Predicting changes in North Atlantic temperatures  The Earth is
a complex system of interacting components, such as the
atmosphere and ocean, which produce a wide variety of natural
variability. This natural variability ensures that the evolution
of a particular region’s climate, e.g. that of Western Europe,
could be completely different to another region, or indeed the
global mean climate. Such variability can impact on many areas
of society; for example winter energy usage, or agriculture in
sensitive regions.  Post by Jon Robson  Of course, institutions
around the world, like the Met Office, are trying to predict
this variability, especially on monthly to seasonal timescales.
However, recently there has been an increasing focus on
predicting at multiannual to decadal timescales. You may be
surprised to find that, usually, climate projections make little
use of the current observed climate state. This is partly
because initial conditions matter little to projections of the
climate in 2100, which instead try