Still besides
empirical observations and good inferences, the models are what are
available to work with, and they serve several purposes quite well and they are the basis for improved models in the future.
«Major improvements include updated and substantially more complete input data from the ICOADS Release 2.5, revised
Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnections (EOTs) and EOT acceptance criterion, updated sea surface temperature (SST) quality control procedures, revised SST anomaly (SSTA) evaluation methods, revised low - frequency data filing in data sparse regions using nearby
available observations, updated bias adjustments of ship SSTs using Hadley Nighttime Marine Air Temperature version 2 (HadNMAT2), and buoy SST bias adjustments not previously made in v3b.»