Observations of Tropical Stratospheric Winds before World War II

This paper discusses observations of the winds in the tropical stratosphere taken before the advent of regular operational balloon soundings in this region. These observations are at least broadly consistent with modern measurements, in the sense that they show that the winds in the tropical stratosphere have been undergoing some strong interannual variations over the last century. However, the available data appear to be too sparse to construct a detailed chronology of the quasi-biennial oscillation before about 1950. Corresponding author address: Kevin Hamilton, NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University, P.O. Box 308, Princeton, NJ 08542. E-mail: [email protected] In final form 26 March 1998.