The structure of ocean-atmosphere annual cycle variability is extracted from the revised Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set SSTs, surface winds, and the latent heat (LH) and net shortwave (SW) surface fluxes using the covariance-based rotated principal component analysis method. The coupled annual cycle variability is concisely described using two modes that are in temporal quadrature. The first, peaking in June/July (and Dec/Jan), represents monsoonal flow onto Indochina, Central America, and western Africa. The second mode peaks in September/October and March/April when it represents the extreme phases of the SST annual cycle in the eastern oceans. Analysis of the surface momentum balance in the Pacific cold tongue core shows the equatorial flow, and in particular the zonal wind, to be dynamically consistent with the SST gradient during both the cold tongue's nascent (Jun/Jul) and mature (Sep/Oct) phases; the dynamical consistency improves when the impact of near-surface static stability v... Abstract The structure of ocean-atmosphere annual cycle variability is extracted from the revised Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set SSTs, surface winds, and the latent heat (LH) and net shortwave (SW) surface fluxes using the covariance-based rotated principal component analysis method. The coupled annual cycle variability is concisely described using two modes that are in temporal quadrature. The first, peaking in June/July (and Dec/Jan), represents monsoonal flow onto Indochina, Central America, and western Africa. The second mode peaks in September/October and March/April when it represents the extreme phases of the SST annual cycle in the eastern oceans. Analysis of the surface momentum balance in the Pacific cold tongue core shows the equatorial flow, and in particular the zonal wind, to be dynamically consistent with the SST gradient during both the cold tongue's nascent (Jun/Jul) and mature (Sep/Oct) phases; the dynamical consistency improves when the impact of near-surface static stability v...