The paper deals with the relation of long-term variations of 10 GV galactic
cosmic rays (GCR) to the global solar magnetic field and solar wind parame
ters. This study continues previous works, where the tilt of the heliospher
ic current sheet (HCS) and other solar-heliospheric parameters are successf
ully used to describe long-term variations of cosmic rays in the past two s
olar cycles. The novelty of the present work is the use of the HCS tilt and
other parameters reconstructed from Ha observations of filaments for the p
eriod when direct global solar magnetic field observations were unavailable
. Thus, we could extend the GCR simulation interval back to 1953. The analy
sis of data for 1953-1999 revealed a good correlation (the correlation coef
ficient > 0.88) between the solar-heliospheric parameters and GCR in differ
ent cycles of solar activity. Moreover, the approach applied makes it possi
ble to describe the behavior of cosmic rays in the epochs of solar maxima,
which could not be done before. This indicates both the adequacy of the mod
el and the reliability of the reconstructed global solar magnetic field par
ameters. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.