The polarization shift keying modulation has high reliability since the polarization properties of beam light change relatively small while propagating through the atmoshpere. The bit error rate(BER) performace of the circle polarization shift keying modulation in the satellite-to-ground laser communication is studied. Considering the effects of the atmospheric turbulence, the Hufnagle-Valley refractive index structure constant mode is adopted. By comparing the BER performace of the circle polarization shift keying modulation and the on-off keying (OOK) modulation under the weak and strong turbulence fluctuation, with the values of the Rytov variance are 0.082 and 1.11, it comes to a conclusion that the former is superior to the latter on the BER performace.Especially when the BER of 10-7, is to be achieved, their signal to noise ratio are 21.65 dB and 30 dB, the circle polarization shift keying modulation reduces 8.35dB of the signal to noise ratio under the Rytov variance is 0.082.In addition, the effects on the BER of three factors,which are the near-surface refraction structure constant, the zenith angle and the ground wind speed are analyzed . The simulation results show that the BER of the circle polarization shift keying modulation is lower than the OOK modulation at least two magnitudes. Therefore, it has broad prospect in the satellite-to-ground laser communication in future.