Changes in ozone concentration are linked to changes in the lower stratospheric temperature. The globally averaged lower stratospheric temperature trends are approximately consistent with the one-dimensional radiative transfer calculations that incorporate midlatitude ozonesonde profile trends. It has also been found that the latitudinal and seasonal dependence of the temperature trends are very similar to those of the lower startospheric ozone. The study of the lower stratospheric temperature is thus a contribution to the understanting of ozone variability.
There exist climatic descriptions of the zonal mean Southern Hemisphere temperature for such significant months as July and October. Others have shown the mean temperature fields at 100, 50 and 10 hPa. Thus major climatic characteristics, spatial variability of the temperature field and the annual cycle are well understood.
The present work studies the interannual variability of the observed temperature field at 70 hPa. For this purpose MSU temperature retrievals are used, between 1979 and 1993. In order to remove the annual cycle the monthly anomaly fields are considered. These mothly anomaly fields are then analyzed using Principal Components. Furthermore the relationship between the observed temperature variablity at 70 hPa and ozone distribution will be discussed