A Suite of Skeleton Models for the MJO with Refined Vertical Structure
The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) is the dominant mode of variability in the tropical atmosphere on intraseasonal timescales and planetary spatial scales. The skeleton model is a minimal dynamical model that recovers robustly the most fundamental MJO features of (I) a slow eastward speed of roughly 5 ms−1, (II) a peculiar dispersion relation with dw/dk ≈ 0, and (III) a horizontal quadrupole vortex structure. This model depicts the MJO as a neutrally-stable atmosphericwave that involves a simple...