Abstract. Seasonal cycles in the mixing ratios of tropospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) are derived by detrending long-term measurements made at sites across four global surface monitoring networks. These cycles are examined for physical and biogeochemical signals. The detrended monthly data display large interannual variability, which at some sites challenges the concept of a "mean" seasonal cycle. The interannual variability in the seasonal cycle is not always correlated among networks that share common sites. In the Northern Hemisphere, correlations between detrended N2O seasonal minima and polar winter lower stratospheric temperature provide compelling evidence for a stratospheric influence, which varies in strength from year to year and can explain much of the interannual variability in the surface seasonal cycle. Even at sites where a strong, competing, regional N2O source exists, such as from coastal upwelling at Trinidad Head, California, the stratospheric influence must be understood in order to interpret the biogeochemical signal in monthly mean data. In the Southern Hemisphere, detrended surface N2O monthly means are correlated with polar lower stratospheric temperature in months preceding the N2O minimum, suggesting a coherent stratospheric influence in that hemisphere as well. A decomposition of the N2O seasonal cycle in the extratropical Southern Hemisphere suggests that ventilation of deep ocean water (microbially enriched in N2O) and the stratospheric influx make similar contributions in phasing, and may be difficult to disentangle. In addition, there is a thermal signal in N2O due to seasonal ingassing and outgassing of cooling and warming surface waters that is out of phase and thus competes with the stratospheric and ventilation signals. All the seasonal signals discussed above are subtle and are generally better quantified in high-frequency in situ data than in data from weekly flask samples, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. The importance of abiotic influences (thermal, stratospheric influx, and tropospheric transport) on N2O seasonal cycles suggests that, at many sites, surface N2O mixing ratio data by themselves are unlikely to provide information about seasonality in surface sources (e.g., for atmospheric inversions), but may be more powerful if combined with complementary data such as CFC-12 mixing ratios or N2O isotopes.