A simple ocean-atmosphere coupled model for the origin of a warm El Niño Southern Oscillation event

Abstract
A simple ocean-atmosphere coupled model is developed to investigate the evolution of a warm El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean. In the absence of climatological winds the model readily evolves a realistic eastward-propagating structure provided that warm sea surface temperature (sst) covers the entire equatorial ocean uniformly. The final state of the model is similar to the mature phase of El Niño. In the presence of realistic climatological winds, however, the model behaves in a different way. It remains in a cold La Nina phase without showing any significant eastward propagation of an air-sea coupled coherent structure. Based on these model results and recent data analyses on the tropospheric quasi-biennial oscillation, it is argued that the Asian summer monsoon before and after the warm phase of El Niño Southern Oscillation is possible.

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