On Sep 24, 10:47*pm, Richard Dixon wrote:
On 24 Sep, 20:50, "Will Hand" wrote:

Hi Graham, I have never been a fan of it either. IIRC on TWO I criticised
Brian Gaze about it and I also disputed the value with Paul Bartlett on
here. My argument was that in a changing climate, pattern matching is futile
with nugatory value. Also what do you match? The atmosphere is a
3-dimensional fluid, so matching surface patterns or 500 mb charts will not
give the whole story. I accept there are teleconnections and important SST
anomalies that may give useful signals but that is as far as I would stretch
it. I have indeed used some of these myself in the past plus a few other
"indicators" with mixed results. Seasonal forecasting is incredibly
difficult, even getting the phase of the NAO is not easy, let alone weather
variations. I'm more than happy to see what the big professional
organisations put out and take an average!

Oh come on Will, where's your sense of fun gone!! *It's part of the
sense of fun in the run-up to winter to wonder what may be in store
and what previous winters may have led to, so please stop your
discouragement. Frivolous part of reply over.

On a sciency note, I was reading a paper the other day (I will dig out
the reference) that was highlighting using climate model simulations
to point to situations where the atmospheric circulation on a seasonal
scale was more predictable than normal. Given that these papers are
still being churned out by those large-scale climatologists (that
neither of us I can safely say claim to be world-leading experts in),
then there must be some mileage in it.

Richard

Some unnecessary prejudice there against climatologists (the "churned
out" comment speaks volumes). Methinks you could learn much from the
more informed of them. As you say, you can safely say you are not a
world-leading expert. Probably best to leave it to those that know
more.

Pattern-matching, as practised by most is an exercise in frovolity,
IMO. However, as practised by a climatologist that is prepared to
actively research, it becomes an excercise of interest, which could
lead to learning. H. Lamb was a fine climatologist. You'd do well to
read his work.

Look forward to the reference.