Actual Tropical Waves Identified by the Wavenumber-Frequency Spectrum Analysis during Boreal Summer

Based on daily satellite-observed outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) data, the tropical intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) associated with the Asian summer monsoon is found to be dominant during the 2005 summer. Such an ISO along with other tropical waves are identified using a wavenumber-frequency spectrum analysis. Some of significant spectral peaks coincide well with the dispersion curves of the equatorially trapped wave modes from shallow water theory, with various equivalent depths of 12-200 m, suggesting that actual tropical waves can be detected from observational data. Although the formation mechanism of the ISO is more complicated than those of other tropical waves with higher frequencies, significant spectral peaks that correspond to the ISO with a period of 30-60 days distinctly appear in the OLR spectra. The selective wavenumber-frequency filtering of OLR data is thus performed to isolate the ISO, Kelvin and equatorial Rossby waves, and the properties and signatures of such tropical waves that control tropical atmospheric variability for the 2005 summer are clearly identified