The sun, weather, and climate: A present-day view of the problem (review)

The problem of solar activity and the related cosmic weather phenomena affecting the state of the troposphere are considered. The general problem statement and main difficulties in the way of its solution are described. It has been shown that several batches of data, which took the interest in the problem to a new level, appeared in the 1990s. It has been indicated that a higher (than was considered previously) variability of the total solar irradiance (solar constant), the correlation of the tropospheric parameters with solar activity on long (several centuries) time intervals, and the revealed relationship of the tropospheric and stratospheric parameters with solar activity on shorter time intervals with regard to quasi-biennial oscillations (QBO) are such data. The indicated facts require that we go back to the problem of the physical mechanisms responsible for the Sun-weather relations. It has been shown that the dynamics of the atmosphere and atmospheric electricity are the two most promising directions in a search for such mechanisms.