Notes on the correlation between sudden stratospheric warmings and solar activity

Abstract

A correlation between solar activity and normalized occurrence rate of sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) has been found. As a proxy for solar activity, the 10.7 cm solar radio flux has been used. In order to find the correlation, we derived a normalized occurrence rate of major sudden stratospheric warmings (MSSWs) based on both the ERA-40/ERA-Interim dataset and NCEP data. Based on this distribution, we calculated the correlation coefficient, which amounts to 0.63, with a significance of 90.68 %, for ERA-40/ERA-Interim, and 0.55 for the NCEP–NCAR-I reanalysis, with a significance of 83.80 %. Additionally, we calculate correlation coefficients for Lyman-alpha flux and sunspot numbers with the analogous method for the same period.