Abstract
Very strong El Niño events occur sporadically every 10-20 years. The origin of this bursting behavior still remains elusive. Using a simplified 3-dimensional dynamical model of the tropical Pacific climate system, which captures the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) combined with recently developed mathematical tools for fast-slow systems we show that decadal ENSO bursting behavior can be explained as a Mixed Mode Oscillation (MMO), which also predicts a critical threshold for rapid amplitude growth. It is hypothesized that the MMO dynamics of the low-dimensional climate model can be linked to a saddle-focus equilibrium point, which mimics a tropical Pacific Ocean state without ocean circulation.
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