Initiation and termination of intraseasonal oscillations in nonlinear Laplacian spectral analysis-based indices

Abstract We present a statistical analysis of the initiation and termination of boreal winter and boreal summer intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs). This study uses purely convection (infrared brightness temperature) data over a 23-year time interval from 1984–2006. The indices are constructed via the nonlinear Laplacian spectral analysis (NLSA) method and display high intermittency and non-Gaussian statistics. We first define primary, terminal, and full events in the NLSA-based indices, and then examine their statistics through the associated two-dimensional phase space representations. Roughly one full event per year was detected for the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO), and 1.3 full events per year for the boreal summer ISO.We also find that 91%of the recovered full MJO events are circumnavigating and exhibit very little to no retrograde (westward) propagation. The Indian Ocean emerges as the most active region in terms of both the onset and decay of events, however relevant activity occurs over all phases, consistent with previous work.