Maximum Covariance Analysis (MCA)

December 13, 2011

(This article was first published on me nugget, and kindly contributed to R-bloggers)

Maximum Covariance Analysis (MCA) (Mode 1; scaled) of Sea Level Pressure (SLP) and Sea Surface Temperature (SST) monthly anomalies for the region between -180 °W to -70 °W and +30 °N to -30 °S. MCA coefficients (scaled) are below. The mode represents 94% of the squared covariance fraction (SCF).

Maximum Correlation Analysis (MCA) is similar to Empirical Orthogonal Function Analysis (EOF) in that they both deal with the decomposition of a covariance matrix. In EOF, this is a covariance matrix based on a single spatio-temporal field, while MCA is based on the decomposition of a "cross-covariance" matrix derived from two fields.

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