Abstract
We outline the correlations between the height of the constant pressure levels in the lower stratosphere in the Japanese region and the 11-year solar cycle. We point out that the position of the highest correlations varies substantially from one period to another over Asia and the western Pacific Ocean, whereas over most of the rest of the hemisphere it is comparatively stable. This variability of the position of the highest correlations, in addition to the larger variability in the size of the correlations over the subtropical parts of Central Asia than elsewhere in the same latitudes, gives rise to a large zonal asymmetry in the long-term correlation pattern. And it probably also creates a large variability in the position of the largest solar correlations with total ozone in the same area, because the axis of highest correlation between ozone and the sun is associated with the position of the highest correlations between the sunspot cycle and the heights in the lower stratosphere.
