摘要：El Niño is only one phase of a larger ocean-atmosphere circulation termed the Southern Oscillation (SO). A complementary phase of EI Niño known as La Niña or El Viejo constitutes the other phase of the SO. The SO is the dominant mode of interannual variability in the tropics. Several parameters exhibit interannual variability and all have a center region in which the SO accounts for the major portion of the parameter's variance (Philander 1990).
