Sea surface height anomalies measured by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite altimeter indicate high values of skewness and kurtosis. Except in a few regions, including the Gulf Stream, the Kuroshio Extension, and the Agulhas Retroflection, which display bimodal patterns of sea surface height variability, kurtosis is uniformly greater than 1.5 times the squared skewness minus an adjustment constant. T...