LAUSR

AbstractEl Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most active interannual climatic mode, with great global impacts. The state-of-the-art climate models can simulate this dominant mode variability to a large extent. Nevertheless, some of ENSO’s fundamental time–space characteristics still have a large spread in the simulations across the array of recent climate models. For example, the large biases of ENSO periodicity still exist among model simulations from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Based on the recharge oscillator framework, a coupled dynamic index for ENSO periodicity is proposed in this study, referred to as the Wyrtki index, in parallel to the Bjerknes index for ENSO instability. The Wyrtki index provides an approximate dynamic measure for ENSO linear periodicity. It has two main contribution terms: the thermocline and zonal advective feedbacks (or F factor) multiplied by the efficiency factor B of discharging–recharging of the equatorial heat content driven by ENS...