The height of waves at North Sea oil and gas installations is an important factor governing the degree to which operational activities may be undertaken at those facilities. A link between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and winter (defined as December-February) wave heights at North Sea oil and gas installations has been established. A tool has been developed that uses a forecast NAO index to predict the proportions of wave heights in four categories that could be used to assess the operational downtime that will be experienced in the coming winter. The wave height forecasting system is shown to have useful skill in predicting the probability of occurrence of a stormy winter, and therefore probability forecasts provide a potentially useful guide to whether more or less disruption than the ''climatological mean'' might be experienced. The main limit on the skill of the wave forecasts is our very limited ability to accurately predict the NAO index on seasonal time scales.
There has crept into the anthropological literature a canard to the effect that Cicero, in a letter to his friend Atticus, wrote, "DO not obtain your slaves from Britain, because they are so stupid and so utterly incapable of being taught that they are not fit to form part of the household of Athens." The truth is that Cicero never wrote anything so derogatory. What he wrote was '' . . . there is not a scrap of silver in the island,
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