Modes of interannual tropical ocean-atmosphere interaction - a unified view. Part III: analytical results in fully coupled cases

Abstract

The parameter-space dependence of the eigenmodes of the coupled tropical ocean-atmosphere system, linearized about a climatological basic state, is further examined in a stripped-down intermediate coupled model using the formulation derived in Part II of this study to permit analytical treatment for a finite ocean basin. Here cases with order unity and larger coupling are explored to provide analytical prototypes for the fully coupled case from a system that explicitly treats spatial structure in a finite basin. The coupled dynamics is explored for several regions of parameter space where simplifications are possible, as well as for the transition from the well-separated case to mixed modes. -from Authors