Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 48, Issue 24, Pages -Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095657
Keywords
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ); North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC); zonality
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41875130]
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies [2020B1212060025]
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The study highlights the crucial role of the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) in maintaining the zonality of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) precipitation, emphasizing the impact of NECC on the zonal distribution of ITCZ precipitation.
The zonality of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) denotes the appearance of the ITCZ precipitation as a continuous band across a vast zonal span, say, the whole Pacific. Here, we emphasize the essential role of the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) in maintaining the zonality of the ITCZ. By transporting warm water eastward and hence reducing the zonal contrast of sea surface temperature (SST), the NECC induces a narrow but continuous band of SST maxima, over which the ITCZ is formed. It is found in observation that the stronger the eastward NECC is, the more uniform the zonal distribution of the ITCZ precipitation between 150 degrees E and 135 degrees W is. Modeling simulation suggests that the zonality of the ITCZ may well be broken when contribution of the NECC to the SST maxima is largely removed. The importance of two-way interaction between the NECC and the ITCZ is highlighted.
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