In this study we investigate the ability of a coupled general circulation model (SINTEX) to simulate the main features of the observed climate and its dominant modes of variability in the tropical Indo-Pacific. In particular, we asses a possible impact of the atmosphere model resolution onto the simulated variability. To this aim, three long experiments have been performed with different horizontal resolution of the atmospheric component.

Overall, the main basic features of the interannual variability in thetropical Indo-Pacific region are reasonably well reproduced by the model. Our results suggest that, both the simulated mean state and interannual variability are generally improved when the horizontal resolution of the atmospheric model component is increased.