Bispectra of a tropical coupled ocean-atmosphere system

Abstract

It has recently been proposed that the broad spec­trum of interannual variability in the tropics with a peak around four years results from an interaction between the linear low-frequency oscillatory mode of the coupled system and the nonlinear higher­ frequency modes of the system. In this study we de­termine the bispectrum of the conceptual model consisting of a nonlinear low-order model coupled to a linear oscillator for various values of the coupling constants.