Seasonality of Tropical Instability Waves and Its Feedback to the Seasonal Cycle in the Tropical Eastern Pacific

Abstract EN

This study investigated the seasonality of tropical instability waves (TIWs) and its feedback to the seasonal cycle in the tropical eastern Pacific using a high-resolution ocean model covering 1958–2007.

The climatological mean of the TIWs featured intraseasonal fluctuations, implying that TIWs are not occurring randomly, but their amplitude is partly in phase from one year to another.

This seasonality of TIW activity is attributed to their dependency on the seasonal mean variation of current and temperature.

Energy conversion analysis confirmed that the strong variability of TIWs near 4°N was due to the barotropic energy conversion associated with the large meridional shear of NECC and SEC and that at another pole near 2°N was due to the baroclinic energy conversion associated with the temperature front in the mixed layer.

The former and latter poles are somehow largely responsible for amplifying the dynamic and thermal eddies of TIWs, respectively.

The intensified TIWs during a boreal fall increase the tropical eastern Pacific SST by associating the warm thermal advection by anomalous currents, with a rate of up to 1°C/month in September.

Therefore, this leads to interactive feedback between seasonal and intraseasonal variations, that is, TIWs in the tropical eastern Pacific.