Large scale features of the atmospheric pressure and geopotential distribution are associated with the movement of air masses over long distances, transport of moisture and heat, and thus have a close connection with precipitation and temperature regimes. They are called teleconnections because involve relations between different variables and over large distances. The best known example is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a bipolar structure located in the Atlantic, which is associated with precipitation and temperature over vast areas of Europe. Understanding the evolution and variability of teleconnections is an important tool to describe how climate change on a large scale determine regional and local effects.

Cyclones are another essential component of the atmospheric circulation, whose intensity and path have important implications on environmental variables. The identification of cyclones and the definition of automatic procedures for their identification and analysis in numerical simulations and observations (cyclone tracking methods) are used to describe weather patterns at regional scales and their variability. The combination of cyclones with precipitation and winds makes them essential factors to understand how the atmospheric circulation determines storms and floods and, in general, events with a great destructive potential.