Philander, S. G. H.

Unstable oscillations confined within the mixed layer close to the equator are generated in wind-forced experiments performed in a multilevel general circulation model configured for the tropical Pacific Ocean. The experiments indicate that the waves develop preferentially in the eastern Pacific along the northern temperature front. However, there is clear evidence of a second unstable region along the southern temperature front in the central Pacific. In both regions the instabilities propagate westward, but in the central Pacific their phase speed is considerably smaller. The differences between the wave characteristics in the eastern and central Pacific are closely correlated to the differences in the time mean conditions of the flow. The eastern instabilities have a structure with two peaks in amplitude: one located on the equator and the other a few degrees north of it. Their dispersion characteristics show many similarities to those of tropical instability waves (TIWs) observed in the Pacific Ocean, while the instabilities which grow in the central Pacific do not have any known observed correspondents. We explore the spatial variability of the simulated waves through a wavelet analysis, which provides detailed results on how the period and wavelength of the instabilities change as a function of longitude, latitude, and depth. The wavelet analysis reveals that in the eastern Pacific and close to the surface the TIWs have a phase speed of-48 cm/s, while in the central Pacific they have a phase speed of-11 cm/s. In particular, the change in the phase speed is due to a change in the dominant period of the TIWs: The period of the central Pacific instabilities is considerably longer than the period of the instabilities present in the eastern Pacific.

The instability processes which generate unstable waves with chara- cteristics similar to observed tropical instability waves in the Pacific Ocean are examined through a local energy analysis based on deviations from the time mean flow. Numerical experiments indicate that the waves develop preferentially in the eastern Pacific along the northern temperature front and have a westward phase speed and a structure with two peaks in amplitude: one located on the equator and the other a few degrees north of it. The energy analysis shows that the "two-peak" structure of the eastern waves is explained by two different instability processes which occur at different latitudes. In the time mean sense the region north of the equator is baroclinically unstable, while barotropic instability prevails at the equator. The life cycle of the waves is revealed by the time evolution of the energetics. Baroclinic instability is the dominant triggering mechanism which induces growth of the waves along the northern temperature front. The eddy pressure fluxes radiate energy south of the equator where the rneridional shear between the Equatorial Undercurrent and the South Equatorial Current becomes barotropically unstable. From the numerical simulations, there is evidence of a second unstable region in the central Pacific south of the equator where the instabilities have a lower phase speed. The energy analysis also shows that these waves grow from both barotropic and baroclinic conversions.