Abstract
The Mansurov Effect is related to the interplanetary magnetic field
(IMF) and its ability to modulate the global electric circuit, which is
further hypothesized to impact the polar troposphere through cloud
generation processes. In this paper we investigate the connection
between IMF By-component and polar surface pressure by using daily ERA5
reanalysis for geopotential height since 1980. Previous studies have
shown to produce a significant 27-day cyclic response during solar cycle
23. However, when appropriate statistical tests are applied, the
correlation is not significant at the 95\% level. Our
results also show that data from three other solar cycles, which have
not been investigated before, produce similar cyclic responses as during
solar cycle 23, but with seemingly random offset in the timing of the
signal. We examine the origin of the cyclic pattern occurring in the
super epoch/lead lag regression methods commonly used to support the
Mansurov hypothesis in all recent papers, as well as other phenomena in
this community. By generating random normally distributed noise with
different levels of temporal autocorrelation, and using the real IMF
By-index as forcing, we show that the methods applied to support the
Mansurov hypothesis up to now, are highly susceptible, as cyclic
patterns always occurs as artefacts of the methods. This, in addition to
the lack of significance, suggests that there is no adequate evidence in
support of the Mansurov Effect.