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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L23817, doi:10.1029/2005GL024393, 2005

A mechanism for sun-climate connection

Sultan Hameed

Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA


Jae N. Lee

Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA


Abstract

Mechanisms by which small changes in the sun's energy output during the solar cycle can cause changes in weather and climate have been a puzzle and the subject of intense research in recent decades. Here we report that differences in surface circulation conditions during solar maximum and minimum periods are caused by differences in the frequencies with which circulation perturbations in the stratosphere reach the surface. A much greater fraction of stratospheric perturbations penetrate to the surface during solar maximum conditions than during minimum conditions. This difference is more striking when the zonal wind direction in the tropics is from the west: no stratospheric signals reach the surface when equatorial 50 hPa winds are from the west under solar minimum conditions, and over 50 percent reach the surface under solar maximum conditions. It has been previously shown that stratospheric circulation perturbations reaching the surface change weather patterns by imposing atmospheric pressure anomalies characteristic of the Arctic oscillation.

Received 13 August 2005; accepted 2 November 2005; published 10 December 2005.

Index Terms: 1650 Global Change: Solar variability (7537); 3304 Atmospheric Processes: Atmospheric electricity; 3334 Atmospheric Processes: Middle atmosphere dynamics (0341, 0342); 3362 Atmospheric Processes: Stratosphere/troposphere interactions.

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Citation: Hameed, S., and J. N. Lee (2005), A mechanism for sun-climate connection, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L23817, doi:10.1029/2005GL024393.