Recent studies have suggested that the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) could be generated in the atmospheric adjustment to equatorial heating anomalies in models properly resolving moist convection. Here we use Super-Parameterized CAM to simulate atmospheric response to transient sea surface warming in the equatorial Indian Ocean, which leads to the excitation of an MJO event, robust across different ensemble members, in addition to the much-expected equatorial Rossby and Kelvin waves. A moist static energy (MSE) budget analysis suggests that longwave and surface turbulent latent heat flux anomalies are predominantly responsible for the MJO excitation; however, these terms oppose its eastward propagation. In contrast, advection of MSE generally weakens the MJO amplitude, but contributes to its eastward propagation. These results highlight the role of the MJO in the moist atmospheric adjustment to equatorial heating, with implications for the MJO mechanisms and prediction.

The dataset was generated by Super-Parameterized CAM (SPCAM).