11-Year solar cycle in the stratosphere extracted by the empirical mode decomposition method

Abstract

We apply a novel method to extract the solar cycle signal from stratospheric data. An alternative to traditional analysis is a nonlinear empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method. This method is adaptive and therefore highly efficient at identifying embedded structures, even those with small amplitudes. Using this analysis, the geopotential height in the Northern Hemisphere can be completely decomposed into five non-stationary temporal modes including an annual cycle, a QBO signal, an ENSO-like mode, a solar cycle signal and a trend. High correlations with the sunspot cycle unambiguously establish that the fourth mode is an 11-year solar cycle signal.