Intertropical Convergence Zone Intertropical Convergence Zone The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms, is the area encircling Earth near the Equator, where the northeast and southeast trade winds converge. The ITCZ was originally identified from the 1920s to the 1940s as the "Intertropical Front" ("ITF"), but after the recognition in the 1940s and the 1950s of the significance of wind field convergence in tropical weather production, the term "ITCZ" was then applied. When it lies near the Equator, it is called the near-equatorial trough. Where the ITCZ is drawn into and merges with a monsoonal circulation,
Trade winds develop over oceans (maritime), and travel northward on the western periphery of the subtropical ridge. Maritime tropical air masses are sometimes referred to as trade air masses. The one region of the Earth which has an absence of trade winds is the north Indian ocean. Clouds which form above regions within trade wind regimes are typically composed of cumulus which extend no more than in height, and are capped from being taller by the trade wind inversion. Trade winds originate more from the direction of the poles (northeast in the Northern Hemisphere, southeast in the Southern Hemisphere) during the cold