The skeleton of tropical intraseasonal oscillations

The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) is the dominant mode of variability in the tropical atmosphere on intraseasonal time scales and planetary spatial scales. Despite the primary importance of the MJO and the decades of research progress since its original discovery, a generally accepted theory for its essential mechanisms has remained elusive. Here we present a new minimal dynamical model for the MJO that recovers robustly, for the first time, its fundamental features (i.e., its "skeleton") on intraseasonal/planetary scales: (i) the peculiar dispersion relation of roughly dw/dk=0, (ii) the slow phase speed of roughly 5 m/s, and (iii) the horizontal quadrupole vortex structure. This is accomplished here in a model that is neutrally stable on planetary scales; i.e., it is tacitly assumed that the primary instabilities occur on synoptic scales. The key premise of the model is that modulations of synoptic scale wave activity are induced by planetary scale, low-level moisture preconditiong, and they drive the "skeleton" of the MJO through modulated heating. The "muscle" of the MJO -- including tilts, vertical structure, etc. -- is contributed by other potential upscale transport effects from the synoptic scales.