The correlation of tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures and its effect on the detection of climate changes

Abstract

Based on 42 years of seasonal mean temperature anomalies of the troposphere and stratosphere in De Bilt, the Netherlands, we find that the tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperatures are inversely correlated. The high stratospheric temperatures are apparently uncorrelated with tropospheric temperature. The inverse correlation of tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperatures is most apparent in summer. This correlation is associated with the prevailing weather systems, the warm troposphere seasons are associated with more high pressure systems, the cold troposphere seasons are associated with more lower pressure systems, being consistent with the Dines' relationship (Dines, 1919). We point out that the small warming trends in the troposphere and cooling trends in the lower stratosphere from the middle sixties to 1985 are not evidently caused by the greenhouse effect, as the internal fluctuations of the atmosphere‐ocean system can also create the same trends. We think that it is until now (maybe even in the near future), impossible to find any reliable evidence of climatic change by searching for the combined signal of the tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling. Another way of detecting the climatic changes is to search for the signal of the increase of the lower stratospheric cooling with increasing altitude. We will show that this method may be able to separate the climatic change due to the external forces from the atmospheric internal fluctuations.