The sea surface temperature anomalies over the various study areas, namely, the northern, western, central, eastern and southern Arabian Sea areas have been studied for the period 1948-1972. There were about 105, 87, 92, 74 and 87 sea surface temperature anomalies for the above regions respectively. An analysis has shown that most of the short duration anomalies (i.e., anomalies with periods less than 4 months) are driven by the surface heat fluxes. The medium duration anomalies (i.e., anomalies with periods between 5 and 10 months are driven by advection (both horizontal and vertical) and other oceanic processes. The causative factor of large duration anomalies (with periods greater than 10 months) cannot be pinpointed to any particular factor. Further analysis has shown that the sea surface anomalies are well correlated to the anomalies of air temperature and latent heat flux values; whereas they are least correlated to the anomalies of wind stress and net radiation values, except over the northern Arabian Sea where they are negatively and significantly correlated with the net radiation values