In this study, the relation between the interior and the surface dynamics for nonlinear baroclinically unstable flows is examined using the concepts of potential vorticity. First, it is demonstrated that baroclinic unstable flows present the property that the potential vorticity mesoscale and submesoscale anomalies in the ocean interior are strongly correlated to the surface density anomalies. Then, using the invertibility of potential vorticity, the dynamics are decomposed in terms of a solution forced by the three-dimensional (3D) potential vorticity and a solution forced by the surface boundary condition in density. It is found that, in the upper oceanic layers, the balanced flow induced only by potential vorticity is strongly anticorrelated with that induced only by the surface density with a dominance of the latter. The major consequence is that the 3D balanced motions can be determined from only the surface density and the characteristics of the basin-scale stratification by solving an elliptic equation. These properties allow for the possibility to reconstruct the 3D balanced velocity field of the upper layers from just the knowledge of the surface density by using a simpler model, that is, an “effective” surface quasigeostrophic model. All these results are validated through the examination of a primitive equation simulation reproducing the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.