Anomalies of montly mean high level, low level, and total cloud cover; outgoing longwave radiation (OLR); and reflected solar radiation were related to sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) using a least absolute deviations (LAD) regression at each grid point over the open ocean for a 6-year period. Identical LAD analyses were performed (1) on actual observations and (2) on output from the Hamburg general circulation model that was run for the same time period with prescribed observed sea surface temperatures. The slope of the LAD regression line relating SSTA and each variable was used to characterize the relationship between them. A multivariate randomized block permutation test was performed to determine how well the regression line represented the data. Comparisons of the results indicated that near the equator the model's total and high level percent of cloud cover increased in association with a 1 ¿C increase in SSTA at a rate very similar to that observed. The model's rate of change in OLR in associated with change in SSTA was also very similar to that obtained from the observed OLR data. However, the model's reflected solar radiation near the equator changed much more than is observed in response to small SSTA changes. In the subtropics and middle latitudes, low level clouds were observed to have a distinct relationship with SSTAs that was not present in the model. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1992