Anomalous sea level, anomalous observed dynamic height (0/400 dbar) and anomalous model dynamic height are compared at the locations of 13 island sea level stations in the tropical Pacific for each 2-month interval of the 4-year period 1979 to 1982. Sea level compares well with both observed dynamic height (0/400 dbar) based on temperature/depth observations made by volunteer observing ships, and model dynamic height derived from a linear two-layer wind-driven model. The cross correlation between sea level and either of the dynamic heights is generally greater than 0.75. The ratio of root-mean-square (Rms) differences about the mean annual cycle of the sea level to Rms differences of either of the dynamic heights is approximately unity. Starting in 1981, off-equatorial Rossby wave activity propagated toward the western boundary of the Pacific basin; this also occurred in model dynamic height both north and south of the equator. Yet neither sea level observations nor dynamic height has the spatial an temporal resolution to establish a connection between the off-equatorial Rossby wave activity and the equatorial Kelvin wave activity in the western boundary region. On the other hand, the model dynamic height does have this capability. Therefore at the western boundary, the model Rossby wave activity is found to have excited coastally trapped Kelvin-Munk wave activity, which transmitted the anomalous sea level equatorward.

At the equator this model coastally trapped wave activity excited eastward propagating equatorial Kelvin waves, yielding a pair of anomalous peaks in dynamic height variability in the eastern equatorial Pacific associated with the 1982--1983 El Ni¿o/Southern Oscillation (ESNO) event. The evolution of these two peaks in anamalous dynamic height associated with the 1982--1983 ENSO event is examined at eight locations in the tropical and equatorial Pacific. The major peak originated in the off-equatorial South Pacific and coincided with the wintertime 1982--1983 El Ni¿o event in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The secondary peak originated in the off-equatorial North Pacific and coincided with the anomalous peak which occurred in the eastern equatorial Pacific the summer before the 1982--1983 ENSO event.