Abstract: An empirical orthogonal function analysis has been applied to solve the forecast problem of the monthly mean sea surface temperature for the East China Sea and the ad jacent waters.The data matrix of the original sea surface temperature fields can be separated into two components,i.e.the spatial and temporal components.According to the properties of its spatial component that almost does not change with time and through the extrapolation of its temporal component,the prediction for large area sea surface temperature will be achieved.The time coffieients for temporal component are predicted by means of traverse and vertical time series method.