The structure and patterns of variability of the southern Benguela coastal upwelling system are investigated with a high-resolution regional model forced by QuikSCAT winds over 1999-2003. The relevance of this global wind product is tested, at first, for the specific nearshore southeast Atlantic; then, the wind products are spatially or temporally degraded from the original 0.5 degrees daily fluxes and are used to diagnose the main scales of the surface dynamical forcing variability. Time resolution appears as a crucial factor in the wind stress to retrieve the patterns of interannual anomalies in sea surface temperatures in a good agreement with independent NASA Pathfinder observations. Various upwelling indices are also calculated in the model to study specific warm or cold coastal events whose circulation schemes are detailed from a Lagrangian interpretation of the model time-varying three-dimensional velocity field. Our study emphasizes the connections established between the Benguela upwelling and the large-scale circulation in relation with, for instance, the Agulhas Current retroflection and associated ring shedding.