ABSTRACT
The rapid change found in historic sea-surface records is good news for investigators of climate variability because the existence of large and abrupt “climate signals” simplifies the strategy for investigation. The sea-surface record offers the best opportunity for delineating the dynamical behaviour of the global system over the last century — and it is a remarkably good record. The quantities recorded include sea-surface temperature, wind direction and speed, atmospheric pressure and temperature, sea state and cloudiness. The Pacific is the least covered, with especially large gaps in the data for early decades. By contrast, the record is excellent in the belt of westerlies in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. The pressure field must relate to the wind field, and in regions of strong sea-surface temperature gradients the wind field relates to sea-surface temperature anomalies.
