"We found evidence that what happens in the stratosphere matters for the ocean circulation and, therefore, for the climate," says Thomas Reichler, study co-author and associate professor of atmospheric sciences from the University of Utah.
Scientists already knew that events in the stratosphere, Nine to 48 km above the Earth, affect what happens below in the troposphere, the part of the atmosphere from earth's surface up to 32,800 feet. Weather occurs in the troposphere.
Researchers also knew that global circulation patterns in the oceans - patterns caused mostly by variations in water temperature and saltiness - affect global climate.
"It is not new that the stratosphere impacts the troposphere," said Reichler in a statement.
"It also is not new that the troposphere impacts the ocean. But now we actually demonstrated an entire link between the stratosphere, the troposphere and the ocean," Reichler said.
Reichler and colleagues used weather observations and 4,000 years worth of supercomputer simulations of weather to show a surprising association between decade-scale and periodic changes in stratospheric wind patterns known as the polar vortex.
They also made use of similar rhythmic changes in deep-sea circulation patterns.
These findings are published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
