“…For example, singular vector decomposition of a linearized version of the ZC model (Thompson and Battisti, 2000), as well as the ZC forward tangent model along a trajectory in reduced EOF space (Xue et al, 1997), result in singular values that have a strong seasonal dependence, with growth of the singular vectors peaking in boreal winter. Similary, cyclic Markov models derived from the ZC model (Pasmanter and Timmermann, 2003), an anomaly coupled GCM (Kallummal and Kirtman, 2008), and observations (Johnson et al, 2000), reveal a stong seasonality in the internal dynamics of the equatorial Pacific coupled ocean-atmosphere system. It has been suggested that this internal seasonality is su cient to produce the observed the ENSO seasonal variance, without the need for nonlinear dynamics or seasonality in the noise forcing (Thompson and Battisti, 2000;Kallummal and Kirtman, 2008;Stein et al, 2010).…”