scostep 2010 (stp12) - Leibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik an der ...

STP12 Abstracts
Berlin, 12 - 16 July 2010
SCOSTEP Symposium 2010
Features of Spatial Structure of Tropospheric Response to Solar and Geomagnetic
Activity Level Variations
Zherebtsov Geliy , Vasilyeva Larisa , Kovalenko Vladimir , Molodyh Sergey
Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics
We have carried out a multifactor correlation analysis of the connection
between the heat content of various tropospheric layers and solar (f 10.7 cm) and
geomagnetic (AA-index) activity level variations over the period of 1950–2007.
To calculate the heat content, we used NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. We
analyzed the influence of volcanoes, El-Nino, and Arctic sea ice area on
characteristics of the connection under study.
The degree of the connection between tropospheric heat content changes and
solar and geomagnetic activity variations was demonstrated to depend
essentially on the period of smoothing of time series. When the time scale is
increased to 5 years, the correlation coefficient rises considerably (to 0.6–0.7) in
most regions.
We have found that the heat content correlates with geomagnetic activity in
most of the troposphere. But in some regions one can see a significant
anticorrelation decreasing with distance from the underlying surface.
The tropospheric heat content response to the geomagnetic activity influence
is characterized by a significant spatial inhomogeneity which is most
pronounced near the underlying surface and considerably changes with height.
The spatial structure of the response enlarges with increasing height, and the
region of the peak positive response shifts to low latitudes.