An Equatorial Ocean Recharge Paradigm for ENSO. Part I: Conceptual Model

A new conceptual model for ENSO has been constructed based upon the positive feedback of tropical ocean– atmosphere interaction proposed by Bjerknes as the growth mechanism and the recharge–discharge of the equatorial heat content as the phase-transition mechanism suggested by Cane and Zebiak and by Wyrtki. This model combines SST dynamics and ocean adjustment dynamics into a coupled basinwide recharge oscillator that relies on the nonequilibrium between the zonal mean equatorial thermocline depth and wind stress. Over a wide range of the relative coupling coefficient, this recharge oscillator can be either self-excited or stochastically sustained. Its period is robust in the range of 3–5 years. This recharge oscillator model clearly depicts the slow physics of ENSO and also embodies the delayed oscillator (Schopf and Suarez; Battisti and Hirst) without requiring an explicit wave delay. It can also be viewed as a mixed SST–ocean dynamics oscillator due to the fact that it arises from the merging of two uncoupled modes, a decaying SST mode and a basinwide ocean adjustment mode, through the tropical ocean–atmosphere coupling. The basic characteristics of this recharge oscillator, including the relationship between the equatorial western Pacific thermocline depth and the eastern Pacific SST anomalies, are in agreement with those of ENSO variability in the observations and simulations with the Zebiak–Cane model.