Long-term variations in the correlation between solar activity and climate

The problem of solar activity influences on climate is controversial - some authors have found positive correlations between solar activity and different meteorological parameters, others negative correlations, still others no correlations at all. On the basis of all available global and zonal averages of surface air temperature, as well as measurements in individual stations with long data records we show that the sign of the correlation is the same in different locations, and changes regularly from one secular solar cycle (SSC) to the other, with the sign depending on the long-term solar activity asymmetry.