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Introduction

Climate predictability is limited by our knowlegde of the natural variability and its underlying mechanisms. Recent improvements in the fundamental understanding of ENSO have led to skillful prediction of this phenomenon several months in advance. In the midlatitudes the dominant processes generating natural variability are still not fully understood, limiting climate predictability in these areas.

Internal climate variability is, however, not only responsible for the variations on interseasonal to interannual time scales, but also on decadal to centennial time scales. It is often suggested that natural variability can mask anthropogenic global warming, making it difficult to detect and attribute (separate/extract) climate change arising from human/industrial activity. Recent Northern Hemisphere warming, for example, is at least partly explained by the enhanced positive phase of NAO, which itself may or may not result from anthropogenic forcing.

From the point of view of impacts on society, investigation of the possible link between climate variability and extreme weather events, such as floods and drought, is very important. It is well known, for example, that El Nino is closely connected to flooding in the west coast of central America, and drought in Australia, which often results in large impacts on local fisheries and agriculture, and even devastating loss of human lives.

A comprehensive and pronounced understanding of inter-related natural climate variability, anthropogenic climate change, and extreme weather events, is a non-trivial scientific challenge, yet an urgent task imposed on modern climatologists.

Keywords: atmosphere-ocean interaction, wind-driven ocean circulation, thermohaline cirulation (THC), non-stationarity of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), connection between tropical Pacific and North Atlantic, El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)