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A stability analysis of a realistic meridional profile of the surface currents in the equatorial Atlantic and Pacific oceans reveals that the most unstable waves are westward propagating and have a period of about 1 month, a wavelength of approximately 1100 km, and an e folding time near 2 weeks. This is proposed as an explanation for waves with these scales that have recently been observed in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
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S. George Philander (1978) studied this question.
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