"Bernard Burton" ..
Yes Keith, that about sums it up. It's all the King's New Clothes
syndrome.
These fads come and go, as someone's new theory becomes fashionable. But
scientific it ain't, and about as useful as throwing a few chicken bones
on
the floor, a custom still practised in some places, and sometimes used in
matters of life and death for some unfortunate.

Really Bernard this is most unfair !!
Seasonal forecasting based on SSTs i suppose fell out of fashion after the
70s due to relative lack of success,but the paradigm of NAO/AO gives a new
unity to thinking about climate ocean-atmosphere interaction (as fashionable
as it may be).However,the science is still evolving.But all that anybody has
talked about are statistical links and probabilistic forecasts,surely by
looking for linear relations between SST and seasonal climate the error of
popular simplification is being committed.
For a recent overview see-
Hurrell J.W., M. Visbeck, and A. Busalacchi, R. A. Clarke, T. L. Delworth,
R. R. Dickson, W.E. Johns, K.P. Koltermann, Y. Kushnir, D. Marshall, C.
Mauritzen, M. S. McCartney, A. Piola, C. Reason, G. Reverdin, F. Schott, R.
Sutton, I. Wainer, and D. Wright, 2005: Atlantic Climate Variability and
Predictability: A CLIVAR perspective. Journal of Climate: submitted.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jhurrell...livarjan05.pdf


--
regards,
David

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