Winter-to-winter recurrence (WWR) is an important persistence characteristic of large-scale sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in middle-high latitude, which is a unique phenomenon of the extratropical ocean. Its influence on extratropical climate change can not be ignored. WWR also exist in the atmosphere in the North Pacific Ocean, which could induce SSTAs WWR. In this paper, the WWRs of the air-sea system in the North Pacific are evaluated using the model output of 23 coupled models of CMIP in IPCC 4th assessment. Observational results show that, SSTAs WWR occurs over most of the basin of North Pacific, but the recurrence timing is in winter in the central and in fall in other regions. The atmospheric WWR is mainly located in central North Pacific, which is essential for the occurrence of the SSTAs WWR. Most of models can simulate the basinwide SSTAs WWR, but they can’t reproduce the geographical distribution of recurrence timing well. Compared with the SSTAs, little skill is shown in the WWR of the atmospheric circulation in most models. Moreover, the possible effect of the atmospheric WWR on the SSTAs WWR is not reflected in these coupled models. The coupling model has yet to be improved for simulating the atmospheric WWR in the North Pacific.