Regional seasonality in the intraseasonal oscillation over the Indo-Pacific Oceans

The interlinked Eastern Indian Ocean (EIO) and Western Pacific Ocean (WPO), known as the Indo-Pacific warm pool, are highly active regions for intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs). Interestingly, distinct behaviors exist in ISO seasonality in these two basins. In the WPO, ISO intensity peaks in winter, decays rapidly starting from spring and reaches a minimum in summer. While in the EIO, ISO intensity exhibits a bimodal distribution, with a stronger peak in spring and a weaker one in autumn, followed by two troughs in summer and winter, respectively. Here, the regional ISO seasonality is understood in view of the regional differences in the background fields. For the bimodal ISO seasonality in the EIO, the increase from winter to spring is primarily due to elevated moisture content, the decrease from spring to summer is due to the decline in moisture and the meridional variation in vertical wind shear, and the increase from summer to autumn is mainly attributed to the meridional variation in vertical wind shear. In the WPO, the significant winter-summer contrast is mainly caused by change in moisture content.