A Diagnostic Study of the Evolution of the MJO from Indian Ocean to Maritime Continent: Wave Dynamics versus Advective Moistening Processes

Abstract

AbstractThe evolution processes for propagating Madden?Julian oscillations with strong magnitude over the Indian Ocean (IO) and Maritime Continent (MC) are investigated through a diagnosis of ECMWF reanalysis data for November?April 1982?2011. A scale-separated lower-tropospheric (1000?700 hPa) moisture budget is analyzed for four stages of composite life cycle: suppressed, cloud developing, convective, and decaying. Overall, the budgets in the IO and MC are dominated by wave-induced boundary layer convergence in the anomalous easterlies (WC) and advection. Starting from the suppressed stage in the central IO, moistening by WC and advection by easterly anomalies contributes to an initiation of the MJO convection in the western IO while surface evaporation and/or shallow convection moistens the central IO. In the following cloud developing and convective stage in the central IO, moistening by WC and advection by the downstream Kelvin?Rossby wave east of central IO lead to eastward propagation of deep convection. In the MC, the suppressed stage coincides with the convective stage in the central IO that promotes anomalous easterlies, subsidence, and enhanced rain rate over islands. Unlike WC and advective moistening in the IO that both occur in the equatorial zone, advective moistening in MC tends to be negative (positive) on windward (leeward) side of the major islands in the equatorial zone and more organized over the Arafura Sea, conducive to a southward detour of the eastward-propagating MJO.