Low-frequency (0.01--0.1 cpd) variability of air pressure, wind, and sea level is examined through 6- to 8-year records of data collected at three locations along the east coast of the Adriatic and one on the west coast. Seasonal energy spectra show that processes at these timescales are more energetic in winter than in summer. There is substantial wind energy at timescales corresponding to planetary atmospheric waves. In order to explain the stronger-than-isostatic adjustment of sea level at low frequencies to the air pressure forcing, recorded in different parts of the Mediterranean, the present empirical analysis is based on a physically more tractable model, relating sea level slope to the air pressure gradient and wind stress integral. The multiple input regression and the cross-spectral analysis yield a spatially variable response: over the deeper sea region sea level slope is fully explained by isostatic adjustment to the air pressure gradient alone; over the shelf a much stronger-than-isostatic response (-1.7 cm/mbar) is greatly reduced (-1.3 cm/mbar), but not fully accounted for, by the action of wind. Next the multiple linear regression method is carefully reexamined; a simple statistical model is developed to show that in multiple-input linear models with mutually correlated inputs, small errors in one of the inputs produce biased estimates of all the response parameters. The apparent discrepancy between the theoretically predicted and the estimated response is attributed to the bias. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union