Double Intertropical Convergence Zone

A Double Inter Tropical Convergence Zone is a phenomenon featured with two ITCZs, one at each side of the equator.

• About 10 degrees north or south of the equator there forms a region of convective activity which is called the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
• Sometimes, on the opposite side of the equator, another ITCZ forms which is short-lived (November-December) in the western Indian Ocean and this phenomenon is called Double Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (DITCZ).
• It was very recently investigated by National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, over the Western Indian Ocean, for its meteorological characteristics.

However the exact reasons for its formation are yet to be found as research revealed that due to the involvement of several ocean atmospheric processes and their feedbacks to a different degree in different regions, it is difficult to pinpoint whether DITCZs are caused by oceanic processes, the atmospheric dynamics or a combination of both. Meteorologists who have studied the ITCZs also call it the earth’s meteorological equator.