8{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{B}$ neutrino flux, with a doubling time of 0.85 Gyr. I argue that one nuclear system exists that, in principle, could yield a quantitative terrestrial record of these past changes. It is not clear whether the reading of that record is within present experimental capabilities.