Thursday, 25 May 2000: 10:30 AM
The delayed oscillator, the western Pacific oscillator, the
recharge-discharge oscillator, and the advective-reflective oscillator
have been proposed to interpret the oscillatory nature of the El Nino-
Southern Oscillation (ENSO). All of these oscillator models assume a
positive ocean-atmosphere feedback in the equatorial eastern and
central Pacific. The delayed oscillator assumes that the western
Pacific is an inactive region and wave reflection at the western
boundary provides a negative feedback for the coupled system to
oscillate. The western Pacific oscillator emphasizes an active role of
the western Pacific in ENSO. The recharge-discharge oscillator argues
that discharge and recharge of equatorial heat content make the
coupled system to oscillate. The advective-reflective oscillator
emphasizes the importance of zonal advections associated with wave
reflection at both the western and eastern boundaries. Motivated by
the existence of these different oscillator models, a unified oscillator
model is formulated and derived from the dynamics and
thermodynamics of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. All of the
different oscillators can be extracted as special cases of the unified
oscillator. With appropriate model parameters chosen to be
consistent with those of previous oscillator models, the unified
oscillator model oscillates on interannual time scales.
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