Extended Canonical Correlation Analysis of North Atlantic SST and SLP

Eduardo da Costa and Alain Colin de Verdière
Laboratoire de Physique des Océans, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France

submitted to Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.

We present a statistical method, the extended canonical correlation analysis, to extract intermittent propagative coupled oscillations. We have applied this technique to a 136 year long North Atlantic sea level pressure and sea surface temperature data set. Nine ocean-atmosphere coupled oscillations with periods between 2.3 and 18 years were found. The 7.7yr period oscillation is presented in some detail and its links with the North Atlantic Oscillation are discussed.