Interannual sea surface height variations in the Atlantic Ocean are examined from 10 years of high-precision altimeter data in light of simple mechanisms that describe the ocean response to atmospheric forcing: (1) local steric changes due to surface buoyancy forcing and a local response to wind stress via Ekman pumping, and (2) baroclinic and barotropic oceanic adjustment via propagating Rossby waves and quasi-steady Sverdrup balance respectively. It is shown that most of the interannual sea level variability is related to local response to heat flux changes (more than 50% in the eastern North Atlantic). Except in a few places, a local response to wind stress forcing is less successful in explaining sea surface height observations. In this case, it is necessary to consider large scale oceanic adjustments: first baroclinic mode forced by wind stress explains about 70% of interannual sea level variations in the latitude band 18-20°N. A quasi-steady barotropic Sverdrup response is observed between 40 and 50°N.