TY - JOUR A1 - Windmiller, Julia M. A1 - Stevens, Bjorn T1 - The inner life of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone Y1 - 2023-12-12 VL - 150 IS - 758 SP - 523 EP - 543 JF - Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society DO - 10.1002/qj.4610 PB - John Wiley & Sons CY - Ltd N2 - Abstract

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is a central component of the atmospheric general circulation, but remarkably little is known about the dynamical and thermodynamical structure of the convergence zone itself. This is true even for the structure of the low‐level convergence that gives the ITCZ its name. Following on from the major international field campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, we performed extensive atmospheric profiling of the Atlantic ITCZ during a ship‐based measurement campaign aboard the research vessel SONNE in summer 2021. Combining data collected during our north–south crossing of the ITCZ with reanalysis data shows the ITCZ to be a meridionally extended region of intense precipitation, with enhanced surface convergence at its edges rather than in the center. Based on the location of these edges, we construct a composite view of the structure of the Atlantic ITCZ. The ITCZ, far from being simply a region of enhanced deep convection, has a rich inner life, that is, a rich dynamical and thermodynamic structure that changes throughout the course of the year, and has a northern edge that differs systematically from the southern edge.

UR - http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gldocs-11858/11797 ER -