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

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. The time-series for the major principal component patterns for these fields are then cross-correlated, both synchronously, and at lead and lag. 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 Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon. For this region there is good evidence that SST anomalies can perturb future atmospheric circulation.