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The interest and level of research into climate variability has risen dramatically in recent years, and major breakthroughs have been achieved in the understanding and modelling of seasonal to interannual climate variability and prediction. At the same time, the documentation of longer term variability and its underlying mecha nisms have progressed considerably. Within the European Commission´s Environment and Climate research programs several important projects have been supported in these areas - including the "Dec adal and Interdecadal Climate variability Experiment" (DICE) which forms the basis of this book. Within the EC supported climate research, we see an increasing importance of research into climate variability, as is evidenced in the upcoming Fifth Framework Programme´s Key Action on Global Change, Climate and Biodi versity. This is because of the obvious potential socio-economic benefits from sea sonal to decadal scale climate prediction and equally important for the fundamental understanding of the climate system to help improve the quality and reliability of future climate change and mankind´s current interference with it. The DICE group has performed important and pioneering work, and we hope this book will receive the wide distribution and recognition it deserves. We wel come the contributions from distinguished researchers from US, Japan and Canada to the EC´s DICE group towards completing the scope of the book and as an exam ple of international cooperation which is essential in such a high-level scientific endeavor.

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Interdecadal Variability at Northern High Latitudes.- Sea Surface Temperature Variability in the North Atlantic: Monthly to Decadal Time Scales.- Recent Decadal SST Variability in the Northwestern Pacific and Associated Atomspheric Anomalies.- Large Scale Modes of Ocean Surface Temperature Since the Late Nineteenth Century.- The Indian Summer Monsoon and its Variability.- Climate Variability in Northern Africa: Understanding Droughts in the Sahel and the Mahgreb.- SST-Forced Experiments and Climate Variability.- Impact of Ensemble Size on the Assessment of Model Climate Signal.- Interannual and Decadal Variability in the Tropical Pacific.- The Decadal Variability of the Pacific with the MRI Coupled Models. Dynamics of Interdecadal Variability in Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Models.- Simulations of the Variability of the Tropical Atlantic.- North-Atlantic Decadal Climate Variability in a Coupled Atmosphere/Ocean/Sea-Ice Model of Moderate Complexity.- A Theory For Interdecadal Climate Fluctuations.- Decadal Variability of the Thermohaline Ocean Circulation.

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