Relationships between monthly anomalies of sea-surface temperature and mean sea level pressure in the Australian region

Abstract

Rotated principal component patterns are constructed for monthly Australian region mean sea level (MSL) pressure and sea-surface temperature (SST) for the period 1970-1980. For the extratropics the results show evidence that SST anomalies are related to the preceding anomalous pressure distributions, with, most often, cold anomalies being associated with anomalous equatorward winds and warm anomalies with anomalous poleward winds. For the extratropics the relationship between anomalous pressure distributions and those of SST in the preceding months is weak. The relationships revealed here for tropical regions are more complex, and are intimately associated with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomenon. -from Author