Cross-equatorial structures of equatorially trapped nonlinear Rossby waves

•Analysis of the Sea Surface Height (SSH) from satellite altimeters has shown that equatorially trapped Rossby waves exhibit asymmetric cross-equatorial structures.•Equatorially trapped nonlinear Rossby wave is studied in a 1.5-layer shallow water model.•Nonlinearity is shown to increase the cross-equatorial asymmetry substantially making the northern extrema even more pronounced.•Nonlinearity only slightly increases the magnitude of the westward phase speed.

Analysis of the Sea Surface Height (SSH) from satellite altimeters has shown that equatorially trapped Rossby waves exhibit asymmetric cross-equatorial structures; their northern extrema are much larger in magnitude than their southern counterparts. Such asymmetry is inconsistent with the classical theory for the first baroclinic, first meridional equatorially trapped Rossby mode, which predicts that SSH and zonal velocity are symmetric in latitude and the meridional velocity is latitudinally antisymmetric (Matsuno, 1966). Chelton et al. (2003) attributed the observed asymmetry to the mean-shear-induced modifications of first meridional mode Rossby waves. The present paper examines nonlinear rectification of cross-equatorial wave structures in the presence of different zonal mean currents. Nonlinear traveling Rossby waves embedded in shears are calculated numerically in a 1.5-layer model. Nonlinearity is shown to increase the cross-equatorial asymmetry substantially making the northern extrema even more pronounced. However, nonlinearity only slightly increases the magnitude of the westward phase speed.