The influence of the 11-year solar cycle on the stratosphere below 30 km: A review

The NCEP/NCAR re-analyses of the global data as high as 10hPa have made it possible to examine the influence of the 11-year sunspot cycle on the lower stratosphere over the entire globe. Previously, the signal of the solar cy cle had been detected in the temperatures and heights of the stratosphere a t 30hPa and below on the Northern Hemisphere by means of a data set from th e Freie Universitat Berlin. The global re-analyses show that the signal exi sts on the Southern Hemisphere too, and that it is almost a mirror image of that on the Northern Hemisphere. The largest temperature correlations with the solar cycle move from one summer hemisphere to the other, and the larg est height correlations move poleward within each hemisphere from winter to summer. The correlations are weakest over the whole globe in the northern winter. I f, however, one divides the data into the winters when the equatorial Quasi -Biennial Oscillation was easterly or westerly, the arctic correlations bec ome positive and large in the west years, but insignificantly small over th e rest of the earth. The correlations in the east years are negative in the Arctic but positive in the subtropics and tropics on both hemispheres. The difference between the east and west years in January-February can be a scribed to the fact that the dominant stratospheric teleconnection and the solar influence work in the same direction in the east years but oppose eac h other in the west years.