Influence of Solar Flare Particles on the General Circulation of the Atmosphere

Abstract

IN the past a few attempts have been made to establish an influence of solar flares on atmospheric pressure, all attempts being limited to a rather small region or even a single station¹. In the work recorded here I have computed the change in height of the 500-mb level during the first 24 h after a flare for 54 grid-points covering a large portion of the northern hemisphere. The period of investigation is the International Geophysical Year, for which 53 flares well distributed over the whole period have been selected from the Boulder Reports, all flares being of importance 2⁺ or higher. For flare outbursts which occurred between 12 U.T. and 24 U.T. the next day was taken as ‘zero-day’; this was a consequence of the fact that only height data of 00 U.T. were used.