Abstract – Midlatitude sea surface temperature (SST) variability, forced and damped by oceanic processes, can impact large-scale atmospheric circulation, pointing to an ocean’s crucial role outside the Tropics. This talk’s first part quantifies the ocean dynamics’ global contribution to SST variability by estimating ocean heat transport from ocean reanalyses, coupled climate models with differing resolutions, and observational estimates. It extends previous work showing that ocean contribution to SST variability is most notable in western boundary current regions, the Antarctic circumpolar current, and equatorial regions. The second part shows emerging evidence that midlatitude ocean dynamical processes can provide a source of seasonal to decadal atmospheric predictability by examining how the state of Kuroshio current affects seasonal rainfall along the west coast of North America and how the Gulf Stream affects decadal Southeast US rainfall.