The solar magnetic sector structure appears to be related to the average area of high positive vorticity centers (low-pressure troughs) observed during winter in the Northern Hemisphere at the 300-millibar level. The average area of high vorticity decreases (low-pressure troughs become less intense) during a few days near the times at which sector boundaries are carried past the earth by the solar wind. The amplitude of the effect is about 10 percent.
New evidence supports some earlier findings of connections between solar activity and weather that involve streams of solar corpuscular emission. The time lag between the arrival of the solar streams and their first lower stratospheric or tropospheric response is about three days, and the effects appear to be most pronounced in winter. No fully plausible physical explanation is known, but some speculations are advanced regarding a possible heating mechanism for the upper troposphere that results from aurora‐induced cirrus clouds over the relatively warm Gulf of Alaska.
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