Let , the sheaf of meromorphic principal parts. Exactness of taking stalks gives
Choose a holomorphic coordinate vanishing at . Every meromorphic germ has a finite negative tail in its Laurent series; the holomorphic tail vanishes in the quotient. Hence
This coordinate description is a vector-space identification; the intrinsic space is the quotient of germs, so a coordinate change need not preserve the displayed basis.
For each point inclusion , a principal part defines a local meromorphic germ near , whose quotient class is zero off . Gluing with zero on the complement gives a map from its skyscraper sheaf to . These maps induce an isomorphism on every stalk and therefore an isomorphism of sheaves:
The direct sum of sheaves means the sheafification of the sectionwise direct-sum presheaf. Its sections can have infinitely many nonzero components globally, but their point supports form a locally finite family of subsets. This matches the fact that poles of a meromorphic function are locally finite. On a compact Riemann surface only finitely many points can occur; on a noncompact one a discrete infinite family is allowed.
For a global principal-part family , choose local meromorphic lifts on a sufficiently small open cover. The differences are holomorphic functions and form a Čech cocycle. The connecting homomorphism sends to the resulting class in . If this class vanishes, after refining the cover write ; then the functions glue to a global meromorphic function. Conversely any global lift makes the class zero. Equivalently, exactness of the given long exact sequence in sheaf cohomology says
The connecting class is the obstruction to the Mittag-Leffler problem on a Riemann surface. It rules on the specified poles and their finite negative Laurent tails, with no additional poles allowed. When a solution exists, any two solutions differ by a global holomorphic function.
On a Riemann surface, the quotient sheaf records the finite negative Laurent series tails of meromorphic germs. At , a local coordinate identifies its stalk with . As a sheaf it is the direct sum of sheaves . Global sections prescribe locally finite families of principal parts, possibly infinite on a noncompact surface. The connecting homomorphism to is exactly the obstruction to a global meromorphic function with those parts and no extra poles.